@leveymg

the White House backed down, deploying forces but not with any police powers.

IIRC Bush sent in Blackwater and maybe other private mercenary groups to control the denizens that were shoplifting (actually just trying to feed themselves) because the response from the fed government wasn't there. Wasn't it BlackWater that shot people on one of the bridges there? The response from Bush was just like the response from Trump after Maria in Puerto Rico. Deliberate. But it doesn't look like the upper white class got much help either after Sandy in NJ. (?)

The laws for whatever the response to uprisings have been written during many administrations. Some before 9/11, but since then they have become more draconian. We are living in a police state already with just the illusion that we are free. Look at how every protests from the left has been handled going back to MLK and the civil rights movement and before that. The tea party and the neo nazis don't seem to get that type of response though do they? Hmm wondering why? ...still pondering that....

#2 The Pentagon has been developing formal planning and doctrine to guide the use of troops to suppress insurrection inside the U.S. for at least 13 years, including the use of military detention to enforce quarantine in the event of public health emergency. Actually, this is only the latest round of doctrine justifying use of armed force against domestic unrest, which goes back to the Whiskey Rebellion and similar uprisings during Colonial Times. https://www.newsweek.com/inside-us-militarys-plans-stop-civil-disturbanc...

U.S. Northern Command, located in Colorado Springs, wrote its first contingency plan specifically for "Civil Disturbance Operations," called CONPLAN 3502, in 2007. The classified plan, hundreds of pages long, describes a broad set of tasks where military forces could be called to assist civil authorities in response to civil disturbances. These include "riots, acts of violence, insurrections, unlawful obstructions or assemblages, group acts of violence, and disorders prejudicial to public law and order," according to one study. Though the plan includes a broad listing of conditions where federal forces might be used, it also assumes a single location or region, and it posits a maximum force—the "Level 3" force—of an Army Corps of some 20,000-36,000 personnel.

"NORTHCOM was specifically directed to be ready to respond to 'requests for assistance' from states and local authorities in June 2018," the senior planner says, "but none of the contingency planning mention a pandemic of this size or ever anticipated that a nationwide deployment might occur."

What would trigger the use of force in "civil disturbance operations" derives mostly from the experience of Hurricane Katrina. During the response in New Orleans, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco refused Bush administration insistence that she accede to federalizing her Guard forces, fearing that she would lose control. Though President George W. Bush could have invoked the law to force federalization and authorize Army troops to enforce the law given the nature of the emergency, the White House backed down, deploying forces but not with any police powers.

The use of federal military forces in the enforcement of the law—as a posse comitatus or a group summoned by the local sheriff—has long been prohibited unless it is otherwise authorized by specific laws passed by Congress. In CONPLAN 3502, there are references to three exceptions: the use of the military in the war on drugs; in "extraordinary circumstances" involving weapons of mass destruction; and a third, in the Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order Act, also confusingly known as The Insurrection Act. According to NORTHCOM, federal troops could be used to enforce the law in cases when "rebellion against the authority of the U.S. makes it impracticable to enforce the laws of the U.S. by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings".

Under the Insurrection Act, CONPLAN 3502 says, if violence cannot be brought under control by state and local law enforcement agencies and the State National Guard, the president may use the National Guard (called into federal service), the reserves (when called to active duty), and members of the Armed Forces to enforce federal laws or to suppress an insurrection.

The president may use the Armed Forces or the federalized National Guard, the plan says, to make arrests, conduct searches and perform other traditional law enforcement functions if needed to suppress any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy. The conditions are not unlimited, as even there, under the Insurrection act, the use of federal military forces is supposed to be justified only if civil violence or disruption "so hinders the execution of State and Federal law that people are deprived of their rights secured by the Constitution and laws."

These conditions—the enforcement of federal law—don't apply to the current situation, the senior planner says. The president can determine that the situation exceeds either the capabilities "or willingness" of local authorities to restore law and order, he says, but the very language, the inclusion of the "willingness" clause, shows how much the contingency planning is still written for yesterday's crises and not applicable to coronavirus. Willingness was included, the planner says, because of the legacy of troops being used in enforcement of civil rights, the imposition of federal forces often at odds with the wishes of state and local officials.
[ . . . ]
CONPLAN 3502 was modified in 2009 to reflect the original language of the Insurrection Act, adding instead provisions for use of federal forces to enforce the law in response to public health emergencies, but at the same time placing more onus on local commanders.

If federal forces are called upon to enforce the law, the senior planner says, a lot more responsibility will be put on the shoulders of low level commanders on the scene. As it stands today, if they face a breakdown of civil authority or outright violence against themselves, CONPLAN 3502 isn't much help.

"The commander's decision to take action must always be based on necessity rather than convenience to either the military commander or civil authorities," Army doctrine written last July states. The doctrine says that under "rare circumstances, a commander may take prompt action, including direct law enforcement duties, as the circumstances reasonably justify."

Another Pentagon directive issued in February 2019 instructs commanders "to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances" even if they have no prior authorization to do so. Commanders can enforce the law, the directive says, when "necessary to prevent significant loss of life or wanton destruction of property [and] to restore ... public order."

And still another Pentagon directive, issued a month later in March 2019 and dealing with public health emergencies, authorizes military commanders to impose "quarantine, isolation, and conditional release" and says those who violate such orders may face fines or imprisonment. "Those individuals or groups not subject to military law and who refuse to obey or otherwise violate an order issued in accordance with this issuance may be detained by the military commander until appropriate civil authorities can respond," the directive says.