“The Pentagon has … shown a disturbing interest in high-tech surveillance of American citizens,” writes Gene Healy of Cato. “And key figures in the Bush administration and Congress have considered weakening the Posse Comitatus Act, the federal statute that limits the government’s ability to use the military for domestic police work.” In fact, the high tech militarization of the Super Bowl may be considered part of an effort by the Straussian neocons and NORAD to put a final nail in the coffin of the Posse Comitatus Act. “My view has been that Posse Comitatus will constantly be under review as we mature this command,” declared NORAD Gen. Ralph Eberhart in September, 2002. (For more on the infusion of high-tech into the “security” arrangements at the Super Bowl, see this article.)

“Constitutional authority gives the president and Congress the right to suspend Posse Comitatus during emergencies,” Juliette N. Kayyem and Steven E. Roberts, writing for National Defense Magazine, told us back in December, 2002. “The military services can freely participate in domestic operations with no legal consequences. In fact, following progressively sophisticated terrorism—highlighted by the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing—the armed forces increasingly supplement and assist local and federal law enforcement agencies in the operational, logistical, and technical aspects of anti-terrorism…. The military’s anti-terror responsibilities during so-called ’special security events’ provide the best example of this role. It has become commonplace for the armed forces to help secure high-profile targets from terrorist attacks, such as the Super Bowl and presidential inaugurals.” It is a stretch, to say the least, to declare that the dead Osama bin Laden and his band of dour Muslim cave dwellers are capable of “progressively sophisticated terrorism,” for as we know, or should know if we pay attention, “sophisticated terrorism” is strictly in the province of state intelligence and military operations, as recently pointed out by General Leonid Ivashov, former Chief of Staff of the Russian armed forces.

Nonetheless, Kayyem and Roberts write that “the likelihood of future terrorist acts comparable to those of September 11 suggests that military participation in national domestic security is here to stay. It would not be unreasonable to assume that there might be limited situations, such as an attack with weapons of mass destruction, when the military would need to expand its role from mere support to active deployment.”

This reveals a complete lack of historical understanding, since the “active deployment” of military forces in the “homeland” usually results in military dictatorship. James Madison and the framers of the Constitution understood the threat of standing armies well. “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty,” Madison wrote. “The means of defense against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.” Bush, the cardboard cut-out of the Machiavellian Straussians, represents perfectly the “overgrown Executive” and the eventual enslavement of the people through gradual domestic use of the military.

Of course, the would-be slaves, by and large, remain blissfully unaware of their impending slavery. It is nothing short of a stroke of genius to mix police state imagery in with football imagery and thus make slavery palatable to the masses. I have no idea if there will be a “terrorist event” at the Super Bowl later this afternoon—really, it is not necessary, because more distant events can be exploited—for instance the latest installment of the Osama and al-Zawahri audio and video tapes and, more dramatically, the Muslim riots over cartoons portraying the Prophet Muhammad. As for the latter, it is not inconceivable that this is a NATO orchestrated event designed to up the level of violence, as the “Venstre” (or so-called liberals) are out of power in Denmark and the Danish People’s Party with its strong anti-immigration policies are firmly entrenched. But then this is a subject for another blog entry down the road.