Militarizing the Police: How the Drug War and 9/11 Led to Battle-Dressed Cops Cracking Down on Peace

[midnight]

-ful Protests.


If the infrastructure of a police state is created, it's only a matter of time before those aggressive powers are used.


The US has actually been militarising much of its police agencies for the better part of three decades, mostly in the name of the drug war. But 9/11 put that programme on steroids.

Recall that six short weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the US congress passed the PATRIOT Act, a sweeping expansion of domestic and foreign intelligence-gathering capabilities. This legislation gave the government the ability to easily search all forms of communication, eased restrictions on foreign intelligence-gathering at home, gave itself greater power to monitor financial transactions and created entirely new categories of domestic terrorism to which the PATRIOT Act's expanded powers to police could be applied.

It was one of the greatest expansions of government police power in history, an expansion which, after some tweaking, has been mostly validated by the congress and reaffirmed by the courts.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/153062/militarizing_the_police%3A_how_the_drug_war_and_9_11_led_to_battle-dressed_cops_cracking_down_on_peaceful_protests

In the 1980's the pentagon started suppling the police with weapons. Currently some campus police carry M-16.

[cyberpj]

1. Not just weapons but Blackwater training across the nation. nt

[truedelphi]

3. + 1. n/t

[midnight]

6. I suppose they are still receiving non bid contracts on our march toward

pirvatization....

[supernova]

2. Cary NC police dress in riot gear 24/7

It's stupid. Cary is a bedroom community that used to be a nice small town, now it's suburbia personified. But the Cary cops all act like they walk the beat in some extreme urban environment.

[NYC_SKP]

4. It happened earlier with the withdrawal from Viet Nam and introduction of SWAT teams...

I remember watching it, as if the assault rifles, AR15s/M16s, were leaving Asia and coming to main street.

I was offended then.

Of course the war on drugs added to it, then 911.

Sad.

[The Wizard]

5. Brown shirts here

Come and get your brown shirts. Since the constabulary dresses in all black, everyone should dress in all black. Imagine the confusion as to who's a cop and who's a priest and who's Amish and who's Hasidim and, well you get the picture. Think of those middle of the night raids and someone lighting a pack of firecrackers.

[libodem]

7. What

A 9/11 reference? Put this in the dungeon.

[WingDinger]

8. Four pigs thought they would ruin me at midnite.

After I ruined a crooked judge/cop scam with the help of the AG, two months later, I get the four keystone kops that have a new substation down the street. They thought they had me. After lecturing me on all things right wing, and telling me I must get rid of most of my belongings, I lectured their asses on med mar. They were absolutely ignorant. Although as I saw their crooked asses out, one did say it was the best grow he had ever seen.

They told me that trying to assert my fourth ammendment rights made them certain I was guilty.

Ever try lecturing cops while in handcuffs? Rather exciting. They begged me to shut up. that I would disturb the neighbors.

YOU HAVE NOOO RIGHT to be secure in your person or possessions. UNTIL court that is. And even then, it's dicey.

[WingDinger]

9. Forgot to mention. The thing that scared them is: I said that I guess they will be paying my healthc

are from now on.

[era veteran]

10. I have been bitching about this for a couple of decades

In Kentucky they get to cowboy up and fly Hueys looking for weed. Dressed up like they were crossing the fucking River Rhine. Such a pathetic waste of resources. I like my police dressed like Andy Taylor and my soldiers in web gear.

[Uncle Joe]

11. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, midnight.

[iscooterliberally]

12. My city has a tank. They use it for drug raids from what I hear.

:kick:

[Uncle Joe]

13. The sentence is this paragraph is most illuminating as to the mentality of the U.S. police state.

Yet in military exercises in Georgia, soldiers were dressed as protesters, carrying signs that say "world peace", "love for all" and "peace not war" for some reason. In what was presented as a choice between backing off and shooting into the crowd, the audience was then shown that a "ray gun" was on top of the Humvee.


"An operator squeezes off a blast. The first shot hits them like an invisible punch. The protesters regroup, and he fires again, and again. Finally they’ve had enough. The ray gun drives them away with no harm done."