Responding to his October 2 appointment as the Pentagon's first homeland security coordinator, Army Secretary Thomas White said, "Since the earliest days of our nation, the Army both active and reserve, has engaged in homeland security." White added that "the Defense Department is putting major horsepower behind this concept."

White's carefully chosen words are intended to make the reader think it is standard operating procedure for the Army to carry out policing and security functions inside the country's borders.

However, under Title 18 of the United States Code there exists a regulation known as the Posse Comitatus Act. This act, passed in 1878 following the Civil War, prohibits federal troops from being used to enforce civil law. It reads, in unambiguous English, "Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

Posse comitatus means "the entire body of the inhabitants who may be summoned by the sheriff to assist in preserving the public peace (as in a riot) or in executing a legal precept that is forcibly opposed including under the common law every male inhabitant who is above 15 years of age and not infirm," according to Webster's.

Under the guise of fighting drug trafficking, the Posse Comitatus Act was amended by Congress in 1981 and 1989 to allow U.S. Marines to patrol and conduct drug raids on U.S. soil. The National Guard is also now permitted to fly over rural property to conduct surveillance under these measures.

After the victory of the first American revolution in 1783, those who had been living in the former British colonies and forced to endure the British king's military enforcement of civil law endeavored to limit the extent to which the government could maintain a standing army. The framers of the U.S. constitution sought to maintain only a small regular army under federal control. Each state was empowered to maintain its own militia force, which developed into the National Guard.

As the Bush administration unleashed its bombardment of Afghanistan, steps toward increasing the role of the U.S. military on U.S. soil were being advanced as well. On October 8 former Pennsylvania governor Thomas Ridge was sworn in as the White House director of the Office of Homeland Security, a position announced by President Bush in his September 20 war speech before a joint session of Congress.

The cabinet-level post was created through a presidential executive order. Ridge's role is to be the domestic equivalent of National Security Adviser Condo-leeza Rice. Ridge will oversee the work of nearly 50 federal agencies as well as the state and local officials involved in spying and other cop and military operations inside the United States.

Among the steps being taken in the name of homeland defense are the dispatch of some 4,000 National Guard troops to the nation's airports. The Coast Guard has also called up 2,600 reservists and another 35,000 auxiliary members to board every ship entering New York harbor, and to beef up patrols at other ports. Washington is demanding that ship captains provide ship manifests and detailed information about seamen and others on board. Since September 11 nearly 650 vessels have been boarded in New York's harbor alone.

Ridge is also to be a member of the Homeland Security Council, a presidential policy making body that, according to the Washington Post, "likely will include the attorney general, the secretaries of defense, treasury, health and human services and agriculture, as well as the directors of the FBI and FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency]."

After a major review of the U.S. military's priorities, the Pentagon announced it was elevating domestic defense to the first of the military's four "core missions." Though formally playing a subordinate role to Ridge, the army secretary White and other military officers assigned to the Homeland Security Agency will be calling the shots. The New York Times noted that the restrictions imposed by the U.S. constitution mean that "any military employment has to be under civilian authority, which could be Mr. Ridge."  
 
 
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