TheDaily.com reports in "BATTLEFIELD MAIN STREET" on the Pentagon giving local police departments military equipment, definitely not on primetime:
A rapidly expanding Pentagon program that distributes used military equipment to local police departments — many of them small-town forces — puts battlefield-grade weaponry in the hands of cops at an unprecedented rate.
Through its little-known “1033 program,” the Department of Defense gave away nearly $500 million worth of leftover military gear to law enforcement in fiscal year 2011 — a new record for the program and a dramatic rise over past years’ totals, including the $212 million in equipment distributed in 2010.
The report tells us:
Passed by Congress in 1997, the 1033 program was created to provide law-enforcement agencies with tools to fight drugs and terrorism. Since then, more than 17,000 agencies have taken in $2.6 billion worth of equipment for nearly free, paying only the cost of delivery.
Experts say the recent surge is simply the continuation of a decades-long trend: the increasing use of military techniques and equipment by local police departments, tactics seen most recently in the crackdowns on Occupy Wall Street protesters across the country.
....
This comes on top of grants from the Department of Homeland Security that enable police departments to buy vehicles such as “BearCats” — 16,000-pound bulletproof trucks equipped with battering rams, gun ports, tear-gas dispensers and radiation detectors. To date, more than 500 of these tanklike vehicles have been sold by Lenco, its Massacusetts-based manufacturer, according to a report in the Orlando Sentinel.
Just as many police chiefs have now come out for decriminalization of drugs, some of the most thoughtful responses to the trend come from law enforcement itself. Joseph McNamara, former chief of police in Kansas City, Mo., and San Jose, Calif., says:
“It’s totally contrary to what we think is good policing, which is community policing,” he said. “The profile of these military police units invading a neighborhood like the occupation army is contrary to what you want to do as a police department. You want the public to feel comfortable calling you to report crime and supporting you in working against crime and coming forward as witnesses.”
And in The DailyBeast, "Local Cops Ready for War With Homeland Security-Funded Military Weapons," we find that in Fargo, North Dakota:
every city squad car is equipped today with a military-style assault rifle, and officers can don Kevlar helmets able to withstand incoming fire from battlefield-grade ammunition. And for that epic confrontation—if it ever occurs—officers can now summon a new $256,643 armored truck, complete with a rotating turret.
But soybean farmer Tim Kozojed says in the best tradition of regular folks with good old American common sense:
”I’m very reluctant to get anxious about a terrorist attack in North Dakota. Why would they bother?”
This is in addition to the first announcements of warplane drone aircraft being used the United States, L.A. Times, "Drones Used By American Law Enforcement"
Armed with a search warrant, Nelson County Sheriff Kelly Janke went looking for six missing cows on the Brossart family farm in the early evening of June 23. Three men brandishing rifles chased him off, he said.
Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.
He also called in a Predator B drone.
As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.
...Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.
The DailyBeast cites a major investigation's estimate of costs since 9/11.
Like Fargo, thousands of other local police departments nationwide have been amassing stockpiles of military-style equipment in the name of homeland security, aided by more than $34 billion in federal grants since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a Daily Beast investigation conducted by the Center for Investigative Reporting has found.
The money is no object attitude toward Andy and Barney getting tanks is at a time when congress is debating a $44 billion extension in unemployment benefits.
[MODEL RECALL LAW, WASHINGTON STATE CONSTITUTION ARTICLE I.]
The Treasonous 383
SENATE: YEAs ---86
HOUSE: AYES 283 --
RELATED POST: "Why a Constitutional Law Professor Should Not Sign an Unconstitutional Military Detention Bill"
Richland County, SC, nicknamed "The Peacemaker."