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The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, as amended, provides that "Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or an Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, or the Space Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

No one has ever been prosecuted under the act, and it has rarely been the subject of comment by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Brennan Center for Justice, a non-partisan, but decidedly liberal law and policy center, noted that the law has "ignominious origins" in the collapse of Reconstruction.

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