In a January 2017 report Cato Institute criminal justice policy analyst Adam Bates argues that in the United States , " an increasingly militarized domestic police force " is characterized by " mission creep that has not been limited to weapons and tactics . What the War on Drugs has done for police militarization , the War on Terror is now doing for police intelligence gathering , and the privacy of millions of Americans is at risk . " The American Civil Liberties Union has raised concerns about military involvement in surveillance of peaceful protesters . The ACLU pointed , for example , to U.S. Department of Defense ( DOD ) issuance of Threat and Local Observation Notices ( TALON ) depicting Veterans for Peace and other anti-war groups as " terrorist threats . " The ACLU also raised concerns about military involvement in " fusion centers . " The federal Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 forbids the U.S. military from conducting domestic law enforcement activities , embodying " the traditional American principle of separating civilian and military authority . " There have been exceptions made , however : in 1981 , Congress enacted legislation allowing military involvement in drug interdiction at U.S. borders , and eight years later " designated the Department of Defense as the ' single lead agency ' in drug interdiction efforts . " In the late 1990s , following the Oklahoma City bombing , there were proposals to further limit the act to allow military participation in law enforcement activities in chemical/biological weapon and terrorism cases . These anti-terrorism proposals were criticized by some commentators on the basis that they were a threat to civil liberties . Writers such as U.S. Air Force officer Charles J. Dunlap , Jr. critiqued proposals to use the military for internal security , on the basis that " No one should suffer the illusion that military forces could ever execute the laws with the same sensitivity to civil liberties as regular police forces . " Dunlap argued that " the central imperatives of military service " was " destroying targets and undermining enemy command and control " &mdash; a skill that did not necessary carry over into intelligence-gathering and investigation . Under this view , " a successful policization of the armed forces may well render it incapable of defeating authentic external military threats . " The accelerating militarization of regular law enforcement during the War on Drugs and post-September 11 War on Terror , however , prompted some commentators to express alarm at the blurring of the distinction between civil and military functions , and the potential to erode constraints on governmental power in times of perceived crisis . A 2010 paper published in the journal '' Armed Forces & Society '' examined " role convergence , that is , evidence that significant segments of police operations in the United States have taken on military characteristics ; and evidence indicating that many U.S. military initiatives have taken on policing characteristics . " It concluded that " for individual citizens and for society as a whole , at least one aspect of role convergence — the militarization of the police — is potentially troublesome . If this convergence results in the police adopting not only military-type tactics and procedures but also military attitudes and orientations , the convergence may seriously threaten traditional civil rights and liberties . " A 2014 report by the American Civil Liberties Union , '' War Comes Home : The Excessive Militarization of American Policing '' , concluded that " American policing has become unnecessarily and dangerously militarized ... , " citing an increase in the use in unnecessarily aggressive SWAT raids , " tactics designed for the battlefield " ; and military equipment such as armored personnel carriers , flashbang grenades , and battering rams , as well as a lack of transparency and oversight . Writers such as Ilya Shapiro and Randal John Meyer have argued that militarization leads to " extreme constitutional violations . " Peter Kraska , a criminal justice professor at Eastern Kentucky University , found that the prevalence of SWAT teams , among police agencies serving populations of at least 50,000 people , doubled from the mid-1980s to the late-1990s , rising to 89 % of police agencies by the end of this time period . Among smaller police agencies ( covering areas with between 25,000 and 50,000 people ) , the proportion with SWAT teams rose from 20 % in the mid-198-s to 80 % in the mid-2000s . Kraska states that : " When people refer to the militarization of police , it 's not in a pejorative or judgmental sense.Contemporary police agencies have moved significantly along a continuum culturally , materially , operationally , while using a Navy SEALs model . All of those are clear indications that they 're moving away from a civilian model of policing . " A 2014 ACLU report , '' War Comes Home : The Excessive Militarization of American Policing '' , concluded that " American policing has become unnecessarily and dangerously militarized ... " The report examined 818 uses of SWAT teams by more than 20 law enforcement agencies in 11 U.S. states from the period of July 2010 to October 2013 . Military-style tactics used by such teams include nighttime raids , use of battering rams , use of flashbangs , overwhelming displays of force , and the wearing of helmets and masks
Oklahoma City bombing
Oklahoma City bombing
Militarization of police