Eroding Protections Against Domestic Military Intervention: History, the Constitution and the Establishment of the Northern Command

Together with other comparable countries, including Canada, Britain, Australia, Germany and Japan, the United States is witnessing an expansion of the government’s powers to call out troops to deal with civil unrest, accompanied by plans and preparations for such deployments. In the US, these changes most notably include the erosion of the Posse Comitatus Act, which forbids the use of federal troops for domestic law enforcement, and the establishment of the Northern Command, a specific Pentagon command for North America. These developments point to a troubling trend that raises significant historical, Constitutional and legal issues which have thus far received inadequate attention.