Depth of Federal Arms Race Should Surprise and Shock Citizenry

We have heard all of this before but, I think it is worth reminding everyone that the trend toward arming traditionally unarmed federal agents proceeds unabated. While this development is disturbing, it is also reversible.


Under attack: Depth of federal arms race should surprise, shock citizenry

SANTA FE, N.M. — In late February, four federal agents carrying side arms with a drug-sniffing dog descended on the Taos Ski Valley in what was called a “saturation patrol.”
Authorities were working on tips of possible drug selling and impaired driving in the ski resort’s parking lot and surrounding area.
But the agents weren’t from the FBI, ATF or even the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Rather, the agents represented the U.S. Forest Service.

It may come as a surprise to many U.S. taxpayers, but a slew of federal agencies — some  whose responsibilities seem to have little to do with combating crime — carry active law enforcement operations.

Here’s a partial list:
• The U.S. Department of Education
• The Bureau of Land Management (200 uniformed law enforcement rangers and 70 special agents)
• The U.S. Department of the Interior
• The U.S. Postal Inspection Service (with an armed uniformed division of 1.000)
• The National Park Service (made up of NPS protection park rangers and U.S. Park Police officers that operate independently)
• The Environmental Protection Agency (200 special agents)
• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (224 special agents)
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

That’s right, NOAA — the folks who forecast the weather, monitor the atmosphere and keep tabs on the oceans and waterways — has its own law enforcement division. It has a budget of $65 million and consists of 191 employees, including 96 special agents and 28 enforcement officers who carry weapons.

“There’s no question there’s been a proliferation of police units at the federal level,” said Tim Lynch, director of the Project On Criminal Justice for the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Washington, D.C. “To me, it’s been a never-ending expansion, a natural progression, if you will, of these administrative agencies always asking for bigger budgets and a little bit more power.”

The Wall Street Journal reported that, in 2008, agents armed with assault rifles from NOAA, along with officers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, raided a businesswoman’s offices in Miami looking into charges that she was violating the Endangered Species Act by trading in coral.
“I felt like I was being busted for drugs, instead of coral,” Morgan Mok said afterward. “It was crazy.”
Mok said she obtained the coral legally and eventually paid a $500 fine and served a year’s probation for failing to complete the proper paperwork.

By last count, 25 agencies with law enforcement divisions fall under their respective offices of inspectors general.
With their growth has come criticism that officers are becoming overly militarized.
“The whole notion of police operations these days, that they’re dressed to kill, that they’re up against an enemy, is wrong,” Johnson said. “Citizens are not the enemy.”

Control through fear.

So many keep denying the fact that the government is setting up a full blown authoritarian police state, despite the hundreds of reports of ammo purchases, armored vehicle acquisitions, training designed to fight Americans if they finally decide to try and change the system. It's that denial that will seal our fate as a free society unless people can pull their heads out of their comfortable little sandy holes.

Only once those people themselves are being herded away to detention facilities due to petty violations of unjust laws, will people finally realize that they should've heeded the warnings of those before them.

a reply to: greencmp

It makes sense for some of these agencies - Park Rangers definitely, but NOAA? Department of Education? What are they planning on doing, enforcing common core at gunpoint?

It has been control through fear right from the start...............nothing has changed since the days of the nobility....We simply switched the nobles for the Elites......
The whole scam reads like a Mafia takeover...with murder, blackmail, and coertion running rampant in governance.
When will people realise there is NO real Freedom.....
Only the shadowy illusion that's cast to keep you down.

originally posted by: ScientiaFortisDefendit
a reply to: greencmp

It makes sense for some of these agencies - Park Rangers definitely, but NOAA? Department of Education? What are they planning on doing, enforcing common core at gunpoint?

Didn't you know? It's trendy to have a private standing army at your fingertips.

originally posted by: eXia7

originally posted by: ScientiaFortisDefendit
a reply to: greencmp

It makes sense for some of these agencies - Park Rangers definitely, but NOAA? Department of Education? What are they planning on doing, enforcing common core at gunpoint?

Didn't you know? It's trendy to have a private standing army at your fingertips.

I think that is actually pretty close to the truth and it is possibly the 'best case' scenario. I would venture a guess that it isn't the only explanation nor does it justify the trend.

a reply to: ScientiaFortisDefendit

What are they planning on doing, enforcing common core at gunpoint?

It may come down to that.
I am convinced that they don't want my child to know how to add... they want him to know about how to add.

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: ScientiaFortisDefendit

What are they planning on doing, enforcing common core at gunpoint?

It may come down to that.
I am convinced that they don't want my child to know how to add... they want him to know about how to add.

They want children to be socially conscious of mathematics and believe that if they hope to break a large bill, someone will give them the correct change.

a reply to: greencmp

Here’s a partial list:
• The U.S. Department of Education
• The Bureau of Land Management (200 uniformed law enforcement rangers and 70 special agents)
• The U.S. Department of the Interior
• The U.S. Postal Inspection Service (with an armed uniformed division of 1.000)
• The National Park Service (made up of NPS protection park rangers and U.S. Park Police officers that operate independently)
• The Environmental Protection Agency (200 special agents)
• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (224 special agents)
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

You forgot Animal Control. Where I live, they dress like cops and are armed today, too. Airline pilots, teachers, postal workers(?). Nobody is innocent in the War on Terror.

Except those in charge of the guns.

a reply to: greencmp


www.examiner.com...

Congress clamped down on the Department of Homeland Security’s ammunition buy but when Rep. Jeff Duncan, who represents South Carolina’s Third Congressional District, visited a federal law enforcement facility last month, he encountered the IRS agents training on the gun range with the rifles. These are the same firearms that gun prohibitionists refer to as “assault weapons,” which they claim only belong on a battlefield.

Duncan chairs the House Homeland Security oversight subcommittee, according to the Politico article. He understands that the IRS has an enforcement division, but he wonders why the IRS can’t rely on other law enforcement agencies for serious firepower if a situation calls for it.

This is another known example

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: greencmp

Here’s a partial list:
• The U.S. Department of Education
• The Bureau of Land Management (200 uniformed law enforcement rangers and 70 special agents)
• The U.S. Department of the Interior
• The U.S. Postal Inspection Service (with an armed uniformed division of 1.000)
• The National Park Service (made up of NPS protection park rangers and U.S. Park Police officers that operate independently)
• The Environmental Protection Agency (200 special agents)
• The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (224 special agents)
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

You forgot Animal Control. Where I live, they dress like cops and are armed today, too. Airline pilots, teachers, postal workers(?). Nobody is innocent in the War on Terror.

Except those in charge of the guns.

Yes, local and state agencies are doing it too but, I was trying to focus on the federal since it is a national issue. We also need to demilitarize our local police on a town by town, state by state basis.

Senate and local elections are our best chance to begin healing our damaged country.

These agencies all have some law enforcement duties. Granted you will never see them unless you selling drugs through the mail, have a fishing trawler fishing something out of season etc. Of course none of this new either. And they hardly constitute a private Army. As much as people love to sing the America police state song, reality tells a very different tail. The police (at all levels local, state, federal) to population ratio in the US in smaller than most places (245 police per 100,000 people. You see more police per 100,000 people in places like New Zealand, Ireland, Germany, UK, Brazil, Netherlands and most of the rest of Europe. Compared to say Russia who has a population 143 million and yet more police than the US who has a population of over 300 million the US is not even close to being heavily policed.

So take Homeland Securty aka DHS if it stripped the borders of all border and customes agents, pulled the coast guard off its ships and armed them all, pulled the Secret Service from protecting the President and from chasing counterfiters, pulled ICE from detaining illegals, pulled air marshals off the planes, pulld FPS from protecting federal buildings and put them all together in one hodgepodge force you could possibly field about around 117,000 armed men and women.

So let us put this police state crap to bed because you move from fantasy to reality the numbers and the facts in fact show a coutry that has a low police to population ratio and has no para military internal security forces like many countries do.

originally posted by: MrSpad
So let us put this police state crap to bed because you move from fantasy to reality the numbers and the facts in fact show a coutry that has a low police to population ratio and has no para military internal security forces like many countries do.

You are aware that these numbers are always subject to change. Because, contractors.

originally posted by: MrSpad
These agencies all have some law enforcement duties. Granted you will never see them unless you selling drugs through the mail, have a fishing trawler fishing something out of season etc. Of course none of this new either. And they hardly constitute a private Army. As much as people love to sing the America police state song, reality tells a very different tail. The police (at all levels local, state, federal) to population ratio in the US in smaller than most places (245 police per 100,000 people. You see more police per 100,000 people in places like New Zealand, Ireland, Germany, UK, Brazil, Netherlands and most of the rest of Europe. Compared to say Russia who has a population 143 million and yet more police than the US who has a population of over 300 million the US is not even close to being heavily policed.

So take Homeland Securty aka DHS if it stripped the borders of all border and customes agents, pulled the coast guard off its ships and armed them all, pulled the Secret Service from protecting the President and from chasing counterfiters, pulled ICE from detaining illegals, pulled air marshals off the planes, pulld FPS from protecting federal buildings and put them all together in one hodgepodge force you could possibly field about around 117,000 armed men and women.

So let us put this police state crap to bed because you move from fantasy to reality the numbers and the facts in fact show a coutry that has a low police to population ratio and has no para military internal security forces like many countries do.

I believe you are looking at this slightly incorrectly. You seem to be mainly concerned with disproving a supposed suspicion that federal government agents will take over by force in some sort of coup. That is not what I am concerned about nor is anyone here I think.

The issue is the frivolous arming of bureaucrats who have no need to be.

I expect the motivations are innocuous enough in most cases as we have mentioned. In the case of state agencies, many investigators desire and are encouraged to become armed if for no other reason than to receive 'hazard pay' and a substantial pension increase.

Whatever the reason, there is no excuse for arming these departments even a little.

a reply to: greencmp

We also need to demilitarize our local police on a town by town, state by state basis.

Good luck with that campaign. At all levels they have been blurring the lines between civilian law enforcement and the military ever since they were written into the Bill of Rights. Now that they have finally succeeded they will never willingly give that up.

Thats what every new emergency is designed to do, shore up the necessity of tighter and more restrictive laws encroaching upon citizens rights and ever expanding authority and enforcement of "the law".

a reply to: greencmp

The Hypocrisy coming from the Left is mind boggling....This regime is arming every one of the alphabet agencies to include hollow points, while doing everything possible to disarm "We The People" Armed Citizens and a Fascist Government cannot co-exist... This regime has done nothing to unite and everything to divide..Lying, cheating, obfuscating, circumventing Congress and the U.S. Constitution are just some of whats causing the rift in this country. Voter fraud and the feeling of helplessness in doing anything to combat the fact that Free and Fair elections have become elusive..Yes..the ability to foment change has been taken away from one side in favor of the other ..which leaves no option other than to fight for whats been taken away..

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: greencmp

We also need to demilitarize our local police on a town by town, state by state basis.

Good luck with that campaign. At all levels they have been blurring the lines between civilian law enforcement and the military ever since they were written into the Bill of Rights. Now that they have finally succeeded they will never willingly give that up.

Thats what every new emergency is designed to do, shore up the necessity of tighter and more restrictive laws encroaching upon citizens rights and ever expanding authority and enforcement of "the law".

You sound like you recognize the problem but do not intend to effect change in your home town. Maybe you don't have a problem with your town, probably many don't but, this is a trend and the natural expansion and spread of government bureaucracy guarantees that you will be affected.

Everyone needs to start going to their damn town meetings and voicing their concerns about militarized equipment, personnel and tactics and demanding reduction in local administrative bureaucracy. It is hard work but it is a damn sight better than losing our way of life for @#$^'s sake.

But, I digress.

Your problem is you actually think that "getting involved" will change anything. They don't care about you or your opinion. But go ahead and delude yourself, I don't care to hang out with a bunch of control freaks, personally. They only have their best interests at heart.

a reply to: greencmp

One of my best friend's dad is (or was, may be retired now,) high up in the Fish and Wildlife service. Through him I learned 15 years ago that their relatively small group of agents are who busts illegal sale and smuggling of exotic wildlife and the like, and bust corporations who decide to dump dangerous chemicals in lakes etc... They are a real law enforcement agency who require the same protections and arms that other Law Enforcement agencies require.

a reply to: MrSpad

Seriously? No offense, but they use contactors all the timen Also, these numbers matter very little when you consider the fact that on top of any numbers they also have a TOTAL surveillance state capable of spying on any oppsittion anytime anywhere. Also consider the hardware - by the numbers our military sure as hell is not th biggest soldiers wise and yet we claim most powerful military.

it is about the hardware and tools they have in the possession which we do not. Go ahead and keep telling yourself the police state is a farce - maybe you will get 20 guys with ARs busting your door down somebody for say collecting rain water and then you will feel different. The proof is in these armed raids they carey out with dozens of paramilitary outfitted officers against often obviously not dangerous individuals. It is fear tactics - plain and simple. If they were smart - theyd start donning the baclavas to really cause some more fear.