Insurrection Act - Relation To Posse Comitatus

Relation To Posse Comitatus

The entire text of the Posse Comitatus Act, as amended in 1956, is as follows:

18 U.S.C. ยง 1385 - Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus
"Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both".

Accordingly, actions taken under the Insurrection Act have always been exempt from the Posse Comitatus Act.

Congress is restricted by and through their Constitutional Oath and in fact, in Article. 1 Section 8 "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;" is the check upon Congress and the President. http://constitution.org/mil/cs_milit.htm

Read more about this topic:  Insurrection Act

Famous quotes containing the words relation to, relation and/or posse:

    Much poetry seems to be aware of its situation in time and of its relation to the metronome, the clock, and the calendar. ... The season or month is there to be felt; the day is there to be seized. Poems beginning “When” are much more numerous than those beginning “Where” of “If.” As the meter is running, the recurrent message tapped out by the passing of measured time is mortality.
    William Harmon (b. 1938)

    Concord is just as idiotic as ever in relation to the spirits and their knockings. Most people here believe in a spiritual world ... in spirits which the very bullfrogs in our meadows would blackball. Their evil genius is seeing how low it can degrade them. The hooting of owls, the croaking of frogs, is celestial wisdom in comparison.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Peering, I heard the hooves come down the hill.
    The posse passed, twelve horse; the leader’s face
    Was worn as limestone on an ancient sill.
    Allen Tate (1899–1979)