Don’t Call Out the Marines: An Assessment of the Posse Comitatus Act

Abstract

Discusses the history and use (or misuse) of the Posse Comitatus Act, including a recent incident at the village of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and the use of military in the drug cases. The author states that, Democracy is imperiled when the military is assigned unfamiliar tasks to perform. Clearly, the military is trained to defend the country from foreign aggression or to protect American interests abroad, but it is not intended to become a super police agency. The Posse Comitatus Act, jealously defended and vigorously enforced, should prevent that nightmarish prospect from becoming reality.