Whither the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878?

"This isn’t what we meant by 'bring the troops home,'" says The American Conservative's Kelley Beaucar Vlahos as "Washington contemplates deploying the Armed Forces for domestic law enforcement" — Homeland Offense. She writes, "Americans have become so inured to the sight of federal troops fighting fires, rescuing flood victims from rooftops, and engaging in drug interdiction on the border that few eyebrows were raised when news broke that 20,000 active-duty infantry would soon be deployed on American soil for so-called homeland defense."

She goes on to note that this "is unprecedented and further evidence of a military mission-creep into domestic affairs, particularly in areas for which the National Guard and Reserves are already suited" and reminds us that "the Bush administration tried to broaden the criteria under which the president could invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act, allowing the executive branch to override Posse Comitatus and declare martial law."