Let us define the Militia as all citizens between the ages of 17 and 55. In other words 'The Citizenry'.
Let us organize every neighborhood so that they would be responsible for the civil defense of said neighborhood. This would mainly involve patrolling that neighborhood and watching out for suspicious activity. After all, who would know better what is suspicious or not than those who live in that neighborhood.
The citizenry would have no arrest powers, only the power to possibly detain until authorities got there. This would deter vigilantism-.
This arrangement would free up valuable police and NG units to guard other sites of importance.
If EVERY neighborhood in the country organized in this manner, the terrorists would have an awful difficult time finding a place to base and finding targets of opportunity. Every time they turned around, there would be the nosey citizenry on patrol.
This would go a ways in deterring a police state in that the whole of the citizenry would be involved and not just the police and the NG.
My question is, would you rather have the citizenry on patrol, or would you rather have Tom Ridge's boys kicking in doors at their whim?
Flame Away.