The Washington Post Article - direct link
The Washington Post article goes far more in depth than the newsmax article does - the WP article is 3 pages long, and quite detailed. After reading
the WP article, I am in agreement with some who have posted in this thread before me: on the surface, this seems like a good solution to the potential
for attack, yet given the track record of the current administration (not to mention the track records of several administrations preceeding the
current one) regarding honesty, I'd have to seriously doubt the true intentions of this move, especially given the mention that the WP made regarding
the fact that the Department of Homeland Security and NORCOM has 14 lawyers on its legal team, in comparison to the next largest number for a single
department at 10 lawyers - all those lawyers on the government payroll screams "finding loopholes!"
As has been discussed many times on ATS, it seems that the US government is moving the nation closer and closer towards a police state. If the 2nd
Amendment argument is found to be valid, then it appears that it is solely the discretion of the president as to where he wants to place troops, and
with a cover story and plausible deniability, he could pretty much put troops anywhere in the country that he wanted, for any reason, with any orders.
For instance, I could wake up one day, and find my hometown of Baltimore City under military control, only to find out that "major terror cells have
been discovered in the city, and an attack was thwarted," when in actuality, nothing really happened. This is possible, given that Baltimore is home
to one of the largest seaports on the US East Coast - The Port of Baltimore (and we all know how much they like to strike at financial/transportation
targets).
I caught a glimpse of what this would be like on the evening of 9/11/01, after the dust had settled from the attacks that morning. As I drove home
through the city, the streets were lined with National Guardsmen and police in full riot gear, all with fully automatic weapons. Civilians were
nowhere to be seen on the streets, which is highly unusual, especially in the harbor district, which is the tourism hub of the city. As I drove
through the city, I was being watched by every officer and guardsman lining the streets. To be quite honest, that scared the (expletive deleted) out
of me - much more so than the attacks that morning did.
I feel that if the president is given the ability to place military troops on domestic soil, it's only a matter of time before manditory, permanent
curfews are implemented, random searches are commonplace, and arrest without being charged in a timely manner will be the rule, not the exception.
All said and done, I don't like it. Not one bit.