About Oregon

[catnhatnh]

For the last few days I've been looking into whether or not the militia could be read the riot act and whether military troops could be used to end the stand off. Most legal items refer back to common law but thanks to moves regarding handling terrorism I found this:

The Insurrection Act of 1807 is the set of laws that govern the ability of the President of the United States to deploy troops within the United States to put down lawlessness, insurrection and rebellion. The laws are chiefly contained in 10 U.S.C. §§ 331–335. The general aim is to limit Presidential power as much as possible, relying on state and local governments for initial response in the event of insurrection. Coupled with the Posse Comitatus Act, Presidential powers for law enforcement are limited and delayed.

On September 30, 2006, the Congress modified the Insurrection Act as part of the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill (repealed as of 2008). Section 1076 of the law changed Sec. 333 of the "Insurrection Act," and widened the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States to enforce the laws. Under this act, the President may also deploy troops as a police force during a natural disaster, epidemic, serious public health emergency, terrorist attack, or other condition, when the President determines that the authorities of the state are incapable of maintaining public order. The bill also modified Sec. 334 of the Insurrection Act, giving the President authority to order the dispersal of either insurgents or "those obstructing the enforcement of the laws." The law changed the name of the chapter from "Insurrection" to "Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order."

This is from an interesting Wiki entry that includes a flow chart

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurrection_Act

Anyhow-if they would like to bring in Seal Team 6-our President may have the authority....These boys are NOT protected by Posse Comitatus...

[branford]

1. The military will not be called in to deal with a bunch of fatigue-wearing yahoos

occupying an otherwise empty cabin in the middle of nowhere, Oregon in the middle of winter. There has not been anywhere near a breakdown in public order, and there's no need to even opine on the legality of such an act.

Not only are our various and ample domestic law enforcement officers more than capable of dealing with far, far worse than this, use of military troops will confirm all of the worst anti-government, black helicopter, "there coming to take your guns" suspicions of anyone to the right (and many to the left) of Bernie Sanders in the USA. The very suggestion is right out of the fevered minds of the paranoids at Infowars.

All that would be accomplished is encouraging a thousand occupations of government buildings, or worse, more events like the Oklahoma City bombing, the possible impeachment of the the president, and likely a President Cruz or Trump (who might use such a imprudent use of the armed forces to justify similar actions against demonstrators on the left).

[Bluenorthwest]

8. Your verbiage veers into inaccuracy. They are occupying not 'an other wise empty cabln' but several

historic buildings on the facility including the museum of the refuge. None of these buildings is a cabin. The buildings are not 'otherwise empty' in any sense, these buildings would be open to the public today if they were not being occupied by these criminals. When no people are present, the WPA era buildings are still not empty in that they house the collection of the history of the place and the wildlife there.

I have been to and worked extensively in Manhattan. My guess is that you have seen Oregon on a map. Just for fun, let me share with you the fact that the refuge itself contains more land than all 5 boroughs of NYC, the refuge is larger than the city of Chicago. But that does not mean it is 'empty' nor does that make all the buildings 'cabins'. The fact that the museum is not MOMA does not mean it has no value, in terms of the refuge the collection is of great value.

Your claim is that 'a thousand occupations' would answer any action against these people. Reality shows us they are getting little support, but you claim they are heroes to thousands of eager fellow criminals. That's a hell of a leap away from known fact.

[branford]

10. I have no doubts about the size or remoteness of the preserve and buildings,

and unless the militia have taken hostages, those buildings are effectively empty.

Assuming everything you say is accurate, it still does not support a break-down of public order or come remotely close to justifying the use of the armed forces against American citizens on domestic soil regardless of how crazy or repugnant the views of the militia. Such an absurd and violent overreaction would do nothing but support the views of these militias and convince many other Americans of the validity of their cause.

By the OP's standards, anything remotely similar to the OWS or BLM protests requires a military response.

[underthematrix]

2. Thank you for this legal contextual information. Great post

I prefer to think of this like the hijacking of the freighter off the coast of Africa. It appeared that President Obama was doing one thing when he was actually doing something entirely different. This is what I think is going on here. Things are not what they appear to be. In addition, President Obama is the kind of leader who likes to make sure all of his legal ducks are in a row. Then he builds a strategy with his team, requests alternative plans with potential benefits and risks and finally he decides and implements a course of action.

President Obama has to be very careful here because I think this is a lot bigger than it appears and could literally disrupt our election process from primaries to general.

[world wide wally]

3. The big problem is that these assholes are terrorizing the local people.

How long do we tolerate that?

[RWilliam]

4. indeed

and the two go hand in hand right? The fact that people, authorities included have been threatened and stalked indeed points to a larger problem. I agree, Obama is up to something, but at the same time carefully weighing the legal aspects vs. cause and effect.

But ultimately I believe he is also right to leave it to local authorities, along with the FBI. Something must break soon though.


btw I am from Portland, and this thing bugs me quite a bit. I think that for the most part Oregonians are united on this.

[jmowreader]

5. If military force is necessary, the Oregon National Guard is the right unit to use

Because it belongs to the governor rather than the president, it's exempt from Posse Comitatus.

I'd be for dipping the Marlboro Reds in PCP or putting some chloral hydrate in the French Vanilla coffee creamer...

[Fairgo]

6. Thanks for the insight

As crude and ham handed as the yokel's offense, democracy's response requires contemplation of nuance.

[Helen Borg]

7. These people need to be arrested.

Perhaps not now, but when they get out of there. There have to be consequences.

[Vinca]

9. It seems since they're white, they're safe.

The whole thing is disgusting. The federal government is being made to look like a bunch of pansies and it's going to encourage more of this BS.