The recent passage of NDAA has caused suspicion for liberty groups as to the intent of the bill with Section 1301 not specifically exempting American citizens from possible incarceration by the military and prosecution by court-martial. A handful of Republicans and Democrats attempted amendments to the bill to correct the language. All of them failed to pass the Senate. Montana has recently launched recall efforts against their representatives who voted for the bill.
Opponents of the legislation are jumping on the recently announced plans by the Los Angeles police department for a “routine training” exercise conducted by military personnel similar to on held in Boston last year (See video below). The brief press release reads:
Los Angeles: Multi-agency tactical exercises are to be conducted during evening hours around the downtown area January 22-26, 2012.
The Los Angeles Police Department will be providing support for a joint military training exercise in and around the great Los Angeles area. This will be routine training conducted by military personnel, designed to ensure the military’s ability to operate in urban environments, prepare forces for upcoming overseas deployments, and meet mandatory training certification requirements.
This training has been coordinated with local authorities and owners of the training sites. The training sites have been carefully selected to ensure the event does not negatively impact the citizens of Los Angeles and their daily routines.
Lastly, safety precautions have been taken to prevent risk to the general public and the military personnel involved.
As such, this training is not open to the public.
Liberty proponents contend that the NDAA makes void the nearly 134-year old Posse Comitatus act passed by Congress on June 18, 1878. Major Craig T. Trebilcock claims that it should not present a significant barrier to utilizing the military in “law enforcement” anyway. He notes, “In the past five years, the erosion of the Posse Comitatus Act has continued with the increasingly common use of military forces as security for essentially civilian events. During the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, over ten thousand U.S. troops were deployed under the partial rationale that they were present to deter terrorism.”
The training exercises in Boston, of course, occurred before NDAA passed and shows that exercises of this sort has been going on for some time.
Even if the exercises have nothing to do with the passage of NDAA with the controversial Section 1301, it certainly should evoke Orwellian images of police looking inside your apartment. This concept was used in the movie Blue Thunder. In the 1983 movie about a high-tech helicopter, the officers were upset when an official call interrupted their viewing of a woman undressing. Ironically, over LA.
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