Balkinization
an unanticipated consequence of
Jack M. Balkin
E-mail:
Jack Balkin:
jackbalkin at yahoo.com
Ian Ayres:
ian.ayres at yale.edu
Mary Dudziak:
mdudziak at law.usc.edu
Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu
Mark Graber:
mgraber at law.umaryland.edu
Stephen Griffin
sgriffin at tulane.edu
Bernard Harcourt
harcourt at uchicago.edu
Scott Horton
shorto at law.columbia.edu
Andrew Koppelman
akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu
Marty Lederman:
marty.lederman at comcast.net
Sanford Levinson
slevinson at law.utexas.edu
David Luban
david.luban at gmail.com
Linda McClain
lmcclain at bu.edu
Neil Netanel
netanel at law.ucla.edu
Frank Pasquale
pasquale.frank at gmail.com
Michael Stokes Paulsen
michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com
Deborah Pearlstein
dpearlst at princeton.edu
Rick Pildes
pildes at juris.law.nyu.edu
Alice Ristroph
alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Brian Tamanaha:
tamanahb at stjohns.edu
Mark Tushnet:
mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
The Anti-Torture Memos: Balkinization Posts on Torture, Interrogation, Detention, War Powers, and OLC
The Anti-Torture Memos (arranged by topic)
Recent Posts
Does the Posse Comitatus Act Still Exist?
![[Powered by Blogger]](http://buttons.blogger.com/bloggerbutton1.gif){kind=small}
Just A Few Blogs
ACS Weblog
The Agonist
Roger Ailes
Alas, a Blog
Eric Alterman
Althouse
Marc Ambinder
Arts and Letters Daily
Atrios (Eschaton)
Bad Attitudes
Bag and Baggage
Ted Barlow
Becker-Posner Blog
Michael Bérubé
Blackprof.com
The Blotter
Body and Soul
The Buck Stops Here
Buzzflash.com
Buzz Machine
Cairns (Beth Noveck)
Capitol Hill Blue
Cato at Liberty
Anupam Chander
Cobb, the Blog
Juan Cole (Informed Comment)
Concurring Opinions
Connected Selves
The Constitution in 2020
Cooped Up (Jeff Cooper)
Copyfight
Corante
Corrente
Susan Crawford blog
Crescat Sententia
Crooked Timber
Cursor.org
Daily Howler
Daily Kos
Brad DeLong
Demosthenes
Digby (Hullabaloo)
Discriminations
Dispatches from the Culture Wars
Donkey Rising (Emerging Democratic Majority)
Ross Douthat
Daniel Drezner
Kevin Drum (Mother Jones)
Tim Dunlop (The Road to Surfdom)
Electrolite
En Banc
Ernie the Attorney
Eunomia (Daniel Larison)
Fafblog
Feminist Law Professors
Michael Froomkin (Discourse.net)
Glenn Greenwald
GlennReynolds.com
The Hamster
Rick Hasen (Election Law)
History News Network
How Appealing
Ignatz (Sam Heldman)
The Importance of (Ernie Miller)
Infolaw
Instapundit
Intel Dump (Phil Carter)
International Economic Law and Policy Blog
Jacob Levy
Jesus' General
Jurisdynamics
Kausfiles
Orin Kerr
Kicking Ass
The Kitchen Cabinet
Mark Kleiman
Law of War (Kenneth Anderson)
Law Blog Central
Law Blog Central Orbiter
LawCulture
Lawmeme
Left2Right
Legal Fiction
The Lefty Directory
Larry Lessig
Lawyers, Guns and Money
Liberal Oasis
Brian Leiter's Law School Reports
The Leiter Reports
Many to Many (Clay Shirky)
Marginal Revolution
Maxspeak
Megan McArdle
Memeorandum
Metafilter
Mirror of Justice
Chris Mooney (The Intersection)
MyDD
Newseum
The News Dissector (Mediachannel.org)
No More Mister Nice Blog
Brendan Nyhan
Open University (The New Republic)
Opening Argument
Opinio Juris
Orcinus
Jack O'Toole
Our Congress
Pandagon
Passport (Foreign Policy)
The Plank (The New Republic)
Overcoming Bias
Political Animal (Washington Monthly)
Political Theory Daily Review
Political Wire (Taegan Goddard)
The Poor Man
Virginia Postrel
Prawfsblawg
Public Reason
Jonathan Rauch
Raw Story
Redstate
Reporters Committee For Freedom of the Press
Reproductive Rights Blog
Respectful of Otters
The Rittenhouse Review
SCOTUS Blog
SCT Nomination blog
Seeing the Forest
Clay Shirky
The Shifted Librarian
The Situationist
Larry Solum (Legal Theory)
Andrew Sullivan
Tacitus
Talking Points Memo
TPM Cafe
TPMmuckraker.com
Talk Left
Tapped
Tbogg
Tech Central Station
The Paper Chase (Jurist)
Tom Paine
Tom Tomorrow (This Modern World)
The Truth Laid Bear
Eve Tushnet
Uggabugga
University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog
Unqualified Offerings
The Volokh Conspiracy
War and Piece (Laura Rozen)
Wampum
Whiskey Bar (Billmon)
Oliver Willis
Wonkette
Matthew Yglesias (Think Progress)
Yin
Your Choice of Feeds
1. XML
powered by
2. Atom Feed
3.
Does the Posse Comitatus Act Still Exist?
Kim Lane Scheppele
I suspect that the Posse Comitatus Act has essentially disappeared since 9/11. We have good reason to believe that the president is operating on legal advice telling them that the Posse Comitatus Act cannot be a restriction on the president in fighting terrorism within the United States. How do we know? In the Torture Papers (edited by Karen Greenberg and Joshua Dratel), Item #13 is a memo written by Jay Bybee that references another memo at footnote 16 on p. 163. The footnote?We recently opined that the Posse Comitatus Act, 18 U.S.C. s. 1385 (1994), which generally prohibits the use of the Armed Forces for law enforcement purposes absent constitutional or statutory authority to do so, does not forbid the use of military force for the military purpose of preventing and deterring terrorism within the United States. See Memorandum for Alberto R. Gonzales, Counsel to the President and William J. Haynes II, General Counsel, Department of Defense, from John C. Yoo, Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Robert J. Delahunty, Special Counsel, Office of Legal Counsel, Re: Authority for the Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities within the United States at 15-20 (Oct. 23, 2001).
The Yoo memo referenced in that footnote has not yet, to my knowledge, been leaked. But one can guess from Yoo's other memos what it would say -- that the Posse Comitatus Act is an unconstitutional restriction on the plenary powers of the Commander in Chief in wartime. As a result of this, my guess is that the Posse Comitatus Act is, under this Administration, a dead letter.
Wouldn't that bother at least some of Bush's conservative base if they knew?
Posted
10:42 PM
by Kim Lane Scheppele [link]
America has become a country shadowed by fear. A rational view of events, both recent and remote, can only conclude that the erosion of rights is the central design of a campaign of fear. It will be the "soccer moms" of America who will be first in line for a new pair of jackboots.
"Shadowed by fear"... Knock knock! Come on out of the basement, take a deep breath, and join reality!
Books by Balkinization Bloggers
Jack M. Balkin, The Laws of Change: I Ching and the Philosophy of Life (2d Edition, Sybil Creek Press 2009)
Brian Z. Tamanaha, Beyond the Formalist-Realist Divide: The Role of Politics in Judging (Princeton University Press 2009)
Andrew Koppelman and Tobias Barrington Wolff, A Right to Discriminate?: How the Case of Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale Warped the Law of Free Association (Yale University Press 2009)
Jack M. Balkin and Reva B. Siegel, The Constitution in 2020 (Oxford University Press 2009)
Heather K. Gerken, The Democracy Index: Why Our Election System Is Failing and How to Fix It (Princeton University Press 2009)
Mary Dudziak, Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey (Oxford University Press 2008)
Neil Netanel, Copyright's Paradox (Oxford Univ. Press 2008)
David Luban, Legal Ethics and Human Dignity (Cambridge Univ. Press 2007)
Ian Ayres, Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way to be Smart (Bantam 2007)
Jack M. Balkin, James Grimmelmann, Eddan Katz, Nimrod Kozlovski, Shlomit Wagman and Tal Zarsky, eds., Cybercrime: Digital Cops in a Networked Environment (N.Y.U. Press 2007)
Jack M. Balkin and Beth Simone Noveck, The State of Play: Law, Games, and Virtual Worlds (N.Y.U. Press 2006)
Andrew Koppelman, Same Sex, Different States: When Same-Sex Marriages Cross State Lines (Yale University Press 2006)
Brian Tamanaha, Law as a Means to an End (Cambridge University Press 2006)
Sanford Levinson, Our Undemocratic Constitution (Oxford University Press 2006)
Mark Graber, Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil (Cambridge University Press 2006)
Jack M. Balkin, ed., What Roe v. Wade Should Have Said (N.Y.U. Press 2005)
Sanford Levinson, ed., Torture: A Collection (Oxford University Press 2004)
Balkin.com homepage
Bibliography
Conlaw.net
Cultural Software
Writings
Opeds
The Information Society Project
BrownvBoard.com
Useful Links
Syllabi and Exams