Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

July 28, 2009

During its eight years in power, the Bush administration cut down many of the constitutional safeguards of individual liberty. So it was interesting to learn of an instance in which the administration declined to make a frontal assault on a key constitutional principle.

In early 2002, many of Bush?s key advisers, including Vice President Dick Cheney, urged him to test constitutional limits on the use of the military for domestic law enforcement by dispatching military troops into the suburbs of Buffalo, New York to arrest six terrorist suspects.

This use of the military to conduct domestic arrests is illegal under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act. However, Cheney and his allies insisted that the use of the military as police could be justified on the grounds of national security, rather than law enforcement.

To his credit, Mr. Bush rejected those demands. But the dangerous amalgamation of the police and military has continued, albeit in a more incremental fashion.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.