KEEP SOLDIERS OFF BEAT

Despite its name, the "Posse Comitatus Act of 1878," which bars the U.S.
military from policing U.S. citizens, is among the bedrock guarantees of
American civil liberty.

Yet some, in the name of homeland security, want to allow troops rather
than police to enforce the laws of the land.

Gen. Ralph Eberhart, who is scheduled to head the new Northern Command,
told CNN, "We should always be reviewing things like Posse Comitatus and
other laws if we think it ties our hands in protecting the American
people." The good general speaks as if Sept. 11 was a failure of local
police, not of the intelligence services.

Fortunately, others in the military are in no hurry to enter into law
enforcement. Unlike police officers, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines
are basically trained to kill in combat, not to investigate crimes and
arrest U.S. citizens. The standing army is less of a domestic police force
than the National Guard, which the states sent into airports after Sept. 11.

There's little surprise that the idea of amending Posse Comitatus comes
from an administration that features Attorney General John Ashcroft. But
it's unsettling to see support come from Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., who
chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee. "We're not talking about general
police power," Sen. Biden said, "changing the idea that you have your local
National Guard... with arrest power like your local policeman."

In fact, the senator is wrong.

Changing the law that formally separates law enforcement from military
authority is exactly what those in support are talking about.

Even Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge admitted that the change "goes
against our instincts as a country to empower the military with the ability
to arrest.

But it may come up as a part of a discussion. It does not mean that it will
ever be used, or that the discussion will conclude that it even should be
used."

Of course, Mr. Ridge, creator of the five-stage, color-coded alert system
for rating the nation's terrorism risk, is practiced at scaring Americans
in the name of security.

The 124-year-old Posse Comitatus statute -- the literal meaning is a "force
of the county" -- is another reason the U.S. never degenerated into another
"do as I say, not as I do" dictatorship. Haiti, to use one prime example,
has remained a nation in crisis because the military, which reports to the
president, also functions as the police force.

If Mr. Ridge, Gen. Eberhart, Sen. Biden and others want to talk about
steering the U.S. that way, Americans must hope that talk is all they do.