<http://www.oz.net/~veils/veilsv2n1/politics.html> The Military's Growing Involvement In Domestic Law Enforcement For more than a century the U.S. military has been banned from involvement in routine domestic law enforcement. This tradition of separating the role of national defense from domestic law enforcement has it's origins in the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. This law prohibits the army from being involved in domestic arrests, or in searches and seizures. This ban was later extended to the other services. It was passed in response to abuses committed by occupation troops in the South after the Civil War. This long tradition, which has helped to insure liberty and democracy for Americans, was quietly abandoned in 1989 when Congress and the Bush administration ordered the military into the "war on drugs". Since then the Pentagon has spent more than $7 billion on counter-drug activities, using tens of thousands of active duty and reserve personnel. Active duty units are primarily used to monitor and patrol for drug smuggling activity using sophisticated surveillance and communication systems. These units are assisted by thousands of National Guard troops whose activities are not normally restrained by the Posse Comitatus legislation. This allows them to perform routine police activities such as inspecting cargo, analyzing intelligence, and translating wiretapped conversations. The military's involvement in domestic policing activities has now been institutionalized and is being coordinated in the Defense Department by the Joint Task Force Six (JTF-6). Supporter of using the military in drug enforcement activities argue that drug use threatens the country economically and socially. Some military commanders see counter-drug operations as providing troops with useful training. While law enforcement officials see it as an opportunity to benefit from sophisticated surveillance and communication systems that they wouldn't normally have access to. Opponents of giving the military domestic law enforcement responsibilities and powers remind supporter of the abuses by troops that originally lead to passage of the Posse Comitatus legislation. They also point out that the military's involvement in drug enforcement efforts haven't had any discernible impact on the availability of drugs in the United States; so why take the risk of losing our liberties when we gain nothing in return. People need to ask themselves where the movement to involve the military in domestic policing activities is going to stop. Are Somalia, Hati, and Bosnia simply peacekeeping activities, or are they being used to train U.S. troops for the near future when they will be patrolling the streets of the United States as they now patrol Bosnia. #!/usr/local/bin/perl -0777-- -export-a-crypto-system-sig -RC4-3-lines-PERL @k=unpack('C*',pack('H*',shift));for(@t=@s=0..255){$y=($k[$_%@k]+$s[$x=$_ ]+$y)%256;&S}$x=$y=0;for(unpack('C*',<>)){$x++;$y=($s[$x%=256]+$y)%256; &S;print pack(C,$_^=$s[($s[$x]+$s[$y])%256])}sub S{@s[$x,$y]=@s[$y,$x]}