Los Angeles Times
November 23, 2003
Mission Creep Hits Home
American armed forces are assuming major new domestic
policing and surveillance roles
By William M. Arkin, William M. Arkin is a military affairs analyst who
writes regularly for Opinion.
E-mail: [email protected].
SOUTH POMFRET, Vt. -- Preoccupied with the war in Iraq and still
traumatized by Sept. 11, 2001, the American public has paid little
attention to some of what is being done inside the United States in the
name of anti-terrorism. Under the banner of "homeland security," the military and intelligence
communities are implementing far-reaching changes that blur the lines
between terrorism and other kinds of crises and will break down
long-established barriers to military action and surveillance within the
U.S.
"We must start thinking differently," says Air Force Gen. Ralph E. "Ed"
Eberhart, the newly installed commander of Northern Command, the
military's homeland security arm. Before 9/11, he says, the military and
intelligence systems were focused on "the away game" and not properly
focused on "the home game."
"Home," of course, is the United States. Eberhart's Colorado-based
command is charged with enhancing homeland security in two ways: by
improving the military's capability to defend the country's borders,
coasts and airspace -- unquestionably within the military's
long-established mission -- and by providing "military assistance to
civil authorities" when authorized by the secretary of Defense or the
president.
That too may sound unexceptionable: The military has long had mechanisms
to respond to a request for help from state governors. New after 9/11
are more aggressive preparations and the presumption that local
government will not be able to carry the new homeland security load.
Being the military, moreover, contingency planners approach preparing by
assuming the worst. All of this is a major -- and potentially dangerous
-- departure from past policy.
The U.S. military operates under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which
prohibits the direct use of federal troops "to execute the laws" of the
United States. The courts have interpreted this to mean that the
military is prohibited from any active role in direct civilian law
enforcement, such as search, seizure or arrest of civilians.
"There are abundant reasons for rejecting the further expansion of the
military's domestic role," says Mackubin T. Owens, a professor of
strategy and force planning at the Naval War College. Looking at the
issue historically, Owens wrote in an August 2002 essay in the National
Review's online edition that "the use of soldiers as a posse [places]
them in the uncomfortable position of taking orders from local
authorities who had an interest in the disputes that provoked the unrest
in the first place."
Moreover, Owens said, becoming more involved in domestic policing can be
"subtle and subversive . like a lymphoma or termite infestation."
Though we are far from having "tanks rumbling through the streets," he
said, the potential long-term effect of an increasing military role in
police and law enforcement activities is "a military contemptuous of
American society and unresponsive to civilian authorities."
Eberhart says his Northern Command operates scrupulously within the
bounds of the law. "We believe the [Posse Comitatus] Act, as amended,
provides the authority we need to do our job, and no modification is
needed at this time," he told the House Armed Services Committee in
March.
Of course, what he knows is that amendments approved by Congress in 1996
for that earlier civilian war, the war on drugs, have already expanded
the military's domestic powers so that Washington can act unilaterally
in dispatching the military without waiting for a state's request for
help. Long before 9/11, Congress authorized the military to assist local
law enforcement officials in domestic "drug interdiction" and during
terrorist incidents involving weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore,
the president, after proclaiming a state of emergency, can authorize
additional actions.
Indeed, the military is presently operating under just such an emergency
declaration. Eberhart's command has defined three levels of operations,
each of which triggers a larger set of authorized activities. The levels
are "extraordinary," "emergency" and "temporary."
At the "temporary" level, which covers such things as the Olympic Games
or the Super Bowl, limited assistance can be provided to law enforcement
agencies when a governor requests it, primarily in such areas as
logistics, transportation and communications. During "emergencies," the
military can provide similar support, mostly in response to specific
events such as the attacks on the World Trade Center.
It is only in the case of "extraordinary" domestic operations that the
unique capabilities of the Defense Department are deployed. These
include not just such things as air patrols to shoot down hijacked
planes or the defusing of bombs and other explosives, , but also
bringing in intelligence collectors, special operators and even full
combat troops.
Given the absence of terrorist attacks inside the United States since
9/11, it may seem surprising that Northern Command is already working
under the far-reaching authority that goes with "extraordinary
operations." But it is.
"We are not going to be out there spying on people," Eberhart told PBS'
NewsHour in September. But, he said, "We get information from people who
do." Some of that information increasingly comes not from the FBI or
those charged with civilian law enforcement but from a Pentagon
organization established last year, the Counterintelligence Field
Activity (CIFA).
The seemingly innocuous CIFA was originally given the mission of
protecting the Defense Department and its personnel, as well as
"critical infrastructure," against espionage conducted by terrorists and
foreign intelligence services.
But in August, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld expanded CIFA's
mission, charging it with maintaining "a domestic law enforcement
database that includes information related to potential terrorist
threats directed against the Department of Defense." The group's
Assessments and Technology Directorate, which shares offices with the
Justice Department's Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force, has already
identified 200 foreign terrorist suspects in the U.S., according to a
Defense Department report to Congress.
This year, the Pentagon inspector general authorized assigning military
special agents to 56 FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force operations at FBI
field offices. These military agents will pursue leads in local
communities of potential threats to the military. Eberhart also plans to
have his own cadre of agents working with local law enforcement. Next
year, he plans to transform Joint Task Force Six, a drug interdiction
unit of 160 military personnel at Ft. Bliss, Texas, into Joint
Interagency Task Force North.
The new task force will be given nationwide responsibility for working
with law enforcement agencies. CIFA, moreover, has been given a domestic
"data mining" mission: figuring out a way to process massive sets of
public records, intercepted communications, credit card accounts, etc.,
to find "actionable intelligence."
"Homeland defense relies on the sharing of actionable intelligence among
the appropriate federal, state, and local agencies," says Lt. Gen.
Edward G. Anderson III, Eberhart's deputy.
Another ambitious domestic project is being undertaken by the National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which is gathering "geospatial
information" about 133 cities, the borders and seaports. This "urban
data inventory" combines unclassified and classified data (including
such things as the location of emergency services, communications,
transportation and food supplies) with a high-resolution satellite map
of the United States.
When the mapping efforts are completed, a national "spatial data
infrastructure" will be created down to the house level. Intelligence
analysts speak of one day being able to identify individual occupants,
as well as their national background and political affiliations. Though
the military is just getting its systems in place, there can be no other
conclusion: Domestic surveillance is back. It's not that we're heading
toward martial law. We're not. But outside the view of most of the
public, the government is daily expanding military operations into areas
of local government and law enforcement that historically have been
off-limits.
And it doesn't seem far-fetched to imagine that those charged with
assembling "actionable intelligence" will slowly start combining
databases of known terrorists with seemingly innocuous lists of
contributors to charities or causes, that membership lists for activist
organizations will be folded in, that names and personal data of
anti-globalization protesters will be run through the "data mine."
After all, the mission of Northern Command and other Pentagon agencies
is to identify groups and individuals who could potentially pose threats
to Defense Department and civilian installations.
Given all this, it might be a good time for state and local governments
to ask themselves whether the federal government, through the military,
is slowly eroding their power to manage what -- for very good reasons --
have always been considered local responsibilities.
Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times
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