CALL FOR GIVING MILITARY MORE POLICE POWERS DRAWS CRITICISM

The line between the military and law enforcement has been blurred in
recent years, with police departments training with Navy SEALs and military
units taking part in drug patrols along U.S. borders.

Now, as the nation's leaders search for ways to defend America against
terrorism, there is new sentiment in Congress to give police powers to the
military.

In light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Sen. John Warner of Virginia,
says it's time to revisit the 1878 Posse Comitatus law, which bars the
military from directly participating in domestic police work, such as
arrests, searches or seizures.

Warner, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is
urging Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to consider the measure.

His suggestion has created concern among civil libertarians, who argue that
giving police powers to the military is unnecessary and dangerous.

"When you blend these two, it's a recipe for disaster," said Tim Lynch,
director of the Project on Criminal Justice at the Cato Institute, a think
tank based in Washington. "It's going to lead to unnecessary and violent
confrontations, unnecessary shootings and killings."

"Posse comitatus" is a Latin phrase meaning "the power of the county." In
old England, it was a call for all men to rise up and keep the peace or
pursue felons.

In the United States, the Posse Comitatus law was passed in response to
what some considered excessive use of federal troops to guard ballot boxes
and prevent election fraud in the South under Reconstruction.

Though the functions of law enforcement and the military have for the most
part remained separate in the United States, experts say the law has
gradually been eroded in the past two decades.

The act was amended in 1981 so that armed forces could provide
law-enforcement officials with advice, equipment, facilities and training
to combat drug smuggling. Other exemptions allow the armed forces to
investigate criminal acts involving nuclear materials and chemical or
biological agents.

Lynch and other experts say mixing military and law-enforcement
responsibilities often produces disastrous results.

In 1993, for example, 80 people died in the raid on the Branch Davidian
compound in Waco, Texas. Federal law-enforcement agents involved in the
raid had received Special Forces training. In 1997, an 18-year-old goat
herder in Southwest Texas was shot and killed by a U.S. Marine who was part
of an anti-drug patrol along the Mexican border.

The differences between the military and law enforcement are cultural and
hard to overcome, critics say.

"Soldiers, they go out and kill people," said John Velleco, spokesman for
the Gun Owners of America organization. "They defend our country. They deal
with armies of hostile nations.

"Law enforcement deals with people who have a presumption of innocence, our
own citizens. You don't have people who are trained to kill enforcing U.S.
law. That is the police's job."

The fight against terrorism can be fought effectively without granting
police powers to the military, said Kit Gage, coordinator of the National
Coalition to Protect Political Freedom and director of the National
Committee Against Repressive Legislation

"How much more against the law can it be to run a plane into a building
full of people?" she asked. "They have all of the authority they need under
existing law to go after anybody who had anything to do with those crimes."

(E-mail Michael Collins at collinsm@shns.com)