Showing posts with label Law enforcement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Law enforcement. Show all posts
Sunday, 29 April 2018
Friday, 26 January 2018
ICE is about to start tracking license plates across the US
The Verge
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has officially gained agency-wide access to a nationwide license plate recognition database, according to a contract finalized earlier this month. The system gives the agency access to billions of license plate records and new powers of real-time location tracking, raising significant concerns from civil libertarians.
The source of the data is not named in the contract, but an ICE representative said the data came from Vigilant Solutions, the leading network for license plate recognition data. “Like most other law enforcement agencies, ICE uses information obtained from license plate readers as one tool in support of its investigations,” spokesperson Dani Bennett said in a statement. “ICE is not seeking to build a license plate reader database, and will not collect nor contribute any data to a national public or private database through this contract.” (Vigilant did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
While it collects few photos itself, Vigilant Solutions has amassed a database of more than 2 billion license plate photos by ingesting data from partners like vehicle repossession agencies and other private groups. Vigilant also partners with local law enforcement agencies, often collecting even more data from camera-equipped police cars. The result is a massive vehicle-tracking network generating as many as 100 million sightings per month, each tagged with a date, time, and GPS coordinates of the sighting.
ICE agents would be able to query that database in two ways. A historical search would turn up every place a given license plate has been spotted in the last five years, a detailed record of the target’s movements. That data could be used to find a given subject’s residence or even identify associates if a given car is regularly spotted in a specific parking lot.
Read More
Monday, 9 November 2015
Broken system lets problem officers jump from job to job
The Chicago Tribune
A yearlong Associated Press investigation into sex abuse by cops, jail guards, deputies and other state law enforcement officials uncovered a broken system for policing bad officers, with significant flaws in how agencies deal with those suspected of sexual misconduct and glaring warning signs that go unreported or get overlooked.
The AP examination found about 1,000 officers in six years who lost their licenses because of sex crimes that included rape, or sexual misconduct ranging from propositioning citizens to consensual but prohibited on-duty intercourse. That number fails to reflect the breadth of the problem, however, because it measures only officers who faced an official process called decertification and not all states have such a system or provided records.
In states that do revoke law enforcement licenses, the process can take years, enabling problem officers to find other jobs. And while there is a national index of decertified officers [containing] the names of nearly 20,000 officers who have lost their licenses for problems that include sex abuse ... contributing is voluntary, and only 39 states do so.
Michael Ragusa - now serving a 10-year prison sentence after being convicted of sexually assaulting three women - admitted during the hiring process with the Miami Police Department that he'd solicited a prostitute, committed theft, sold stolen property and abused a relative. The investigator in charge of his background check had himself been disciplined 26 times and was once arrested for falsifying documents.
Read more
A yearlong Associated Press investigation into sex abuse by cops, jail guards, deputies and other state law enforcement officials uncovered a broken system for policing bad officers, with significant flaws in how agencies deal with those suspected of sexual misconduct and glaring warning signs that go unreported or get overlooked.
The AP examination found about 1,000 officers in six years who lost their licenses because of sex crimes that included rape, or sexual misconduct ranging from propositioning citizens to consensual but prohibited on-duty intercourse. That number fails to reflect the breadth of the problem, however, because it measures only officers who faced an official process called decertification and not all states have such a system or provided records.
In states that do revoke law enforcement licenses, the process can take years, enabling problem officers to find other jobs. And while there is a national index of decertified officers [containing] the names of nearly 20,000 officers who have lost their licenses for problems that include sex abuse ... contributing is voluntary, and only 39 states do so.
Michael Ragusa - now serving a 10-year prison sentence after being convicted of sexually assaulting three women - admitted during the hiring process with the Miami Police Department that he'd solicited a prostitute, committed theft, sold stolen property and abused a relative. The investigator in charge of his background check had himself been disciplined 26 times and was once arrested for falsifying documents.
Read more
Thursday, 5 November 2015
Obama Federalizes Police Forces in Six US Cities
TPNN
In his most recent attempt to centralize the federal government’s grip on America, Obama has launched his “21st Century Policing” pilot program, COPS, in six cities across the country. [adsenseyu2]
“Obamalaw,” is yet another overreach of Constitutional authority to fundamentally transform the nation, this time by taking away local police enforcement rights and putting new rules and regulations in place as dictated by the President and Eric Holder’s Justice Department. Born out of the perception that racism is rampant amongst city law enforcement agencies, this new plan is intended to address the issue by trampling on local rights.
Obama is using the same tactic he has used in nationalizing other sectors; expanding progressive control by attaching more conditions to federal funding of state and local law-enforcement efforts.
“We can expand the COPS program… to see if we can get more incentives for local communities to apply some of the best practices and lessons that are embodied in this report,” he said.
The consequences of implementing these “best practices” will likely lead to rules that restrict police investigations of groups that are part of the Democratic coalition, and rules that try to level convictions and penalties among various sub-groups of the United Stats, regardless of actual conviction rates. Police interactions with blacks, the LGBTQ population, Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities, and immigrant or non-English speaking groups are included in the report, along with drug addicts.
It also calls for the government to collect more data about state and local policing. That data will help federal officials impose new rules.
“State and local policing may need to be subordinated to federal social policy,” Obama suggested.
The Ferguson DOJ report presented the perfect opportunity to make sure “a serious crisis” did not go to waste. With the trumped up report and media talking points, the Administration has fabricated a weak and false narrative of rampant racism in order to create a premise upon which to insert the camel’s nose under the tent.
The Administration has carefully chosen six “pilot” cities in dire need of cash with mayors and police chiefs willing to sell their city’s local rule in exchange for short-term financial gains. All but one, Fort Worth, are majority Democrat-run cities. All have high black, Latino, or Muslim populations, amongst which an open door policy encouraging claims of discrimination will be greeted with much enthusiasm.
“Obamalaw,” is yet another overreach of Constitutional authority to fundamentally transform the nation, this time by taking away local police enforcement rights and putting new rules and regulations in place as dictated by the President and Eric Holder’s Justice Department. Born out of the perception that racism is rampant amongst city law enforcement agencies, this new plan is intended to address the issue by trampling on local rights.
Obama is using the same tactic he has used in nationalizing other sectors; expanding progressive control by attaching more conditions to federal funding of state and local law-enforcement efforts.
“We can expand the COPS program… to see if we can get more incentives for local communities to apply some of the best practices and lessons that are embodied in this report,” he said.
The consequences of implementing these “best practices” will likely lead to rules that restrict police investigations of groups that are part of the Democratic coalition, and rules that try to level convictions and penalties among various sub-groups of the United Stats, regardless of actual conviction rates. Police interactions with blacks, the LGBTQ population, Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities, and immigrant or non-English speaking groups are included in the report, along with drug addicts.
It also calls for the government to collect more data about state and local policing. That data will help federal officials impose new rules.
“State and local policing may need to be subordinated to federal social policy,” Obama suggested.
The Ferguson DOJ report presented the perfect opportunity to make sure “a serious crisis” did not go to waste. With the trumped up report and media talking points, the Administration has fabricated a weak and false narrative of rampant racism in order to create a premise upon which to insert the camel’s nose under the tent.
The Administration has carefully chosen six “pilot” cities in dire need of cash with mayors and police chiefs willing to sell their city’s local rule in exchange for short-term financial gains. All but one, Fort Worth, are majority Democrat-run cities. All have high black, Latino, or Muslim populations, amongst which an open door policy encouraging claims of discrimination will be greeted with much enthusiasm.
Read More
Monday, 12 October 2015
How do you prepare a child for life in the American police state?
John W. Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute
In an age dominated with news of school shootings, school lockdowns,
police shootings of unarmed citizens (including children), SWAT team
raids gone awry (leaving children devastated and damaged), reports of
school resource officers tasering and shackling unruly students, and
public schools undergoing lockdowns and active drills, I find myself
wrestling with the question: how do you prepare a child for life in the
American police state?
Every parent lives with a fear of the dangers that prey on young children: the predators who lurk at bus stops and playgrounds, the traffickers who make a living by selling young bodies, the peddlers who push drugs that ensnare and addict, the gangs that deal in violence and bullets, the drunk drivers, the school bullies, the madmen with guns, the diseases that can end a life before it's truly begun, the cynicism of a modern age that can tarnish innocence, and the greed of a corporate age that makes its living by trading on young consumers.
It's difficult enough raising a child in a world ravaged by war, disease, poverty and hate, but when you add the police state into the mix—with its battlefield mindset, weaponry, rigidity, surveillance, fascism, indoctrination, violence, etc.—it becomes near impossible to guard against the toxic stress of police shootings, SWAT team raids, students being tasered and shackled, lockdown drills, and a growing unease that some of the monsters of our age come dressed in government uniforms.
Children are taught from an early age that there are consequences for their actions. Hurt somebody, lie, steal, cheat, etc., and you will get punished. But how do you explain to a child that a police officer can shoot someone who was doing nothing wrong and get away with it? That a cop can lie, steal, cheat, or kill and still not be punished?
Read more
The Rutherford Institute
"Fear isn't so difficult to understand. After all, weren't we all
frightened as children? Nothing has changed since Little Red Riding Hood
faced the big bad wolf. What frightens us today is exactly the same
sort of thing that frightened us yesterday. It's just a different wolf."
― Alfred Hitchcock
Every parent lives with a fear of the dangers that prey on young children: the predators who lurk at bus stops and playgrounds, the traffickers who make a living by selling young bodies, the peddlers who push drugs that ensnare and addict, the gangs that deal in violence and bullets, the drunk drivers, the school bullies, the madmen with guns, the diseases that can end a life before it's truly begun, the cynicism of a modern age that can tarnish innocence, and the greed of a corporate age that makes its living by trading on young consumers.
It's difficult enough raising a child in a world ravaged by war, disease, poverty and hate, but when you add the police state into the mix—with its battlefield mindset, weaponry, rigidity, surveillance, fascism, indoctrination, violence, etc.—it becomes near impossible to guard against the toxic stress of police shootings, SWAT team raids, students being tasered and shackled, lockdown drills, and a growing unease that some of the monsters of our age come dressed in government uniforms.
Children are taught from an early age that there are consequences for their actions. Hurt somebody, lie, steal, cheat, etc., and you will get punished. But how do you explain to a child that a police officer can shoot someone who was doing nothing wrong and get away with it? That a cop can lie, steal, cheat, or kill and still not be punished?
Read more
Wednesday, 19 February 2014
Feds want to track your DNA like a license plate
The federal government doesn’t just want the ability to track down your car; it wants to be able to track down your body as well.
Just as details are emerging about a controversial, nationwide vehicle-surveillance database, WND has learned the federal government is planning an even more invasive spy program using “physiological signatures” to track down individuals.
The goal of this research is to detect – as well as analyze and categorize – unique traits the government can exploit to “identify, locate and track specific individuals or groups of people.”
According to the program’s statement of objectives, “The scope of human-centered [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or ISR] research spans the complete range of human performance starting at the individual molecular, cellular, genomic level.”
Documents WND located through routine database research reveal the ability to follow people by detecting “certain characteristics of operational interest” is designed for U.S. military and intelligence-gathering superiority.
It remains unknown when such capabilities might transition to the realm of domestic counterterrorism or law enforcement operations; however, the feds – through the Air Force Research Lab, or AFRL – are recruiting private-sector assistance in order to make this “biosignature” spying a reality.
Existing ISR systems are “ideal for identifying and tracking entities such as aircraft and vehicles, but are less capable of identifying and tracking the human,” the lab says in a planning document known as a Broad Agency Announcement, or BAA.
The Human-Centered ISR Leveraged Science & Technology Program will seek to develop, with outside help, technologies that the government can use “to identify, locate and track humans of interest within the operational environment,” according to solicitation No. BAA-HPW-RHX-2014-0001.
Research specific to fusing and analyzing sensor data has undergone consistent growth, but such efforts have been “system-centric” and fail to “adequately address the human element.”
This new research scheme seeks to strengthen the ability of intelligence analysts by placing the human component at the forefront of their efforts.
AFRL’s research could have implications for a variety of domains, such as air, space and cyberspace, it says. The program’s outcome also will broadly apply to other U.S. Department of Defense organizations and the intelligence community.
A second component of the AFRL initiative is the Human Trust and Interaction Program, which will conduct research into human-to-human and human-to-machine interactions.
This program segment entails several sub-areas, including Trust and Suspicion, which will focus on “the recognition of suspicious activities in the cyberspace realm.”
This segment will examine open-source data such as social media. It also will continue to leverage “more traditional intelligence sources.”
AFRL says it anticipates awarding three or four initial contracts for the overall initiative, which has an estimated program value of about $50 million.
The goal of this and other AFLR programs typically start out as largely theoretical, similar to the approach taken by the more widely known Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which created ARPANET, the defense-system predecessor to the Internet.
The Department of Homeland Security, on the other hand, merely has to solicit bids from industry for a National License Plate Recognition, or NLPR, database system.
While DHS is soliciting this service specifically for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, functions, the breadth of this NLPR service encompasses the gathering of transportation-movement data from major metropolitan areas nationwide.
This database, which would be fed with information gleaned from multiple sources, would “track vehicle license plate numbers that pass through cameras or are voluntarily entered into the system,” according to the program solicitation.
The vehicle tracking-data then would be “uploaded to share with law enforcement.”
The database will be compatible with smart phone technology, enabling law enforcement offices to download thousands of listings – as well as close-up photos – of vehicle license plates.
Once DHS secures this service, the contractor must retain and make available data from previous months, as well as update the system with “new and unique” data monthly.
DHS anticipates awarding a one-year contract with four one-year options by May 14. It did not disclose the estimated cost.
Just as details are emerging about a controversial, nationwide vehicle-surveillance database, WND has learned the federal government is planning an even more invasive spy program using “physiological signatures” to track down individuals.
The goal of this research is to detect – as well as analyze and categorize – unique traits the government can exploit to “identify, locate and track specific individuals or groups of people.”
According to the program’s statement of objectives, “The scope of human-centered [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or ISR] research spans the complete range of human performance starting at the individual molecular, cellular, genomic level.”
Documents WND located through routine database research reveal the ability to follow people by detecting “certain characteristics of operational interest” is designed for U.S. military and intelligence-gathering superiority.
It remains unknown when such capabilities might transition to the realm of domestic counterterrorism or law enforcement operations; however, the feds – through the Air Force Research Lab, or AFRL – are recruiting private-sector assistance in order to make this “biosignature” spying a reality.
Existing ISR systems are “ideal for identifying and tracking entities such as aircraft and vehicles, but are less capable of identifying and tracking the human,” the lab says in a planning document known as a Broad Agency Announcement, or BAA.
The Human-Centered ISR Leveraged Science & Technology Program will seek to develop, with outside help, technologies that the government can use “to identify, locate and track humans of interest within the operational environment,” according to solicitation No. BAA-HPW-RHX-2014-0001.
Research specific to fusing and analyzing sensor data has undergone consistent growth, but such efforts have been “system-centric” and fail to “adequately address the human element.”
This new research scheme seeks to strengthen the ability of intelligence analysts by placing the human component at the forefront of their efforts.
AFRL’s research could have implications for a variety of domains, such as air, space and cyberspace, it says. The program’s outcome also will broadly apply to other U.S. Department of Defense organizations and the intelligence community.
A second component of the AFRL initiative is the Human Trust and Interaction Program, which will conduct research into human-to-human and human-to-machine interactions.
This program segment entails several sub-areas, including Trust and Suspicion, which will focus on “the recognition of suspicious activities in the cyberspace realm.”
This segment will examine open-source data such as social media. It also will continue to leverage “more traditional intelligence sources.”
AFRL says it anticipates awarding three or four initial contracts for the overall initiative, which has an estimated program value of about $50 million.
The goal of this and other AFLR programs typically start out as largely theoretical, similar to the approach taken by the more widely known Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which created ARPANET, the defense-system predecessor to the Internet.
The Department of Homeland Security, on the other hand, merely has to solicit bids from industry for a National License Plate Recognition, or NLPR, database system.
While DHS is soliciting this service specifically for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, functions, the breadth of this NLPR service encompasses the gathering of transportation-movement data from major metropolitan areas nationwide.
This database, which would be fed with information gleaned from multiple sources, would “track vehicle license plate numbers that pass through cameras or are voluntarily entered into the system,” according to the program solicitation.
The vehicle tracking-data then would be “uploaded to share with law enforcement.”
The database will be compatible with smart phone technology, enabling law enforcement offices to download thousands of listings – as well as close-up photos – of vehicle license plates.
Once DHS secures this service, the contractor must retain and make available data from previous months, as well as update the system with “new and unique” data monthly.
DHS anticipates awarding a one-year contract with four one-year options by May 14. It did not disclose the estimated cost.
Thursday, 16 January 2014
The Police State in Review, 2013
Comment: I re-published this post on the round up of 2013 news from Police State USA I'm doing this again due to some mainstream journalist colleagues who still trot out the "conspiracy theory" smirk when one has the temerity to raise the subject of a soft dictatorship currently emerging in America. It really is about time people woke up to this issue which is way beyond the pantomime of left-right politics and post modern critique. it is happening and rapidly.
----------------------
Police State USA
While some “journalists” would have you believe the biggest stories of 2013 were about twerking celebrities and over-hyped real-life courtroom sagas, much bigger events were happening with far more lasting national significance. The foundation of an American police state is already laid and making its existence known, while most of the country remains blissfully focused on sports, reality shows, establishment pseudo-news, and other distractions.
It would require an encyclopedia to cover all of the injustices, scandals, and brutality that took place in 2013. This list is designed to illustrate certain trends and significant stories from the past year. If Americans don’t fix their apathy and disengagement toward causes that matter, we can expect these trends to continue toward their logical conclusions: an increasingly repressive police state dominating the lives people inside these borders and beyond.
Checkpoints, Warrantless Searches Become a Way of Life
The state of the 4th amendment is in truly bad shape, given the
prevalence of warrantless checkpoints and warrantless bag searches being
used all around the country for various reasons. No longer restricted
to airport terminals, the unconstitutional tactics are now being used in
subways, bus stations, on bridges, at parades, and anywhere else the
government can get away with them. This is facilitated by the palpable
fear of terrorism and with financial incentives from the federal
government.
In what was dubbed “Operation Independence,” the federal government along with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department staged a high-visibility terror drill in the LA subway this July. Deputies dressed in paramilitary garb teamed up with agents from the TSA and DHS to require travelers to open up their bags and prove their innocence before being allowed to commute. These tactics have sadly become commonplace in many major cities.
Security measures at major events have gotten increasingly invasive. At the annual ‘Mackinac Bridge Walk’ in St. Ignace, Michigan, up to 40,000 walkers were subjected to warrantless bag searches in the interest of event security. In Chicago, warrantless bag searches were performed on public sidewalks during a celebratory parade for the Blackhawks’ hockey championship, and were again performed along the 26-mile track of the Chicago Marathon. A famous parade in Pasadena, California, is used as an excuse to search the interiors of hundreds of vehicles who wish to park on public streets.
The “stop and frisk” phenomenon was alive and well in 2013. The appalling practice involves police stopping pedestrians, usually pushing them up against a wall and then patting them down, searching their pockets, and opening up their purses and bags. The practice has been notorious in New York City, which not only has aggressive enforcement on the streets but also allows cops to roam around inside private apartment buildings and search tenants. Stop and frisk is also work in Philadelphia, Detroit, northwest Indiana, and other areas.
Read more
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Police State USA
While some “journalists” would have you believe the biggest stories of 2013 were about twerking celebrities and over-hyped real-life courtroom sagas, much bigger events were happening with far more lasting national significance. The foundation of an American police state is already laid and making its existence known, while most of the country remains blissfully focused on sports, reality shows, establishment pseudo-news, and other distractions.
It would require an encyclopedia to cover all of the injustices, scandals, and brutality that took place in 2013. This list is designed to illustrate certain trends and significant stories from the past year. If Americans don’t fix their apathy and disengagement toward causes that matter, we can expect these trends to continue toward their logical conclusions: an increasingly repressive police state dominating the lives people inside these borders and beyond.
Checkpoints, Warrantless Searches Become a Way of Life
(Source: AP/The Sacramento Bee, Randall Benton)
In what was dubbed “Operation Independence,” the federal government along with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department staged a high-visibility terror drill in the LA subway this July. Deputies dressed in paramilitary garb teamed up with agents from the TSA and DHS to require travelers to open up their bags and prove their innocence before being allowed to commute. These tactics have sadly become commonplace in many major cities.
Security measures at major events have gotten increasingly invasive. At the annual ‘Mackinac Bridge Walk’ in St. Ignace, Michigan, up to 40,000 walkers were subjected to warrantless bag searches in the interest of event security. In Chicago, warrantless bag searches were performed on public sidewalks during a celebratory parade for the Blackhawks’ hockey championship, and were again performed along the 26-mile track of the Chicago Marathon. A famous parade in Pasadena, California, is used as an excuse to search the interiors of hundreds of vehicles who wish to park on public streets.
The “stop and frisk” phenomenon was alive and well in 2013. The appalling practice involves police stopping pedestrians, usually pushing them up against a wall and then patting them down, searching their pockets, and opening up their purses and bags. The practice has been notorious in New York City, which not only has aggressive enforcement on the streets but also allows cops to roam around inside private apartment buildings and search tenants. Stop and frisk is also work in Philadelphia, Detroit, northwest Indiana, and other areas.
Read more
Thursday, 20 October 2011
A French Court Has Ordered Internet Service Providers to Block Access to Any Website That “Allow[s] Civilians to Post Videos of Alleged Police Misconduct”
University of Pittsburgh School of Law
[JURIST] The Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris [official website, in French] on Friday ordered
[judgment in PDF, in French] French Internet service providers to
block access to Copwatch Nord Paris I-D-F, a website designed to allow
civilians to post videos of alleged police misconduct. The decision was
applauded by the police union, Alliance Police Nationale
(APN) [union website, in French], which argued that the website
incited violence against police. Jean-Claude Delage, secretary general
of the APN, said that "[t]he judges have analyzed the situation
perfectly—this site being a threat to the integrity of the police — and
made the right decision." Opponents of Internet censorship were also
quick to comment on the judgment. Jeremie Zimmermann, spokesman for La Quadrature du Net
[advocacy website], a Paris-based net neutrality organization, called
the order "an obvious will by the French government to control and
censor citizens' new online public sphere." The site was ordered to be
blocked immediately.
|
France does not have an equivalent to the US First Amendment [text], which prohibits the government from making any law "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." In August, the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit [official website] ruled that there is a clearly-established First Amendment right [JURIST report] to film police officers performing their duties in a public space. The Center for Constitutional Rights [advocacy website] filed an amicus brief
[PDF] in the case arguing that concerned individuals and cop-watch
groups have a right to record the activity of police in the public. The
case stems from a 2007 incident when police officers arrested Simon
Gilk after he openly recorded three police officers arresting a suspect
on the Boston Common.
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
Why Do the Police Have Tanks? The Strange and Dangerous Militarization of the US Police Force
alternet.org
The federal government has supplied local police departments with military uniforms, weaponry, vehicles, and training.
Just after midnight on May 16, 2010, a SWAT team threw a flash-bang grenade through the window of a 25-year-old man while his 7-year-old daughter slept on the couch as her grandmother watched television. The grenade landed so close to the child that it burned her blanket. The SWAT team leader then burst into the house and fired a single shot which struck the child in the throat, killing her. The police were there to apprehend a man suspected of murdering a teenage boy days earlier. The man they were after lived in the unit above the girl's family.
The shooting death of Aiyana Mo'Nay Stanley-Jones sounds like it happened in a war zone. But the tragic SWAT team raid took place in Detroit.
Shockingly, paramilitary raids that mirror the tactics of US soldiers in combat are not uncommon in America. According to an investigation carried out by the Huffington Post's Radley Balko, America has seen a disturbing militarization of its civilian law enforcement over the last 30 years, along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary police units for routine police work. In fact, the most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home.
Some 40,000 of these raids take place every year, and are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they’re sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. And as demonstrated by the case of Aiyana Mo'nay Stanley-Jones, these raids have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and injuries.
How did we allow our law enforcement apparatus to descend into militaristic chaos?
Traditionally, the role of civilian police has been to maintain the peace and safety of the community while upholding the civil liberties of residents in their respective jurisdiction. In stark contrast, the military soldier is an agent of war, trained to kill the enemy.
Clearly, the mission of the police officer is incompatible with that of a soldier, so why is it that local police departments are looking more and more like paramilitary units in a combat zone? The line between military and civilian law enforcement has been drawn for good reason, but following the drug war and more recently, the war on terror, that line is inconspicuously eroding, a trend that appears to be worsening by the decade.
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 is a civil war-era law that prohibits the use of the military for civilian policing. For a long time, Posse Comitatus was considered the law of the land, forcing militarization advocates to come up with creative ways to get around it. In addition to assigning various law enforcement duties to the military, such as immigration control, over the years Congress has instituted policies that encourage law enforcement to emulate combat soldiers. Hence, the establishment of the SWAT team in the 1960s.
Originally called the Special Weapons Attack Team, the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) units were inspired by an incident in 1966, when an armed man climbed to the top of the 32-story clock tower at the University of Texas in Austin and fired randomly for 90 minutes, shooting 46 people and killing 15, until two police officers got to the top of the tower and killed him. This episode is said to have “shattered the last myth of safety Americans enjoyed [and] was the final impetus the chiefs of police needed” to form their own SWAT teams. Soon after, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) formed the country's first SWAT team, which acquired national prestige when used against the Black Panthers in 1969. [...]
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