Ain’t That Amerika? William Norman Grigg lewrockwell.com February 14, 2014
A paramilitary team operated by North Carolina’s Wilson County Sheriff’s Office recently executed what was described as a “high risk search warrant” on a narcotics suspect. The members of the “Emergency Response Team,” clad in black armor, bucket helmets, and balaclavas, found what “nearly a pound of marijuana” – which could be the yield from a single healthy plant – and a single handgun. A photograph taken by an embedded correspondent for the Wilson Times newspaper showed two of the masked SWAT operators in full military regalia. One of them bore, ‘mid snow and ice, a tactical shield inscribed with a strange device – “Defender.” To those not of an Orwellian cast of mind, it’s not clear what or whom the stormtroopers were defending. Peace officers don’t dress that way, nor do they conduct military-style raids to arrest people suspected of non-violent offenses. Perhaps most importantly, peace officers don’t wear masks to hide their identity from the people they are supposedly protecting. Many of the federal operatives who carried out the 1992 siege against the Randy Weaver family at Ruby Ridge, Idaho were cloaked in ski masks. The same was true of the berserkers from the combined FBI-Delta Force death squad that annihilated the Branch Davidians at Mt. Carmel the following April. The federal marshals sent to “liberate” Elian Gonzalez from his Miami relatives in 2000 wore military helmets and goggles during the actual raid, but insisted on being masked during the post-raid press conference. During immigration enforcement sweeps carried out by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the deputies acting on behalf of the Mussolini of Maricopa County will often wear balaclavas as they drag people out of cars or away from fast-food restaurants. In one particularly memorable incident, a mother was stopped for a traffic violation and seized from her car at gunpoint by goons in ski masks while her children shrieked in terror.
Beginning in the late 1990s, masked and heavily-armed SWAT operatives with Fresno, California’s “Violent Crime Suppression Unit” (VCSU) would patrol targeted neighborhoods seven nights a week. Rather than investigating crimes and arresting suspects, the VCSU conducted what the military calls “contact patrols” – that is, they prowl “like a wolf pack” (to use the department’s description) and see what trouble they could stir up. “`Contacts’ generally involve swooping onto street corners, forcing pedestrians to the ground, searching them, running warrant checks, taking photos, and entering all the new `intelligence’ into a state database from computer terminals in each patrol car,” recalled crime reporter Christian Parenti in his book Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis. Every neighborhood was considered a “war zone,” and all of the inhabitants therein were treated as “enemy combatants.” “If you’re 21, male, living in one of these neighborhoods, and you’re not in our computer, then there’s definitely something wrong,” insisted VCSU officer Paul Boyer. This isn’t because such people are unjustly abused innocent people, but rather particularly devious “enemy combatants” who had somehow escaped the dragnet. The VCSU would often take part in joint paramilitary operations with the FBI, DEA, and the San Francisco Police Department. Those raids were not conducted pursuant to warrants or probable cause regarding specific crimes, but were carried out as a “Shock and Awe”-style displays of military superiority by the local occupation authority. The agencies involved in these raids referred to their approach as “clear and hold” – a phrase that would later be employed by U.S. military personnel conducting occupation missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. “I feel bad for the innocent women and children that were here,” stated SFPD narcotics lieutenant Kitt Crenshaw after a nighttime military raid terrorized an apartment complex and netted a minuscule amount of marijuana, “but in a way they do bear some responsibility for harboring drug dealers.” In that statement we find an eerie foreshadowing of the sadistic, dismissive statement from the operator of an attack helicopter during the atrocity captured in the “Collateral Murder” video. Informed that two
children had been severely wounded in the unprovoked attack, one of the assailants sneered: “Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.” Bear in mind that the military raids in which Crenshaw and his comrades participated were carried out in Fresno, California, not Iraq – and they took place years before the 9/11 attacks. Remember: This was taking place in the United States of America before the 9/11 attacks, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. There are some elements of the domestic army of occupation who are making a token effort to win the “hearts and minds” of those living in the neighborhoods they patrol. A propaganda video produced by the Kansas City Police Department is intended to demonstrate the gentle and humane touch with which the agency carries out its occupation – but unwittingly illustrates just how thoroughly militarized domestic law enforcement has become. The clip begins with an on-screen narration by a female officer who appears to be on a potent tranquilizer. She soothingly explains that when tactical teams – that is, military units in black body armor – serve search warrants, the element of surprise is important “for the safety of everyone.” She concedes that operations of this kind are traumatic “not only for occupants of the house, but for neighbors as well,” she continues. This is why post-raid neighborhood outreach by the stormtroopers is now standard procedure. “Anytime we’re going to kick in a house like this, we’ve got kids in the neighborhood … and it kind of resembles a military operation,” explains Sgt. Chip Huth, who isn’t quite honest enough to admit that each of those raids is a military operation, an example of what the Pentagon calls “operations other than war.” According to Sgt. Huth, “We have to establish objective peace before we can move on to any community-building peace.” Like the expression “clear and hold,” Huth’s statement was formulated in the language of military occupation: Pacify a targeted neighborhood, then try to win the “hearts and minds” of residents. This is the “new normal” for young Americans in 2014 – but a mere generation ago it was unimaginable except in dystopian fiction. Back in the mid-1980s, a miniseries called “Amerika” depicted the United States following a takeover by the Soviet Union. Order was maintained in Soviet-occupied America by a cadre of black-clad stormtroopers whose faces were always concealed from the public. That entertaining but lurid program wildly over-estimated the Soviet threat to our national independence. However, it uncannily anticipated our descent into quasi-totalitarian rule. The Soviet-style enforcers we have to fear are found in our local police departments and sheriff’s offices. KCPD Tactical Response Teams VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfjZ88GrS3c Police State 2000 VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKty_3IlXOc Police State 4: The Rise of FEMA VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klqv9t1zVww
U.S. Army Builds ‘Fake City’ In Virginia To Practice Military Occupation Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com February 14, 2014
Martial law training? 300 acre town includes sports stadium, school, underground subway The U.S. Army has built a 300 acre ‘fake city’ complete with a sports stadium, bank, school, and an underground subway in order to train for unspecified future combat scenarios. The recently opened site is located in Virginia and was built at a cost of $96 million dollars, taking just two years to complete. While the city was ostensibly built to prepare U.S. troops for the occupation of cities abroad, some will undoubtedly fear that the real intention could be closer to home. Although the site includes a mosque, the town looks American in every other way, with signs in English. The fact that, as the Telegraph reports, “The subway carriages even carry the same logo as the carriages in Washington DC,” could suggest that the site was built to double both as a foreign city and a mock domestic town. According to Colonel John P. Petkosek, “This is the place where we can be creative, where we can come up with solutions for problems that we don’t even know we have yet….This is where we’ll look at solutions for the future–material solutions and non-material solutions…anything from how you’re going to operate in a subterranean environment to how you dismount a Humvee to avoid an IED strike.” The increasing demonization of domestic political groups as extremists has prompted numerous scenarios where commentators have suggested that U.S. Army and National Guard personnel could be needed to quell civil unrest. In 2012, an academic study about the future use of the military as a peacekeeping force within the United States written by a retired Army Colonel depicted a shocking scenario in which the U.S. Army is used to restore order to a town that has been seized by Tea Party “insurrectionists”.
The study dovetailed with a leaked U.S. Army manual which revealed plans for the military to carry out “Civil Disturbance Operations” during which troops would be used domestically to quell riots, confiscate firearms and even kill Americans on U.S. soil during mass civil unrest. The manual also describes how prisoners will be processed through temporary internment camps under the guidance of U.S. Army FM 3-19.40 Internment/Resettlement Operations, which outlines how internees would be “re-educated” into developing an “appreciation of U.S. policies” while detained in prison camps inside the United States. Fort Hood soldiers are also being taught by their superiors that Christians, Tea Party supporters and anti-abortion activists represent a radical terror threat, mirroring rhetoric backed by the Department of Homeland Security which frames “liberty lovers” as domestic extremists. Last year, former Navy SEAL Ben Smith warned that the Obama administration is asking top brass in the military if they would be comfortable with disarming U.S. citizens, a litmus test that includes gauging whether they would be prepared to order NCOs to fire on Americans. During a recent Ohio National Guard exercise, second amendment proponents were portrayed as domestic terrorists as part of a mock disaster drill. U.S. Army Builds ‘Fake City’ in Virginia to Practice Military Occupation VIDEO BELOW http://www.infowars.com/u-s-army-builds-fake-city-in-virginia-to-practice-military-occupation/
Police Using Data Concerning Lawful Gun Ownership To Ratchet Up Scrutiny, Escalate Tactics NRA ILA February 14, 2014
In recent years much progress has been made in protecting the privacy of gun owners by restricting access to gun licensing and right-to-carry permit data, with a majority of states now limiting the availability of this information to law enforcement officers for official use. Unfortunately, two recent
incidents have highlighted how government data indicating firearm ownership can be used by law enforcement officials as justification to escalate encounters with gun owners. The latest episode took place February 4th in Des Moines, Iowa, during the execution of a search warrant by the police department of Ankeny, Iowa, on the residence of concealed carry permit holder Justin Ross and his mother Sally Prince. The search warrant was for electronics and clothes police allege are connected to a case of credit card fraud. Around 10:20 a.m., a group of at least eight Ankeny officers clad in SWAT gear, with weapons drawn, arrived at the home, delivered a cursory knock on the door, and then used a battering ram to break into the house. The occupants, fearful that the commotion indicated a violent burglary, hid inside the home. Surveillance cameras inside and outside the house captured a portion of the raid, before they were dismantled by the search team. As the police were moving through the house, Ross was in a bathroom armed with a pistol, with which he was prepared to defend himself from the apparent burglars. Following an officer’s unsuccessful attempt to kick in the bathroom door, Ross heard someone say “police” outside the bathroom, at which point he holstered the firearm. Following the raid, Ross told a local news outlet that had the officer succeeded in breaching the bathroom door on his first attempt, “I would have been standing there with my weapon drawn pointed at the doorway and they probably would have shot me.” Former Des Moines Police Chief William Moulder categorized the Ankeny Police department’s actions as unusual, telling the Des Moines Register that “credit card cases typically involve a detective or two knocking on the door.” Why then did the police use such forceful tactics? Ankeny police Capt. Makai Echer justified the department’s decision by citing the officers’ knowledge of Justin Ross’s concealed carry permit. As a result of the raid, police did arrest two of the home’s occupants on charges unrelated to the initial search warrant, and discovered electronics, drugs and drug paraphernalia that could lead to further charges. So far Ross has not been charged with any crime. We want to be absolutely clear that NRA is not defending the behavior of anyone in this household with respect to any underlying criminal activity. But it is equally important to defend the principle that information indicating lawful gun ownership should not be used as justification dangerously to escalate police officers’ encounters with citizens, certainly not those initiated in response to suspicions of nonviolent conduct. The Ankeny incident comes less than a month after a report surfaced of Florida concealed carry licensee John Filippidis’s experience with the Maryland Transportation Authority Police (MTAP). While that account was based only on Filippidis’s statements and did not explain how the officer involved learned of Filippis’s Florida concealed carry license, the fact that Filippis is a concealed carry licensee reportedly led to a lengthy roadside detention and a prolonged, intrusive vehicle search during an otherwise routine traffic stop.
The use by police of government records of lawful gun ownership to increase scrutiny, force, or aggression effectively punishes the exercise of a constitutional right, creates suspicion between gun owners and law enforcement officers, and can potentially lead to explosive and tragic consequences. Moreover, it ignores the facts that gun ownership is common in the United States and those who obtain or carry firearms for criminal purposes rarely do so through ordinary legal channels. The United States Supreme Court, in the 1994 case of Staples v. United States, rejected the premise that those who possess firearms should expect to be treated like criminals. The government had argued in the case that all firearms are tantamount to narcotics and hand grenades and that anybody who possessed one therefore did so at his or her legal peril, whether or not the person had any knowledge he or she was doing anything wrong. The Court flatly disagreed: Here, the Government essentially suggests that we should [apply] the … assumption that “one would hardly be surprised to learn that owning a gun is not an innocent act.” That proposition is simply not supported by common experience. Guns in general are not “deleterious devices or products or obnoxious waste materials,” … that put their owners on notice that they stand “in responsible relation to a public danger.” … … “[T]hat an item is “dangerous,” in some general sense, does not necessarily suggest, as the Government seems to assume, that it is not also entirely innocent. Even dangerous items can, in some cases, be so commonplace and generally available that we would not consider them to alert individuals to the likelihood of strict regulation. As suggested above, despite their potential for harm, guns generally can be owned in perfect innocence. The Court also states that “common experience” establishes “that owning a gun is usually licit and blameless conduct.” The Court may take up this issue again in the case of Quinn v. Texas, which is pending on a petition that asks the Court to consider whether police can assume occupants of a residence are dangerous, and dispense with the usual requirement to knock and announce their presence when serving a warrant, based on someone in the home lawfully owning a gun. In the meantime, the questions raised by these cases provide reason for caution on the part of gun owners as calls increase for both the registration of firearms and for measures, like “universal” background checks, that create the information and records from which registries could later be compiled.
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