Would a nationalized police force violate the spirit of posse comitatus?

[repoman]

I think this an interesting topic, and hopefully a way to go against nationalization. The current police are very much more powerful than even the military of 1878. Interestingly, Edogan had increased the police from 50,000 to 500,000. Smart move for him now.

http://clashdaily.com/2015/06/a-fly-in-obamas-federal-police-force-ointment-the-president-vs-posse-comitatus/

 

[Deepak]

I hinges on the scope and authority granted to such a force. If they're out giving tickets, searching & seizing people walking down the street, and investigating misdemeanors then I'd say yes. If they're solely enforcing federal law and conducting investigations to that effect I think it would be quite similar to the FBI or Coast Guard operating withing national borders.

 

[Trausti]

 United_States_Marshals_Service

 

[Bronzeage]

The difference between posse comitatus and civilian law enforcement is that a soldier is responsible to his commanding officer and the subsequent chain of command. Any illegal act he commits can be considered in a military court, where the ordinary rights granted a citizen are not the same. The same goes for a civilian who might be brought before a military court.

A law enforcement agent is responsible in a civilian court, with all the expected Constitutional rights.

 

[SimpleDon]

I think this an interesting topic, and hopefully a way to go against nationalization. The current police are very much more powerful than even the military of 1878. Interestingly, Edogan had increased the police from 50,000 to 500,000. Smart move for him now.

http://clashdaily.com/2015/06/a-fly-in-obamas-federal-police-force-ointment-the-president-vs-posse-comitatus/

I am not sure what Edogan has to do with a 140 year old US that limits the US military's use to police civilians. Then you refer us to a right wing paranoia web site article that doesn't even mention Turkey but claims that by the end of article I would believe that Obama was building his own federal police force who would be "reporting to his personal whim while avoiding Posse Comitatus." He invites us to do our own research.

I did, at least for one of his claims. I assume that you didn't. If you had I can't imagine why you would present it here.

I looked up the claim that

...this Administration then ordered up literally billions of rounds of small arms ammunition, some of it illegal for use in war under the Geneva Convention rules. That number of rounds would support a world war of more than ten years. Such an order would result in limiting products available to the public.

The closest that I could come to this claim was on Politifact that conservative websites and chain letters were claiming the Obama administration was "stockpiling hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition for domestic use." Politifact rated the claim "False," The DHS and the DoJ combined does buy about 300 million rounds of ammunition a year. This is because they use about 300 million rounds of ammunition a year. Largely for training the about 150 thousand armed agents that they have, about 2000 rounds each. This sounds about right, it is about two hours of shooting a month to stay proficient on a semi-automatic pistol. But it isn't stockpiling ammunition, which is the implication of your article.

Here is the link.

It isn't just conservative panic mongering web sites that don't know about Politifact. Here is the almost exact same claims made by Forbes, The Denver Post and the Associated Press,

"The Denver Post, on February 15th, ran an Associated Press article entitled Homeland Security aims to buy 1.6b rounds of ammo, so far to little notice. It confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security has issued an open purchase order for 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. As reported elsewhere, some of this purchase order is for hollow-point rounds, forbidden by international law for use in war, along with a frightening amount specialized for snipers. Also reported elsewhere, at the height of the Iraq War the Army was expending less than 6 million rounds a month. Therefore 1.6 billion rounds would be enough to sustain a hot war for 20+ years. In America."

And this,

[T]he Department of Homeland Security is apparently taking delivery (apparently through the Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico VA, via the manufacturer – Navistar Defense LLC) of an undetermined number of the recently retrofitted 2,717 ‘Mine Resistant Protected’ MaxxPro MRAP vehicles for service on the streets of the United States.”

These MRAP’s ARE BEING SEEN ON U.S. STREETS all across America by verified observers with photos, videos, and descriptions.”

Regardless of the exact number of MRAP’s being delivered to DHS (and evidently some to POLICE via DHS, as has been observed), why would they need such over-the-top vehicles on U.S. streets to withstand IEDs, mine blasts, and 50 caliber hits to bullet-proof glass? In a war zone… yes, definitely. Let’s protect our men and women. On the streets of America… ?”

…

“They all have gun ports… Gun Ports? In the theater of war, yes. On the streets of America…?

Seriously, why would DHS need such a vehicle on our streets?”

An unexpected voice of sanity was Breitbart, The Great DHS Ammunition Stockpile Myth,

There are dozens of articles hyping government purchases of ammunition over the last nine months. After spending weeks researching this topic, this is a collection of commonly held myths that are based more on panic than fact.
With the recent release of a letter from the Department of Homeland Security to Senator Coburn, the numbers we calculated independently seem to corroborate the narrative coming from DHS. The concerns surrounding DHS stockpiling ammunition are nothing but more fear-mongering and largely unwarranted. For once, here are the facts to set the record straight:

....

 

[SimpleDon]

I think that at the very least our patchwork of law enforcement in the US is highly inefficient and expensive. At the worse it is largely ineffective.

The US is the largest police state* in the world. We have 50% more sworn law enforcement officers per capita than the next largest police state* in the world, Germany. Twice as many if you include unsworn private security officers.

* that isn't an oil rich city state on the South China Sea, i.e. Brunei.

Even with this large number of police we have about twice as much crime as any other developed country, nearly five times the crime rate in Canada, ten times the crime rate of the Euro zone countries and only Russia and Brazil have higher murder rates and they are usually considered to be intermediate countries, not advanced and not fully developed.

Local control of the police means that many overlapping jurisdictions exist, that many of the police are used as revenue enhancers targeting drivers, that the most experienced police are in the relatively safe and high paying suburbs while the least experienced officers are in the high crime urban areas, that training standards vary all over the map, that the level of police corruption is higher, and that the level of professionalism in the police is overall lower than it should be.

Most countries avoid these problems by having a national police force. And yet this seems to a subject that is not even discussed in the US.

This is due, in my opinion, to an irrational fear of the federal government and an equally irrational acceptance of the failings of the most unresponsive levels of government; the middle ones between the federal and the local level; the states, townships, counties and the vast number of specific purpose regional authorities.

These middle levels of government were an 18th century compensation for the slow means of transportation and communication, problems that no longer exist.

The irony is that small government conservatives support this massive number of governments. Those who constantly harp that we should run the government like a business support a government organized with more middle management than any modern corporation would tolerate.