Monday, December 31, 2007
Police State
Post contents to be reposted.
Comments
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Hi Connie,
I suggest you take a quick look into the history and judicial authority of the US Marshal’s Service. I think you’ll find all the necessary “infrastructure” (mostly legal precedent these days other than the Warrent Service guys) to have done what you suggest in a lawful and aboveboard fashion. Some (re)assembly required, of course.
Basically, the minimum necessary personel and funding is already in place; it remains but to transfer both from it’s present allocation to the Marshal’s Service, which is a political question.
If you leave the FBI as essentially the US CSI and domestic intelligence collector, and the Secret Service in it’s currency (and other) protection role, pretty much everybody else either becomes a US Marshal (or derivative), or leaves the government payrolls.
The FBI becomes much more available (and is funded to be so) to State and Local coppers’s criminal investigations, the Secret Service continues on as is, and all federal criminal arrests, etc are made by Deputy Marshals. Every other federal LEO goes away. The desired result is that “United States Marshal” takes on the same connotation and reputation in domestic law enforcement as does “United States Marine” in US foreign affairs.
There exists the possibility that we as a country might actually save some money and have a clearer grasp on holding our public officials accountable as a result, so I don’t expect anything like the above to actually happen you understand.
Will Brown | 12/31/2007 01:10 PM CDT -
Snip. Removed you from my bookmarks.
Anon | 12/31/2007 01:46 PM CDT -
Ohhh Kayyyy.
So an anonymous person, for undisclosed reasons, got so incensed by this post that they’ve declared they aren’t going to come here anymore.
Could they have been upset because I said that the KKK was a terrorist/para-military organization? Because Martin Luther King, Jr. had communists around him? Because Islamic terrorists are enemy combatants? Because I watched TV last night? Because I believe that people who are charged with keeping us safe have a right for us to keep them safe in the job we’ve assigned them to do?
All would be guesses so I’ll do exactly what I can with that information… Nothing!
Mrs. du Toit | 12/31/2007 02:02 PM CDT -
I would suspect the anonymous person was of the “Liberty at any price” mindset.
Alcibiades | 12/31/2007 03:31 PM CDT -
I can walk into any store on the surface of the planet; and find the one item whose barcode will not scan. It is my superpower. I am ‘No scan man!” Apparently, you, My gentle Hostess, have the superpower of finding everyone’s buttons, and (as they say south of the mason dixon line) Mashing them. I cannot wait to see who takes offense at you next.
Me, my sacred cows have all been slaughtered. Having chops tonight, as a matter of fact.
og | 12/31/2007 04:30 PM CDT -
I can walk into any store on the surface of the planet; and find the one item whose barcode will not scan.
Are YOU the joker who was holding up the line?
Rick C | 12/31/2007 04:55 PM CDT -
It is ok, Imaginary Wife, I heard Anonymous wore a straw baseball cap, indoors, while talking to a priest at Christmas Mass.
That bastard....
MunDane | 12/31/2007 10:12 PM CDT -
An anon snip...how courageous...how breathtaking...how sooooo 20th century!
Had heard about the FBI and the KKK didn’t know that was part in parcel “Mississippi Burning. Did, however, know they had been looking into MLK.
Your very valid, and thank you for saying it, point about us being not only at war, but
is spot on!!Unlawful combatants, those engaging in war without uniforms, are not (and have never been) afforded Geneva Convention protections.
Like it or not those who profess to follow Islam in this country are going to (have to) be monitored. If they come up smelling like a rose, then leave em alone. If nothing else we should have learned this from the internment practices used on the Sino-American population during the war years. As for those who may be found to have ties (or worse) toss em outta here (or worse, depending on the circumstances). You hit this one out of the park Mrs. Imaginary Wife ™ .
Guy | 1/1/2008 03:08 AM CDT -
We should be able to issue “shoot on sight†orders so that we all know what’s going on, and we can sleep peacefully in our beds with a clear conscience, that organizations that exist to overthrow our system of government cannot be allowed to exist at all… and shoot them dead like the animals that they are.
The very real danger is the ability of the government to decide that a particular self identifying group, such as the Nation of Rifleman for example, is a group dedicated to the overthrow of the government. I mean, anyone advocating support of the 2nd ammendment obviously thinks this yes?
All power given to the government is a two edged sword.
Unfortunately, I have no real solution.
pdwalker | 1/1/2008 03:37 AM CDT -
pdwalker
Made my point for me. I also worry about the slippery slope that the ‘shoot on site’ power gives the government, what if a wako in the right place decides that SUV drivers are a direct threat to the government due to our need for foreign oil? Would it be ok by that faulty logic to shoot SUV drivers? Too much power in the hands of the wrong people, namely the government. Look at what the ATF has done in the past 40 years, went from a good (sorta) agency that was enforcing the laws, to a power mad group that is attacking and killing people over 2 inches of steel, and a $3 piece of stamped metal, or a malfunctioning firearm. Do you really want to give that sort of people that massive amount of power?
I hope not.
dagamore | 1/1/2008 03:58 AM CDT -
Do we want to give our enemies that much power?
Mrs. du Toit | 1/1/2008 08:26 AM CDT -
The KKK that was started up in the between WW I and WW II was also a financial scam. It made its founder a nice piece of change for that time period.
These days I see it mirrored in the “Green” movement. You’ll have a front orgainization passing money and giving “protection” to an “action” arm, ELF,ALF and etc.toad | 1/1/2008 09:57 AM CDT -
Toad, you do know that the KKK was founded 50ish years before WW1 right? you know right after reconstruction and the ‘civil war’
see below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_KlanThe Klan’s first incarnation was in 1866. Founded by veterans of the Confederate Army, its main purpose was to resist Reconstruction, and it focused as much on intimidating “carpetbaggers” and “scalawags” as on putting down the freed slaves. The KKK quickly adopted violent methods. A rapid reaction set in, with the Klan’s leadership disowning violence and Southern elites seeing the Klan as an excuse for federal troops to continue their activities in the South. The organization was in decline from 1868 to 1870 and was destroyed in the early 1870s by President Ulysses S. Grant’s vigorous action under the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act).
or are you referring to the revival that it had in 1915 right after the movie ‘The Birth of a nation”.
both of them had the same ideas, and goals, so i would not count them as two different groups. Both groups just wanted to keep/put everyone but them down, and sit on the top of the heap.
dagamore | 1/1/2008 10:31 AM CDT -
J Edgar’s involvement with Martin Luther King, Jr. was tragic. Not only was it wrong (what Hoover sanctioned), but it discredited and tainted the agency’s good reputation (before that point). And that’s the danger, too. The government AND the innocent individuals are caught in the trap.
And it is also the reality.
We WANT people in those positions to protect us. We EXPECT them to do that.
How many people spewed green vomit when we didn’t know/capture the 9/11 terrorists BEFORE they did their evil deeds?
Ohh Kay. So, how do you want to FIX that?
Do you want the FBI, as they did in the case of the KKK, to infiltrate the group? To use informants to such a point that 1 out of 5 of their membership is a paid FBI informant? Do you want to stand by while those informants engage in entrapment to get the arrests/money that came when the members committed their crimes? Do you want to continue to treat these as criminal matters, when in the case of the KKK of the period, it was clearly an act of war against all of us?
They did do that and I’m not so naive as to think they aren’t forced to do exactly that sort of thing today, whether it is because of organized crime organizations or para military/terrorist groups. I don’t want to have to wait for a terrorist to commit a terrorist act before we arrest them. That’s the dividing line between criminal actions and acts of war. With war, which we have declared by the way, you do not have to wait until someone shoots before you can eliminate them as a threat.
Even with RICO to address the complex issue of organized crime groups, I still haven’t seen a general round up of anyone with a MU13 tattoo. Why? That’s EXACTLY what RICO was enabled to do, yet it is used for all sorts of specious/unintended reasons, while known associates of a criminal gang organization are left alone? Why isn’t every single person with an MU13 tattoo in jail? USE RICO FOR GAWDSAKES!
At what point does a criminal gang organization, such as MU13, become a terrorist organization? We know that Islamic terrorists are involved in drug trafficking as a method of funding, so drug trafficking itself isn’t a factor.
We KNOW that there are neighborhoods where bullets fly every night--where law-abiding people are afraid to come out of their homes, their children can’t walk to school safely, or do so without stepping over hookers/used condoms, or needles. Why do we allow that? When our cities look more like Beirut than Mayberry, maybe we’ve crossed a line from criminal activities to terrorism.
I am all too familiar with the slippery slope, but the slippery slope is only a fallacy (and dangerous) without just cause, and without a causal relationship. There is another kind of slippery slope, and that is the well-established causal link of criminal organizations who BECOME militarized when their power is not checked soon enough.
Mrs. du Toit | 1/1/2008 10:42 AM CDT -
Do we want to give our enemies that much power?
I’d rather the people have the power of self defense to protect themselves against enemies, whether it be external, internal or governmental.
The real question is, how do you give the government enough power to deal with the real enemies without having it turned against the people who gave it to them in the first place?
I concede your point that something should be done, especially against the terror groups that seek to undermine the foundations of our western society- but at what future cost?
It’s a tough problem that should give an conservative nightmares thinking about it?
pdwalker | 1/1/2008 10:43 AM CDT -
The real question is, how do you give the government enough power to deal with the real enemies without having it turned against the people who gave it to them in the first place?
Lawfully. Just as we have judges who must issue warrants, we have the Congress to which we can make the case that a group is a para military/terrorist one.
The reality is that the FBI did begin punishing ideas it thought dangerous (MLK), as opposed to actions that were clearly dangerous (the KKK). They ARE doing that today, unchecked, but with our full blessing and support… with demands (outcries!) that they prevent another terrorist attack here… we state quite plainly that it is a terrorist act we want them to prevent (to which war has been declared), but the FBI is not allowed to do that, yet we insist they do. FBI agents are forced then to engage in unlawful activities, without being able to review their actions by the approriate monitering body, because everything about it is already unlawful.
There is no agency in the U.S. that has been authorized to fight a war against terrorism on U.S. soil. All of their hands are tied and they are having to treat the WoT at home as a criminal matter, when that, too, is a violation of the law and contrary to what a formal declaration of war (against Islamic terrorists) is supposed to prevent. The military is not allowed to be involved in policing activites on U.S. soil and the FBI is not allowed to be engaged in military matters. But we are doing that, NOW!
We have, by our condoning the use of policing organizations to fight the WoT at home, created an unchecked police state, and have given them those powers… happily.
Do it, but don’t cross some imaginary line, because even doing it is already contra-Constitutional… so just don’t get caught or tell us about to the details, because it makes us squeamish and nervous.What I think we should do is stop that. We should give an agency of the government that power, with proper monitoring (such as a FISA type committee in Congress with judges present, too), where what they do is legal AND monitered by our Representatives, and stop lying to ourselves about it.
Mrs. du Toit | 1/1/2008 10:56 AM CDT -
Now I understand.
pdwalker | 1/1/2008 10:59 AM CDT -
I would add that any domestic intelligence agency should be legally quite restrained...probably to the point of having any information from them being inadmissable in court. Certainly inadmissable for anything other than certain specified charges.
It’s like the various anti-terror laws. Some of them were legitimate...but others were from long-standing FBI wish lists. And were promptly put to use not to pursue terrorists, but common criminals.
Mike of the Duelling Pistols | 1/1/2008 11:36 AM CDT -
Troublemaker that I am, I have just one question:
Where, in which category, would the Continental Congress have fit?
Larry Pogoler | 1/1/2008 07:09 PM CDT -
HA! Funny you should mention that. But you’ll have to wait until 6:00 am tomorrow for the answer.
Mrs. du Toit | 1/1/2008 08:13 PM CDT -
...the folks who are in camp #1 are idiots
Probably. I’d guess a lot of them hold the opinion that, since the terrorists of 9/11 weren’t wearing uniforms, they couldn’t be soldiers. That’s leaves “criminal” as the only category to which they might be assigned.
Semantic confusion.
Mark Hagerman | 1/2/2008 01:39 PM CDT -
Certainly some people might have had that semantic reason for the confusion, but after 7 years and having “unlawful combatant” explained to them?
No. They’re either thin-headed or playing us for fools.
Mrs. du Toit | 1/2/2008 01:44 PM CDT -
Quick question. Who were the Secaucus Seven? Google gives a bunch of links to a movie called the return of the secaucus seven and there were no results in wikipedia. I’m from Hoboken and I don’t know about the secaucus seven. Help me.
Shtetl G | 1/2/2008 04:28 PM CDT -
TS/IW
Well said. Those that have had to study military law have been aware of that for a long time. Of course that leaves out the “Left Dominated Media”, new name for MSM, and the majority of Congress. President Bush having been in the TANG understands it, just has trouble explaining it.
TravelerTraveler | 1/2/2008 08:01 PM CDT -
sorry to be late to the partty, but when I take a Christmas break, I really take a break!
I have only one real problem ... and it’s a historical issue. That would be that the FBI is not only run by people like Hoover, but consists of people. It ain’t all goodness and roses as portrayed on TV. How many times have we seen the FBI taken to task for instigating, rather than just infiltrating? How many times have we seen high-up agents convicted of protecting the bad guys because they were “sources”? We currently have a case of an Iranian woman who was employed by both the FBI AND CIA who seems to be an Al Quuada mole. This is the group that you want to give additional powers to? Considering how much is visible, it makes you (well, me anyway) wonder how much of the iceberg is underwater.
That said ... I do not consider foreign terrorists or any citizen or resident who aids them as deserving of ANY protection. I’m just wondering how we can trust the so-called Justice groups to do the job they’re charged with, instead of continuing to bumble as they have.
I don’t have problems with electronic eavesdropping and other intel operations ... I just wish our fifth colummnists—otherwise known as the MSM ... would quit announcing to the world all the successful ones. One hugely effective step in the war on terror would be to start trying these people for treason ...
pete in Midland | 1/3/2008 06:58 AM CDT -
No conclusions, just observations, on a difficult subject.
At the Ruby Ridge incident, a shoot on sight order was issued, against people who had committed no crime. The FBI sniper team leader commented “I’m a policeman, not an assasin”, packed up his team, and left. In a recreation the following day, it was found that, not only could the U.S. Marshal sniper see it was an unarmed woman he was shooting at (carrying a baby), he could read her watch.
The charge of selling a shotgun with an under length barrel was thrown out of court as entrapment (the agent had asked three times to get the defendant to saw off the extra two inches, and finally had to say “I won’t buy it if you don’t cut it").
The threat of prosecution was going to be used by the FBI to blackmail the man into infiltrating an Aryan Brotherhood organization nearby. Something that not only would have put his life at risk, but would have been a virtual death sentence for his wife and children.
The missing court appearence that “legitimised” the attack had actually been rescheduled to a date after the raid, and the shooting commenced when a frightened, poorly trained agent fired first from ambush, without identifying himself. His victim was a twelve year old boy.
The people victimized by the Federal Government had some harsh views about black Americans, but they were not confrontational, belonged to no groups, and wanted only to isolate themselves from a culture they saw as deteriorating. They were seen by federal law enforcement as disposable props to acieve a “score” against the Aryans.
I have three cousins on the New York City Police force, another cousin retired from the New York Fire department, and a son who is a narcotics detective in a major New England city.
I am not anti-cop. If I had gotten out of the Marines with all my physical parts still attached and functioning, I might well have gone into the family business and put on a blue suit myself.
But the incompetent thugs in the Marshal’s office and BATF aren’t policemen. They are trained from day one to a confrontational, paramilitary attitude that says “If my bosses send me after you, asshole, you’re mine”.
I think much, perhaps most, of this could be handled by local police with much greater sensibility and professionalism, with the threat of the black garbed ninja hitmen in the background as leverage.
It goes back to the Federal Government’s abuse of the 9th and 10th amendments over the last half century, which has already gone way to far. If the cost of remaining safe from these macho nutcases is the distastful sight of butt-headed crackers walking around in sheets, I’ll accept that.
Agents in the ranks of questionable organizations, certainly. Agents who report plans to threaten other human beings, of course.
But agents provocateurs, like the FBI agents in the KKK who incited criminal acts, driving the already unstable sheeters to criminal doings, no. And it’s already happened, has been a standard part of their repetoire for more than 40 years.
Snooping, preferably by local police, reporting to the Feds if there is an interstate or foriegn connection, is reasonable. Even, sadly, needed. But some things should be handled by real policemen, which the Federal Governments agents are not.Ed Foster | 1/3/2008 07:41 AM CDT -
Pete,
It is exactly that problem that I’m addressing here.
How do you stop a para military/terrorist organization using our criminal laws?
You can’t, because it is not a criminal matter, yet we send in the FBI to solve these problems.
Criminal laws require that someone commit a crime before you can take any action. That is not how we want to handle the WoT and terrorists on American soil. Wait until they use a dirty bomb BEFORE we take any action? No. That’s why there is a different designation for acts of war and war combatants.
The FBI were charged with fighting a war against the KKK, without authority. They weren’t all sweetness and light--those are exactly the issues I was addressing. They engaged in entrapment, using informers who were themselves members, etc.
And when it was against the KKK we were OK with it. When it was against other para military groups, we’re OK with it. But when it is against ideologies, we balk--as we should.
You can’t have an agency of government give tacit approval to break the rules in one instance, but not in another. No agency (or individual) should be assigned a task without clear legal authority (and proper oversight, based on the situation).
Mrs. du Toit | 1/3/2008 08:12 AM CDT -
Ed,
Let me break that down, using the method I’m describing above: Before you can issue “shoot in sight” orders against a group/individual who has been tagged as an enemy combatant, you have to go before a committee, something along the lines of FISA, for this express purpose.
What evidence would you present to that body suggest they were enemy combatants?
You wouldn’t have had any and the agents, like the agent who refused to used as an assassin, would never have been asked to do that.
Don’t get me wrong, snipers are necessary, but they are (in a case like this) controlled by military, not criminal law.
Without the designation of the Ruby Ridge family as “enemy combatants” it would have been a police action, and arrest and no shoot (unless first fired upon) would have been the guiding principle.
Mrs. du Toit | 1/3/2008 08:17 AM CDT -
The problem that I have with giving a political group ... and that’s what I consider the FBI, the CIA and the (former) BATF ... additional powers is not JUST the abuses of the past (and there have been many). The problem that I have is that they ARE political groups ... and they do not use the powers they currently have properly or correctly.
I think the anti-profiling efforts are more than adequately documented. (and that makes me add the euphemistically named Homeland Security group to the mix). Purposely looking in the wrong direction (concentrating on grannie instead of Achmed), and selecting a maximum number of “foreign looking” dudes that can be checked is so obviously idiotic that I am unconvinced there IS a war on terror.
- Anti-profiling edicts
- open and unpatrolled borders
- a CIA actively working against the POTUS
- a State Department working against the POTUSI’m unconvinced that the majority of the government supports a war on terror, or cares about security for this country.
I’m convinced that the FBI and other political policing forces are too worried about perception, and too political (am I the only one who still questions how Hillary got hold of FBI files?) to use additional powers wisely ... when they’re not using existing powers wisely.I (currently) believe our best chance for continued existance is to kill the murderous scum overseas, and support the Second Amendment and our local police on these shores. I shudder to think what the FBI and other Justice Departments could do under Queen Hillary the First ...
Finally, with regards to your answer to Ed regarding “enemy combatants” ... I would submit that the major problem is that the police HAVE been militarizing for a great deal of time already. SWAT, in it’s various incarnatiuons, is military in everything except name ... and, man, when they make mistakes ... it’s almost always along the lines of blowing away 90 year old ladies because they got bad intel and followed it anyway ("just followin’ orders, sir!")
Ruby Ridge, Waco, Elian ... all go to show that the system only works if the leaders use the system ... instead of abusing the system. Will more powers lead them to more success? Or more abuse? History shows (me)… the latter.
pete in Midland | 1/3/2008 09:17 AM CDT -
It’s a great idea in theory. The problem comes when we are forced to accept the fact that we are now (and always have been, and always will be) at most one election cycle away from today’s “patriot” being tomorrow’s “enemy combatant”.
The Bush administration has exercised what can only be called superhuman restraint, since being given the authority to snatch any American citizen off any street in the country and hold him or her incommunicado without trial forever, for any cause or no cause. (The president has to declare them “enemy combatants”, but is never required to provide proof of this. That which need never be proven cannot be called “cause”.)
Do you trust Bush’s successor to act with the same superhuman retraint? And the one after that? And the one after that? Are you willing to bet your freedom on it?
I’m not against pursuing the war. But the shooting is currently Over There (thanks be to our brave soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines for keeping it that way). Foreigners in the United States under arms in violation of our laws are invaders, and should indeed be treated as such. But _American citizens_ who join them or provide them material aid aren’t _invaders_, they’re _traitors_. That’s a crime...and it’s a crime even before they shoot anybody or set any bombs off. It should be punished, and punished harshly...but we need not shut down the protections afforded to the innocent in order to do so.
Conservatives, of all people, ought to be better than this at seeing the grave risk of unintended future consequences of our present decisions.
Words mean what they mean. A world in which an American citizen participating in a conspiracy for the violent overthrow of our government is a “traitor” and gets a trial followed by an execution is a world I can happily live in without fear. A world in which an unarmed American citizen in the United States, thousands of miles distant from any combat in living memory can be an “enemy combatant” and get life in prison without access to counsel or courts on the say-so of one man is a world in which anything that can justly be called the American Way of Life is in grave and mortal danger at least as much from our own government as from the Muslim terrorists.
Matt | 1/4/2008 07:09 AM CDT -
The Bush administration has exercised what can only be called superhuman restraint, since being given the authority to snatch any American citizen off any street in the country and hold him or her incommunicado without trial forever, for any cause or no cause. (The president has to declare them “enemy combatantsâ€, but is never required to provide proof of this. That which need never be proven cannot be called “causeâ€.)
Um, not quite. The Military Commissions Act requires a “Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense.” Wikipedia was the quickest place for me to find references tonight, so here is the article on it over there.
If you’re going to say that the President could appoint any group of flunkies to make up such a tribunal, I would submit that our Military would not allow that kind of thing to get completely out of hand, and it would also be subject to being held up to the Media (even if it were Hillary doing it) for scorn, ridicule, and correction at the point of an impeachment proceeding.
WayneB | 1/6/2008 01:00 AM CDT -
No. You have it exactly BACKWARDS. The reason we have a militarization of our police is because we’re not enabling the MILITARY to handle MILITARY operations.
Defense of the nation against terrorist/para-military organizations is NOT done by the police. It is done by the military… BECAUSE? You can call off the military when the war is over, and you cannot call off the police. They show up for work against the next day. The police don’t stop. Read YOUR history. The Brownshirts were street patrols, regular civilian patrols that BECAME militarized. It was the SS that became the prison guards and torturers, NOT the ordinary soldier. Kristalnacht was not a military operation. It was a police operation.
Why do you think police departments are clamoring for equipment and military training, why all the SWAT equipment? Because they realize they’ve been tasked with the potential for war… and what do they do with all that equipment and training? They USE it… for purposes it was not intended or provided.
No. The police should be giving parking tickets, fetching cats from trees, and taking little Billy home to his Mommy and Daddy after being caught stealing a candy bar from the corner store. They should not be running intelligence operations against terrorists or any other para-military group.
The military understands shoot on sight orders. They understand that they get shot before a firing squad if they screw up. Cops get a IA review board.
Mrs. du Toit | 1/6/2008 11:26 PM CDT -
I don’t know if the MILITARY understands shoot to kill orders ... or if they just have trouble issuing them ... but I agree with you. The militarization of the police forces has led to far greater abuses by the police forces than ever happened back in the rubber hose days.
As you noted ... they HAVE the equipment so they *HAVE* to use it ...pete in Midland | 1/7/2008 07:09 AM CDT -
You might want to look at the gross abuse of power that was originally responsible for the Posse Commitatus law ... the one that makes such domestic war-making against US citizens by the military unlawful.
The US Army did have the ability to make war on troublesome citizens in the south and the west ... and spectacular abuse of this was responsible for making such unlawful.
Kristopher | 1/7/2008 04:57 PM CDT
