Soldiers in airports screening-out political dissidents

[Bill Stewart]

At 08:45 AM 11/04/2001 -1000, Reese wrote:
>At the moment, it's National Guard, there is a long precedent for use
>of Nat.Guard troops for civil things.  So long as they do not bring in
>regular active duty military, in violation of the posse comitatus act.

As a recent article on Posse Comitatus pointed out, P.C. is just a law,
not a Constitutional requirement, so it can be changed any time the
politicians feel like it, and since the War On Drugs militarization,
it's basically become a requirement that if the Law Enforcers want
military assistance, they have to fill out the right forms in triplicate,
but it's just a procedural separation, not a church-and-state kind of thing.

>The Patriot Act still amazes me.  What were those congresscritters
>thinking?  They weren't, just reacting blindly by the looks of things.

The correct punctuation is "What, were those congresscritters 
<i>thinking</i>?".
Gotta get those commas in the right place...