The Pentagon Goes to War...

...in America.

The anxiety I expressed July 4 appears to have been appropriate.

In today's Washington Post a clearer picture of how the Pentagon is going to be involved in domestic security emerged.

A new Pentagon strategy for securing the U.S. homeland calls for expanded U.S. military activity not only in the air and sea -- where the armed forces have historically guarded approaches to the country -- but also on the ground and in other less traditional, potentially more problematic areas such as intelligence sharing with civilian law enforcement.

The strategy is outlined in a 40-page document, approved last month, that marks the Pentagon's first attempt since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to present a comprehensive plan for defending the U.S. homeland.

I have no objection to the military patrolling the skies and the shores of this country in an attempt to secure our borders and to protect us from attack. I do object to the military having boots on the ground and engaging in intelligence gathering and sharing with civilian law enforcement.

In the area of intelligence, the strategy speaks of developing "a cadre" of Pentagon terrorism specialists and of deploying "a number of them" to "interagency centers" for homeland defense and counterterrorism -- a reference to new teaming arrangements with the FBI and other domestic law enforcement agencies. The document notes that this represents a significant departure from the Cold War when Pentagon analysts worked mostly with the State Department and the intelligence community to combat the Soviet Union.

Keep in mind that on the books is the Posse Comitatus Statute of 1878 which forbids the use of US military to keep order. I don't see that the Patriot Act repealed that provision, and I don't believe 9/11 changed our civil society that much.

Apparently I am not the only one concerned about this. As to be expected, the ACLU is concerned:

"It's a mixed message," said Timothy H. Edgar, a national security specialist with the American Civil Liberties Union. "I do see language in the document acknowledging limits on military involvement, but that seems at odds with other parts of the document. They seem to be trying to have it both ways."

More significant, however, is the other organization weighing in on this issue:

"The move toward a domestic intelligence capability by the military is troubling," said Gene Healy, a senior editor at the Cato Institute, a nonprofit libertarian policy research group in Washington.

"The last time the military got heavily involved in domestic surveillance, during the Vietnam War era, military intelligence kept thousands of files on Americans guilty of nothing more than opposing the war," Healy said. "I don't think we want to go down that road again."

If the ACLU is upset and the Cato Institute is upset, I think it clear that there has to be something dreadfully wrong with this plan. We don't need the military involved in our civilian affairs.

Americans ought to stand up and scream about this intrusion into our civil liberties, and they ought to be screaming to every elected official they can.