Northcom’s inauguration was not covered by major U.S. dailies or TV. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz officiated at the launching, with Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Ralph Eberhart, head of the new operation.

Wolfowitz called the occasion "historic." From passage of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 until this step, the U.S. armed forces have been barred from domestic operations, except in specific, limited circumstances.

Northcom’s immediate predecessor, the Joint Task Force–Civil Support, based in Virginia, was established by the Clinton administration in October 1999 as a "homeland defense command." The latest move expands the powers of this command and elevates it to one of nine making up the Unified Combat Command, directly responsible to the president of the United States.

Last April, in announcing plans to establish the new command, U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that "the establishment of Northcom is part of the greatest transformation of the Unified Command Plan since its inception in 1947."

Northcom, said Eberhart at the October 1 ceremony, "will coordinate, liaison and communicate with all federal agencies and local responders that have an interest in the homeland security of this great nation."

The command will be in charge of flying military patrols over cities in the United States, and of the deployment of U.S. forces in support of police agencies and other government institutions. Its sweeping responsibilities were listed in one summary as the "preparation for, prevention of, deterrence of, preemption of, defense against, and response to threats and aggression directed towards U.S. territory, sovereignty, domestic population, and infrastructure."

Northcom’s area of operations will also include Canada, Mexico, parts of the Caribbean and the oceans around North America out to 500 miles offshore. General Eberhart will have under his command the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad), which has the power to assert command over the Royal Canadian Air Force.

The new structure also places under U.S. Joint Forces Command the Joint Forces Headquarters Homeland Security, currently operating out of Norfolk, Virginia, as well as Joint Task Force 6, based in Fort Bliss, Texas.  
 
Breaks with Posse Comitatus law
The new structure breaks with 120 years of official observance of a constitutional ban on the domestic deployment of the armed forces. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, enacted after the withdrawal of federal troops from the South at the end of Radical Reconstruction, placed that ban on the use of the armed forces for policing operations at home.

Past amendments to the act have given the president authority to use troops when, in the words of the New York Times, "law enforcement has broken down or where America is under enemy attack."

Following the September 11 attacks, the White House--intent on deploying National Guard in airports across the country and on the streets of New York and other cities--got around the act by calling on state governors to call up the troops.

Meanwhile, a congressionally mandated "No Fly" list has been used to detain a group of antiwar activists at San Francisco airport, reported the September 27 San Francisco Chronicle. The 20 people, who were questioned because their names were flagged, were forced to miss their flight. Federal officials told the newspaper that the activists were stopped not because their names are on the list, but because their names resemble those of "suspected" criminals or terrorists. The list was established as part of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act approved last year.  
 
 
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