Â
The New York Times reported in its Late Edition on Saturday, July 25, 2009 that "top Bush administration officials in 2002 debated testing the Constitution by sending American troops into the suburbs of Buffalo to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with Al Qaeda."
Â
The idea to deploy troops domestically made it to a "high level meeting" and, as the New York Times, advisers like Dick Cheney and David S. Addington argued in favor of deploying troops. Advisers believed that "the president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants."
Â
Just below a summary of the proposed idea to deploy troops is the uncompromising truth:
A decision to dispatch troops into the streets to make arrests has few precedents in American history, as both the Constitution and subsequent laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.
The Fourth Amendment bans ''unreasonable'' searches and seizures without probable cause. And the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibits the military from acting in a law enforcement capacity.
An article in Telegraph from the UK says, "the proposal, which would have risked falling foul of the US constitution if enforced, called on the president to deploy troops to make arrests on American soil for the first time since the Civil War."
Â
If the Constitution is so clear on this, if the rule of law is so plain in what it says is lawful and unlawful, why would anyone, even Dick Cheney, in the Bush Administration ever have considered sending troops to make arrests in Buffalo?
Â
The answer to that involves a memo written by John Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty in 2001 which concluded:Â Â
"...that the President has ample constitutional and statutory authority to deploy the military against international or foreign terrorists operating within the United States. We further believe that the use of such military force generally is consistent with constitutional standards that it need not follow the exact procedures that govern law enforcement operations."
Members of the Bush Administration asked Yoo and Delahunty to create legal justification for violating the rule of law. Such a request seems to have been routine in the Bush Administration; Yoo created the legal justification for torture when asked to do so by the Bush Administration.
Â
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
