Can Presidents Act Alone In Deploying the Military? Many legal experts have agreed that the Insurrection Act does empower U.S. presidents to bypass Congress in deploying the regular military on American soil to intervene in cases of civil disobedience. For example, Harvard University law professor Noah Feldman has stated that the "broad language" of the Insurrection Act allows the use of the military when necessary to prevent acts "obstructing the execution of federal law to the extent that local police and the National Guard can't successfully stop violence on the streets," such as rioting and looting.