Either the automatic weapons used by the SWAT teams belong to the police --in which case the SWAT teams are certainly government entities,-- or they belong to the 501(c)3, in which case we should lock everyone up for just as long as we would lock up a gangbanger who's killed multiple people and gets caught with a fully automatic weapon.
I obviously do not know how these LECs are setup legally speaking, but it is possible to own and operate fully automatic weapons legally as a civilian or business. You can get a tax stamp from the ATF for a few hundred dollars. As an example, my local commercial gun range offers rentals for fully automatic assault rifles and submachine guns at their ranges.
That said, this LEC charade is sickening and they should be punished as severely as the law allows. Of course it's America and the police can and do get away with murder so that'll never happen.
Under that theory the 501(c)(3) org would only be able to procure and register NFA weapons that were registered before 1986, which would be very expensive and not practical. Only actual law enforcement agencies can register post-1986 weapons (or FFL holders that deal in such weapons).
You can't legally shoot at people. No non-profit, no matter how regulated by the ATF, can break down doors in the night, shoot your dog, flash-bang your infant, and ransack your house.
...right?
...I guess I don't know. Maybe the situation has gone that far.
No way of really knowing; America is a place fully without the rule of law at this point, and it's whatever the men with guns say goes.
I'm guessing that Swat Inc. gets a permit (or some other legal construct) allowing them to act as police officers. A bit like an extreme version of citizen's arrest.
i don't know the details, but this seems not to apply to licensed police officers.
Johannes Mehserle, for instance, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter while on duty as a BART cop, but it's my understanding that he has continued to serve in a new police department.
AFAIK, Mehserle is still unable to become a LEO due to his conviction and loss of appeal [1]. Of course, he still might work for a police department as parking enforcement or receptionist. But he'll never be legally able to hold a gun ever again.
Arthur Andersen was convicted of obstruction of justice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen#Enron_scandal). (the decision was later reversed by the SCOTUS). The SEC bars convicts from auditing public companies which pretty much put them out of business. Sorry haskell, it was done for the side effects.
So just to start, I hope you watch the SyFy series Continuum[1]. The basic synopsis is that in the future, governments and economies collapse and the "Corporations" bail everyone out. I mean, you trust your personal information to FB way faster than you do with the GVT.
Anyways...
So, my very limited understanding of civil/city/state governments is that they are already special forms of "Non-Profit Corporate Entities" in most states, "Municipal Corporations"[2]. All other "private law enforcement entities" derive from some variation/bastardization of these laws depending on the state. So yes, most private citizens/corporations, what ever definition of the term[3], can obtain any of the weapons described in the article, with limits/exceptions. For instance, the SWAT team of Dallas, TX is part of the Dallas Police Department (Dallas being a Municipal Corporation). I chose this as an example because, when you google Dallas SWAT, you either get a reality TV show or a Facebook Page. In most smaller counties, it is part of the county Sherifs Department. In most states, the only person that can arrest a Sherif is the Governor or Agent of The Federal Government. Stay with me. This is all an argument of semantics from the beginning.
US entities operating outside the US borders obtain literally what ever equipment they, or their clients, can afford. Further, they are either bound by US Military rules of conduct (rules of engagement), beholden to local law, or either/neither seemingly as the parties see fit [see current US military advisor rules in Iraq vs. Blackwater authorization in Op. Iraqi Freedom].
My reading of this article is the scenario last referenced on US soil. A claim that a local SWAT team is both and neither. The power of a government law enforcement agency with the "loosely defined rights" of a private corporation (individual.) It is "risk management" in the corporate sense. You structure yourself for greatest legal/financial protection/benefit.
Grey area -- rant. Expand this to the Federal Government... The FBI is the only organization that is authorized to investigate wrong doing within itself[4]. In addition, the federal government can chose whether or not you are aloud to sue them in federal court (all courts by proxy.)[5]
If they're private corporations, shouldn't they be open to competition from other private corporations? I.e., shouldn't any organization that wants to be able to incorporate as a 501(c)(3) and have the same law enforcement privileges they do?
If their answer to that is "well, we have this special contract from the government...", then they are agents of the government and can't hide behind the "private corporation" shield for activities they undertake as such agents. Certainly that's how it works for Federal government contractors: if the GAO audits a Federal program, the contractors who implement it can't hide their records from the auditors with the excuse "oh, we're private corporations".
I think this is more like if you and your software engineering buddies incorporate some kind of organization to own your kayaks, and then someone asks for the log of the kayaks' usage, and you're like:
"we may have paid for those kayaks, but we gave them to this other organization that is basically us, but it is not the organization that owes you transparency, so fuck off."
The developments in the US around surveillance, domestic use of force and the way the politicians allow this to happen reads more and more like the introduction chapter to a dystopian science fiction novel.
Don't forget to read Greg Lukanioff's Unlearning Liberty[1], a very detailed examination of basically the same forces at work in education and free speech. I read it not long after reading Anne Applebaum's Iron Curtain[2], and was really disturbed by the parallels between what's happening naturally in universities (basically because individual actors such as administrators have no personal disincentive against violating the rights of their students) and what the soviet union systematically did to the universities when they were establishing their foothold in the Eastern Bloc. There's a whole chapter on education in Applebaum's book, and it's essentially a perfect description of what's happening in US universities. It's deeply chilling, and the same thing is causing the militarization of the police - individual police are never held liable for wrong-door raids, for killing innocent civilians, for violating the rights of US citizens, so they have no incentive to try and stop it happening.
Sorry if this is not exactly related but the words Unlearning Liberty made me think of The Anatomy of Slavespeak, a document on questioning words we use and hear all the time (like liberty). It's easily found by putting the title into a search site. In the least, it's an interesting exercise in how we give shared meaning to words we often don't think twice about using.
"It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow."
The government has gotten really good at making access to the law impracticable for anyone except those who have already read it (lawyers). The law is the most expensive set of books you will ever memorize yet never own and never read. See my other comment on why.
Maybe we could get a more interesting future by electing science fiction writers. Stross-Doctorow vs. Gibson-Sterling would make for some fun campaigning.
If the question is who would believe ALL of it, the answer is: people who are very credulous, and people whose prejudices are catered to by these stories.
It is very easy to forget that just because some stories of a certain kind are true, not all of them are true.
That "rubber stamp" court at FISA was created in response to far worse breaches of power (and the law) by various LE agencies and NSA itself which were revealed in the late 1970s. The actions of an NSA trying to keep up with rapidly changing technology in a way that doesn't violate the law (even if only technically so) is a far cry from the abuses that led to the Church Committee.
So if this (like last time) is the low that we will improve from after the bright light of transparency was shined on the enterprise, then the U.S. will be in great shape.
I find this more than a little strained for a number of reasons.
1. Imagine the horror of a world where the USA looked more like Canada and slavery probably ended without the bloodiest war in North America's history.
2. British tyranny was light. At the time of the American Revolution the Crown's North American subjects were richer and less lightly taxed than its British ones.
3. Military and transportation technology have advanced radically since that time. No European power managed to subdue trans-Atlantic rebellions from established settler states. The US armed forces are designed for fighting two major wars at a time and have oceans to east and west and client states to north and south. They would have no problem subduing "terrorists" or "seditionists".
Uttering the words, "history is repeating itself," is meaningless without context. What part of history is repeating itself? Are you drawing analogies to post-WW1 Germany? The fall of the Roman Empire? Or to the abuses brought to light in the 70's as another commenter pointed out?
We already knew America's police was getting militarized at a rapid rate. Now they're getting corporatized too. Its prisons are already corporatized. The full circle is almost there.
Living in a developing country like India, I'm sometimes half-thankful that our police is inept, woefully ill-equipped with weapons and government-controlled.
Living in a developing country like India, I'm sometimes half-thankful that our police is inept...
Isn't it great to be a man?
[edit: I realize this flippant remark probably makes little sense for those who don't live in India. Ineffective policing is a very serious problem here, primarily for women. If I stay out late with a girl, it's almost automatic that I will escort her home regardless of the inconvenience to me. Black women often wear a keffiyeh at night to avoid racially motivated attacks. Physical security is a significant electoral issue.]
If anyone is unaware of the state of violence against women in India I can only assume they don't read a newspaper. There have been several front page stories in the last year or so.
I think you make an important (if biting) point for putting the parent in some context.
"If I stay out late with a girl, it's almost automatic that I will escort her home regardless of the inconvenience to me."
That works for those holding on to even the lowermost rungs of the middle class. Below that the condition of women, oppressed by caste and class(not direct but still a strong co-relation), their plight is hellish to even think of.
Drew, can you give me some examples, how is the decentralized abuse worse than omnipresent government/corporate power?
Aren't the both bad? One for the lack of agreed upon standards , regulations and criminal, civil consequences, and the other for manipulating the playing field in favor of the few, and the power, removing from the the expectations of standards, regulations and criminal, civil consequences.
Unfair, unjust markets are terrible either way. Or am I mistake about one vs the other?
It's all a point of view thing - If you're more liberal politically, you tend to trust government more and the free market less - If you are more conservative, you tend to trust the free market more and government less. Assuming Drew is more liberal, it makes sense that he would trust an all-powerful government over all-powerful corporations.
Please explain how potential harm from entities you voluntarily engage with is in any way comparable to the harm of a single entity that can ruin or end your life on a whim regardless.
It's funny how libertarians think that once you remove government, all human interaction will be voluntary.
Humanity is barely keeping itself in check in a complex system that has developed over time, with multiple forms of organization, and multiple levels of checks and balances. Most attempts at massive restructuring has failed horribly, either if it's been in the direction of socialized organization, or private organization. Both were supposed to lead to flatter structures and less abuse, but in fact lead to the polar opposite.
But at the quip of an internet comment we're expected to realize in a flash of insight that "oh! it's so simple! if we just do it like this it will all be perfect."
In their defence, if we all really just did it like this, it really will all be perfect. Communism only failed because they didn't remove enough problems and over-extended their limited resources. Look at the Amish for a successful example.
You are not volunteering to engage, you are an externality in someone else's transaction. It's comparable in the outcome to your life. Though admittedly there is a difference in that the single entity purports to obey rules that they claim are for your good while the other multiple actors aren't likely to have expressed any concern for you at all.
Are you suggesting that engaging with the market is purely voluntary? I'm not sure you can call something "voluntary" when not doing it inevitably results in destitution and homelessness.
Even "public" prisons devour tax dollars to pay prison staff (who are unionized in some states with lobbies that fight for stricter laws and law enforcement and thus more prisoners to guard...), construction workers, suppliers of food, surveillance equipment, and so on. "For profit" prisons are just the logical conclusion of a rotten industry.
Public choice theory seems interesting, I guess I have something else to read about tomorrow.
I probably agree with your comment about unions, but that's a much broader statement than I was shooting for. I specifically think that the prison and anti-drug lobbies are vile, because they use their power to create and increase enforcement of laws[1] that enslave arguably innocent people (drug users and people that fell afoul of three strikes laws), purely for the benefit of their members. It's not just unions siphoning off tax dollars here, it's perpetuating war ("the war on drugs") against the US citizenry (and unwittingly or not giving power to organized crime, and causing worldwide violence and unrest, etc. etc. you've heard this story before).
I bring up construction workers etc. because it's not hard to imagine a web connecting the companies that build the prisons to the police chiefs mandating arrest quotas to the "tough on crime" politicians and so on, along with their pocketbooks.
I agree, but the way I see people comment on this topic it's as if they believe present-day inmates are being sent into prisons mainly for profit... It's a little misleading, to say the least.
When you file with the IRS with a LLC, and you are the sole member, the IRS doesn't consider that a 'real' corporation, and you have to take that earnings on your 1040.
Likewise, just because these police organizations are using 501(c)3 to provide a corporate shield, a reasonable judge should say that the shield is unlawful.
I kind of get a feeling that national security will eventually be trotted out here.
The IRS may not consider an LLC a corporation for tax purposes, but this has nothing to do with whether a court will consider the LLC as an entity that provides its owners with liability protection. Courts do not give IRS classification any weight. Tax liability and liability for other corporate debts are not the same thing. (It is a common misperception, though.)
However, that is not the issue here. The ACLU is arguing (rightly) that even though these entities are corporations, they are acting as agents of the government, and thus should be required to follow laws pertaining to government agencies.
Last time I checked, an LLC could elect to be seen in various different ways by the IRS (e.g. corporation, disregarded entity, etc.). Unfortunately italicizing one of the words in the expansion of an initialism doesn't really tell us anything about its meaning.
I think the general principle still applies though. And even without the tax analogy, acting as an agent of the government does not get rid of the responsibilities of the government in the behavior of their contractor, which is why the government can't simply get around the Fourth Amendment by having a contractor (or allied intelligence agency) do the search for them.
The government regularly gives public property to private entities and claims they no longer have possession. Then they make a contract so they can have access. (Obviously, you don't get access without paying the price.) They do this with The Law (tm)(c) for example. California (the Office of Administrative Law) doesn't even have possession of the codified regulations they make (the California Code of Regulations). Which is why you have to be wealthy to have bulk access to California law (regulations are a form of secondary or delegated legislation) or otherwise have to agree to a license for the "free" (as in beer not as in freedom) Internet version where you give up your rights to your first unborn child etc. (Though the website is practically unusable for any layman who hasn't already read most of it. Of course to encourage you to buy the CD-ROM.)
Which of course leads to a breakdown in law and order.
Are you saying that there's law in California (i.e. something you can violate that the justice system has the authority to punish you over) that is not freely (as in freedom) available to any citizen (for whatever purpose, reading, distributing, etc)?
As a practical matter, no, its not freely available. There is a reason why no one knows the law, and its not because no one tries, but because their efforts to know the law that binds them are actively thwarted by its publishers.
It is available online, but its unusable for the layman due to ridiculously bad design. You must agree to a contract to use it ("terms of use", "license") and promise never to repeat what you read. Purposely bad design in my opinion. Its 30,000 sections of regulations we're talking about here (there's a further 150,000 sections of California law, 50,000 sections of federal law, and 30,000 sections of federal regulations), and you only know it doesn't apply after you read it. Its javascript-based and uses session cookies, so if you take longer than 5 minutes to read a 30 page section with a bad layout that uses intensely complex verbiage, the next click will "close the book" in your face, and if you have no idea where you were, well, tough luck, there's always prison. If you try and open multiple windows, say, to read another section which is referred to, each window will interfere with each other. (Even trying will likely close the book in your face.) Each click is unbearably slow to load. (29,999 bottles of beer on the wall, 29,999 bottles of beer, take one down, can't pass it around, 30,001 bottles of beer on the wall.) There is no way to give a permalink to your grandma or on your blog, because there are no permalinks. Grandma will have to try and navigate the horrible website herself, and when she likely fails, well, tough luck, there's always prison.
It is available as bulk data on CD-ROM (in California) for a significant price, on the order of $3000 per edition. Did I mention it changes almost constantly? Obviously, no permalinks for your blog.
California is better than most in that the government was sued and forced to release the statutory law on the web.[1] Other states are not so lucky.
Can you point out a state that does not provide their laws and regulations available online? I have never experienced a situation where the laws of a state are not available online for free, and I've researched laws in all 50 states. As for regulations, I've not researched those in each state, but the states that I have looked at regulations in all have them available online, so I think a citation is needed that there are state or federal laws or regulations that are not available freely online.
And what contracts have you entered into for this "free" access? What have you agreed to, what rights have you given up? And when will your obligations end? Do you even know, or did you just blindly click "I agree"?
I know this sounds lame, but freedom isn't free, and you shouldn't have to give up any rights to access the laws that bind you. Period. No exceptions. No compromise.
(I should note the biggest problem with this seems to be codified regulations, not so much the codified laws or gazettes, although some states do require a contract to view the "free" versions of the statutes, such as Georgia and Colorado. And I should note the online version of the Code of Massachusetts Regulations from the Secretary of the Commonwealth costs $110 per year and requires a credit card...)
As a matter of principle, in the US at least, laws to which you are bound are supposed to be freely-as-in-freedom available. That doesn't mean they invariably are, though; people find various ways to extract rent from the law.[1]
Usually the law as enacted by the legislature / ruled by the courts is free, but they might incorporate by reference some non-free rules developed and maintained by commercial entities. These are things like building codes, fire codes, and so on, which might cost thousands of dollars for a copy and not be redistributable. [2] The recentish example (2002) is Veeck vs. SBCCI[3].
I've made a FOIA request for all regulations, including the building codes (which is title 24), with the OAL. They claim not to have them. They claim they don't have the regulations they are entrusted with publishing, and that I should buy them from someone else. I'm sure there's a perfectly legal reason for this, such as being morally corrupt, but legality aside, the current and all former directors of OAL should be impeached for entering into such scandalous contracts. Its simply unacceptable.
Seems foolish, on the part of the LEC's. IANAL, but I assume they that if they are non-governmental organizations, it dramatically changes their profile regarding lawsuits, that is no personal immunity, etc.
IANAL, but I think I can address that somewhat. While the organization itself may not have governmental immunity as a private corporation -- which it probably doesn't, having incorporated as a 501(c)(3) -- the individual police officers are still government employees and still have the immunity they would have in that role.
The Massachusetts police have privatised part of their operations. And the 'general counsel for the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association' has said that they're immune to information requests because they're private corporations. The article positions the purpose of the privatisation as secrecy. This seems like a very Bad Thing, so it's not surprising that the ACLU have stepped in.
But I'm going to play devil's advocate, because I want to know the truth:
I wonder if there are other, possibly more important reasons for forming these private corporations. Maybe the existing police system doesn't function optimally, and provisioning resources (such as trained officers with appropriate equipment for drug busts) is a process that's too slow, or inadequate. Maybe this is a way of detouring the bureaucracy and systemic bullshit that encumbers civil servants whose job is ultimately to keep people safe.
The article says that Tewksbury, MA paid $4600 for membership to NEMLEC. That town has a population of around 28 000. It doesn't make sense for a small town like that to have a police force with a dedicated SWAT team, computer crimes unit and schools incident response team. It also doesn't make sense for a larger jurisdiction to serve the smaller community when it [the smaller community] needs it, and get nothing in return. It seems as though it's a way for police departments to share resources. I'd imagine that if a small town's police department found themselves unable to deal with a time-critical scenario, like a shooter in a school, they'd call in backup pretty damned quickly. Perhaps the quality of response a small town could get through NEMLEC would be better than going through traditional police channels?
To me it seems like the primary purpose of forming these private NPCs is not secrecy. As the article says, government police agencies already do that - "police agencies have broadly interpreted open records laws to allow them to turn down just about every request."
So, if it is actually easy for police agencies to turn down requests in the first place, why go to all the effort to form, finance, and manage a 3200 member [1] corporation?
I don't think the article positions secrecy as the primary, let alone sole, purpose of this effort at all. It is clearly, as you say, to get around all sorts of 'inconvenient' things in government bureaucracy.
The thing is that a lot of that bureaucracy is there explicitly to slow down and provide scrutiny over one of the most vulnerable to corruption parts of government. The people who enforce the law, without supervision, can easily become the law, and that's extremely dangerous for civil society.
That's why, in a sane world, there'd be a state-level organization that does the things that are too big for small towns, not a private corporation. The excuse is that the state authorities are too backed up - essentially, that they're underfunded. How transferring tax money to a private LEC helps with that is not entirely clear to me.
The most important question here is, who exactly authorizes the use of force by NEMLEC? This, as is, allows undisclosed use of force whenever the powers that be (I believe police chiefs) feel like it, without the need for disclosure.
This is essentially an unregulated regional army. Paid for with taxes, but not actually beholden to the tax payer.
Why would somebody form that? That depends on how paranoid you want to think.
You do realize that all the officers that are on the LEC SWAT team are employed by local police agencies, none work for NEMLEC. Mutual aid emergency services teams comprised of members of multiple agencies are common all over the country. "Northwest Regional SWAT" just sounds less scary than NEMLEC. All the individual police agencies that are members of nemlec would still fall under whatever open records laws apply in that state. You can see which dept chiefs lead which units here: http://nemlec.com/units.htm
> "Northwest Regional SWAT" just sounds less scary than NEMLEC.
Wrong. It all sounds like a militarized police force with little to no responsibility. For example, the SWAT launched a flash bang grenade in the crib of a 2 year old. But you know, the SWAT response was a botchet attempt at finding a non-violent drug crime.
The kid still has a hole in his body that hasn't healed. And they are unsure of brain damage. It's likely though.
I'm getting really tired of the repetition of the 'SWAT team throws grenade at infant' line used as though this is now routine policy in these teams, babies are getting blown up left right and centre across the US, and so on. That was a terrible mistake, not a fucking policy decision.
Have 2 cars with 2-4 cops go arrest everyone and then look for drugs, given an appropriate warrant. If you see heavy arsenal, THEN calling in heavy guns can be called for.
But you dont just show up at someone's house with SWAT by default and do whatever you want. That's just wrong. But that's done. Just go look up the new phenomenon "Swatting".
> All the individual police agencies that are members of nemlec would still fall under whatever open records laws apply in that state.
You do realize that the article highlights the fact that regardless of the employment of the officers involved, the argument is being made that "an operation" was conducted as NEMLEC, a private corporation not beholden to open information requests.
Off duty officers shoot people. Some times they are just acting as private citizens. Sometimes they are uniformed private security. Other times they are just plain old moon-lighted security. The legal protection carried by the civil police force to the officer varies under each of these scenarios. The actual police force that the officer is on the payroll of is "usually" not obligated to defend the officer under any of these considering the scenario of a lawsuit, wrongful death, civil liberties, or misconduct. Further, there is usually some Union (non-government entity) involved with similar obligations/exceptions for defending the officer.
Despite the argument that the operation is being conducted by NEMLEC and not the city, it should be noted all of the activities of NEMLEC involve on duty officers - a reading of either the article or the NEMLEC website makes this clear.
The Massachusetts police have privatised part of their operations.
I don't think the term "privatize" reflects the situation as described in the article or as described in the organization's website. According to all the descriptions, everyone involved in the organization is a public employee acting in their official capacity. This makes all of it's activities the activities of the government.
Maybe, this consortium was originally formed to save some money. Police and fire departments band together in a variety of forms. But contrary to your line of reasoning, this is neither a justification for secrecy nor is that a reason not to be interested in this situation. What is important and disturbing is that this isn't privatization as such but rather this is a public entity relabeling activities as private and claiming immunity to public scrutiny on that basis (not that overt privatization doesn't have it's own problems).
Disturbing as the present efforts to evade scrutiny are, we should take note that this sort of deceptive relabeling of government activities can potentially open the door to local government evading any and all regulations that the courts and state laws might place on them (though hopefully this stuff will fall apart "in the light of day").
The military and government in general makes extensive use of contractors for specialized tasks, but manages to audit and limit their behaviors to the degree that they're performing work on behalf of the government, recognizing that contracting out government work doesn't make it not government work.
How are these any different?
Even if they are contractors for specialized policing (something I find dubious, but am not sure is actually a bad idea), why wouldn't they still be subject to regulation as government employees while performing government work?
This is why cops and prosecutors should be bonded. Bonding would track and price individuals' risk. It would pay for settlements up front, and not rape the taxpayer for cops' misdeeds, and it would enable liability to function as it should.
that is interesting, i will say that the reason i haven't sued the city of oakland over my treatment at the hands of their police is that paying out more settlements per year than SF and LA combined has not done anything to change their course, and surely hurts the local education budget.
I like the way you think, but too many judges are inclined to see things through the eyes of law enforcement.
A friend of mine had his feet put to the fire during sentencing by a federal judge over whether he thought it was 'funny' to bring a 'department of injustice' sign to a protest where he was later arrested for assaulting a marshall, who in fact kind of stumbled into him and then created a melee.
The judge seemed quite clearly to believe that he was a part of the 'department of justice', though the DoJ was the plaintiff in the case before him.
Even when you get a precedent set about the role and behavior of law enforcement, it's very difficult to get judges to apply it sanely.
"Well, you see, in this prior case the defendent had yellow shoes, so..."
Yeah, you're supposed to take it seriously so no one finds out what a joke it really is.
Only a judge could see that building corporate headquarters is a public use, or that growing a plant in your basement is interstate commerce.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."
If they consider themselves private corporations wouldn't that mean their "employees" are breaking laws by a) using the weapons they have access to b) breaking into people's homes and c) arresting people...
it seems that they are employees of the particular law enforcement agencies, but the equipment and activities related to SWAT are managed within these corporations.
Breaking into someones house and discharging 70+ rounds of ammunition is an 'activity related to SWAT' and would land any employee of $DEV_SHOP, Inc. in jail, why are these corporations any different?
It's possible for a cop to have an off-duty job just as much as it's possible for most other government employees to have a hobby (and possibly get paid for it).
But these cops can't have their cake and eat it too. If while acting as a private enterprise they happen to come across a situation requiring them to act as an off-duty cop, then they should be treated as a cop for that situation, which includes liability to answer to records requests. If they're going to employ their public immunity to charges for some actions then they should be held to all the other responsibilities of being a public employee for that time.
So these are government employees, acting in the context of their duties ...as government employees, but records pertaining to their actions, expenditures, etc. are not required because the 501(c)3 owns... what exactly?
Either you're kicking in the door and killing an elderly man in a poorly executed search for 0.2g of marijuana and a man in the backyard as a law enforcement officer, in which case you should be bound by the same requirements every tax-funded police department is, or you're doing it as an employee of a tax-exempt corporation, in which case you should go to jail for B&E, Homicide, possession of an automatic weapon, possession of marijuana, etc.
I believe their argument is the LECs are private non-profit corporations that merely provide coordination and equipment to law enforcement agencies. The police officers are never working for the LEC, and I'm sure any police-only equipment is only ever 'in possession' by member departments. The LEC is basically a more formalized mutual aid agreement among multiple agencies.
I would assume you could query each individual agency as to how often their officers participate in swat operations, but without knowing how often the LEC was called, I don't see how you could get an accurate count of the total raids. Perhaps each jurisdiction would have to report how often they called the LEC into their jurisdiction.
They may be actually be legally right due to basically a technicality. Perfect for time for the state legislature to reign in the LECs and make open records apply to mutual aid agencies/agreements. I'm sure their representatives are jumping on that right now...
One expects that judges will sort this mess out. In the meantime, what is the governer's statement on this? The only acceptable response to a 5-minute inquiry is "Massachusetts Police Departments are hereby ordered to publish their LEC records or withdraw from LECs immediately"
Don't let reporters mystify you with all these things people "claim" and say. It's just one PR department relaying a message from another PR dept.
It's all the US. It's all the current system. Yes, the constitution has been drastically weakened by money interests. Yes.
I went to Austin, TX a couple weeks back to be my Brother's best man. I didn't realize he was marrying a cop's daughter in a rural area outside the city limits, because all he told me about the guy was he's a skydiver. I fly paragliders, so I figured we had a lot in common.
There's a really good reason all the souveneirs in the area say "Austin City Limits"! It's because if you're a beta male, you really shouldn't stray too far outside into the Red State. You really, really shouldn't.
Within an hour of getting to the house, I got in a minor verbal spat with my own sister. My ridiculous mother decided to call the police department to ingratiate herself with my brother's new family. Well, I'm 150 lbs (but still pretty tough) and a 270 lb gorilla showed up to learn me some manners about how to act when in Rome.
He practiced some Krav Maga on me, probably something he just learned and was aching to demonstrate. He twisted my carpal tunnels around, bend my injured knees around a bit, damaged nerves in my left hip and left wrist. Stood on my scoliosis, stretched a tendon in my left shoulder....
And then the police department itself put me in a hospital! I could have walked it off in a couple hours, but the cops run this hospital. They have the doctors and orderlies continue to be very abusive so as to keep you in shock for days (5 for me) and then they try to have a doctor threaten you with institutionalization because you had a delusion about police persecution!
That's their system, and apparently the Red Staters really truly like it that way. Keeps the outsiders and Mexicans out! Or so these fools think. They think they can keep the Mexicans out! They'll be in for quite the shock themselves when they find out Rupert Murdoch has been lying.
And that it's them that have to learn spanish after all. Glad I speak it, that's for sure.
In the UK the Murdoch press certainly has a long history of taking political positions and meddling with society. But I don't know what they're saying over the duck pond, especially about Mexico.
You're operating under the assumption that there are rules in place here that are the same for everyone, and that everyone has to follow the rules.
The sooner Americans stop fooling themselves into believing that nonsense, the sooner they can start to fix their broken country. Until then (and it will probably be a long time), try to avoid cops, because they can shoot you for free.
It reminds me of a time one of my liberal co-workers tried to mock libertarians by saying "But laws are for the weak, right?" I don't think they realized how utterly true they were.
