budden@manta.nosc.mil (Rex A. Buddenberg) (01/19/90)
From: budden@manta.nosc.mil (Rex A. Buddenberg)
[mod.note: Please consider followups carefully; many will belong in
misc.legal or elsewhere. - Bill ]
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Folks, I answered the original poster privately, but since some of the bad
data is getting repeated, a public response is called for.
[disclaimer -- one each card carrying Coastie]
First, the Coast Guard is just as military as the Army, Navy, Air Force and
Marines. I took the same oath to defend the Constitution as all those
other guys, I hold the same kind of ID card and I may be asked to make
the same kinds of sacrifices. The difference is that the Coast Guard is
a military service organizationally residing in DoT, not DoD. At some
point in the mobilization process, the president orders the transfer of
the Coast Guard to the Navy. After WWI, it was a couple years before
the Navy was forced to cough the service back up and return it to
Treasury.
Second. Flight training for CG pilots. A lot of our pilots are ex-some
other service, so the basic flight training argument is moot. For the
pilots we train from scratch, they start at the Navy's flight school at
Pensacola. We definitely do not duplicate the capital training investment
costs.
AEW. The Coast Guard operates two E-2 aircraft on loan from the Navy.
Our responsibility to the Navy is to keep them in warfighting condition
while using them to chase dopers. We've been putting about 125% of
the flight hours on these two aircraft compared to a typical deployed
Navy squadron (to be fair, we're flying them from land bases, not
carriers). (By contrast, the 2 E-2s that the Navy was forced to loan
to Customs get about 30% as many flight hours according to my last
car-pool gossip on the subject). The Navy is quite happy to support
us here (subject to the caveat that there aren't enough E-2s to go around).
Philosophy is (correctly) that CG is the most ready reserve the Navy has.
Posse Comatatus. Following Reconstruction, Congress enacted the
posse comatatus legislation which was designed to prevent the Army
from exercising civil law enforcement powers against US citizens
in the US -- Civil War backlash. Technically the law did not
apply to the Navy and the Air Force didn't exist, but the subsequent
legal interpretations have applied the restrictions to all of DoD.
But the Coast Guard has always been a law enforcement outfit -- one
of the original component organizations was the Revenue Cutter Service
organized by Alexander Hamilton in 1790 to enforce the customs laws.
(in addition to being military, I'm also an officer of the customs).
During the Reagan administration, Posse Comatatus was amended to allow
DoD indirect support to law enforcement. This means that we can use
DoD assets for surveillance, command & control, transportation, etc.
Just about anything except making arrests and exercising law enforcement
authority. (This leads to strange inversions where we put a 3-5 man
tactical LE party on a Navy cruiser with a crew of 200, fly a CG
ensign and go boarding. USS Mississippi got a drug boat a few
years back that way).
The posse comatatus restrictions do not apply to occupations of
foreign countries. General Thurman has every authority to apply martial
law in Panama and use Military Police to enforce it (although it's
politically wise to get such matters back into the hands of the
Panamanians as soon as possible.)
Search Law. The Coast Guard operates within the unreasonable search
doctrine of the Fourth Amendment. Derivative authority is found today
in 14USC and the operative clauses were originally drafted by the
same congress that drafted the Fourth Amendment. Very few CG searches
are conducted under a warrant -- the nature of the sea service doesn't
make such procedures very practical. However, the Fourth Amendment
prohibits unreasonable searches, not warrantless ones. Rest assured that
some very well paid lawyers have tried very hard to demonstrate that
our searches of drug laden boats were unreasonable and therefore
unconstitutional. During the past decade, we have assembled a very
substantial body of case law, including a Supreme Court case. We
still get a 98% conviction rate. A typical court case following a drug
bust spends 3 days on evidence hearings and half day on the case itself.
Advice: don't debate search law with a Coastie. You will lose.
Military training vs law enforcement training. The discussion on the
net so far is far too superficial to be meaningful. Some of the
'military' actions in Panama resemble law enforcement activities a lot.
Especially those that fit the general definition of 'surgical'.
Law enforcement operations tend to be more judicious applications
of force than military operations because LE ops are supposed to be
taking place in an environment where there are lots of good guys and a
few bad guys around -- so you have to be a lot more careful about your
fields of fire and collateral damage. But given the very important
requirements to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties in
Panama, this historical difference doesn't stand up too well.
There are a lot of other parallels -- for instance in peacetime, we
have a 'use of force' policy (CG policy is closely patterned after
the FBI-authored federal firearms policy -- add a little salt water
for variety). In wartime, the DoD doctrine is called Rules of
Engagement. Functionally, there isn't a lot of difference, just
that the definition of 'bad guys' has changed.
OK, those are the things I remember showing up in the postings. Hope
this sets some of the record straight.
Rex Buddenberg
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