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American communities continue to be increasingly policed by law enforcement officers armed with the weapons and tactics of war, according to the left-wing activists at the American Civil Liberties Union.

However, utilization of military equipment by local police departments throughout the United States – some call it the “militarization” of American policing – has been going on for quite some time. Now, observers ask whether this trend might have repercussions that are making citizens uneasy, according to a Homeland Security Newswire report on Monday.

Police departments generally receive the equipment for free, according to the report. “The gear being sent to local police includes planes, helicopters, armored vehicles, grenade launchers, assault rifles, bullet-proof helmets, night-vision goggles, and more. A few sheriff departments ordered tanks,”the report states.

Last year’s authorization act all but erases decades of U.S. government compliance with the letter and the spirit of the Posse Comitatus Act 1878, a law that prohibits the use of the U.S. military to perform law enforcement functions within the United States, according to an Examiner news story that quotes police officials and others opposed to the militarizing of American law enforcement.

Provisions in last year’s authorization act allow military reservists — Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines — to be called to duty and deployed in the event of a natural disaster or other emergency within the homeland, as well as mobilization of reserve units to support counterterrorism and security missions overseas, according to the American Forces Press Service’s Donna Miles.

“Except for a crisis involving a weapon of mass destruction, the reserves historically have been prohibited from providing a homeland disaster response,” Army Lt. General Jack C. Stultz, the Army Reserve chief, told reporters.

Originally, such deployments were the duty of National Guard, which are under the control of state governors who would call in guardsman as needed to support civil police forces, fire departments and other emergency personnel.

However, when Hurricane Katrina fiercely struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, especially the city of New Orleans, active-duty service members became “the federal default force,” according to Miles.

But the reason for that deployment was the inability of Louisiana’s governor and New Orleans’ mayor to command and control the police and emergency responders. Now the U.S. Congress and the Obama Administration have acquired the authority to use military resources in such emergencies, including deploying soldiers during an insurrection.

“Is anyone surprised at this latest disregard for the constitution and tradition? The military forces in the U.S., Canada and Mexico have been training in urban warfare and response to terrorist threats such as weapons of mass destruction (WMD) scenarios,” said police lieutenant Walter Ingram of the Morningside, N.Y., police department.

Ingram also noted that “the Bush Administration and congress toyed with the idea of practically militarizing FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Administration). which is basically a ‘bean-counting’ agency. But that idea went nowhere.”

But General Stultz is gung-ho about the new authorization. “In a lot of cases, there were reserve-component soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who were close at hand with the capabilities needed, but didn’t have the authority to act,” he said. “Finally, we got the law changed. This new legislation says that now we can use Title 10 reserves.”

For these forces to be used, the law specifies that the Commander in Chief — President Barack Obama –must declare an emergency or disaster and a state governor must request the assistance.