And to be an even bigger dick, I'll remind you it's "Scandal".
My apologies. I am trying to counter 6-8 months of not drinking..... by drinking.
And to be an even bigger dick, I'll remind you it's "Scandal".
Something to note, the facts and figures for the arms seized at crime scenes, number of Mexican federal agents killed/shot and the helicopter downing are all from the Mexican government, not the most reliable source of info in the world. The number of arms sold by the stores also seems to come from them alone so far, the fewer they sold illegally would help their case too.
Maybe because it ain't that big of a deal. Other than his claims of being innocent and that a 'SWAT team' busted down his door, is there anything else? It could have been just regular federal agents serving a warrant, I would guess that the DOE IG doesn't even have a SWAT team. And busting down his door early in the morning then cuffing him while they search for evidence isn't exactly a bad thing, I would argue it's good procedure. You don't think so?
Something to note, the facts and figures for the arms seized at crime scenes, number of Mexican federal agents killed/shot and the helicopter downing are all from the Mexican government, not the most reliable source of info in the world. The number of arms sold by the stores also seems to come from them alone so far, the fewer they sold illegally would help their case too.
Maybe you're just a better American than I am, but I have a distinct uneasiness associated with a bunch of goons from the Department of (re)Education busting down my door. Why do they need federal agents; isn't the FBI a perfectly legal way to investigate these crimes? You would be wrong if you assumed they didn't have a SWAT team. The guys rolled into his house in the middle of the night decked out in black batman gear. They may not expressly call themselves SWAT, but FBI's HRT doesn't call themselves SWAT, either, and they were the genesis for all the local yokel barney fifes getting the idea of tacticooling their departments up.
Those federal agents are lucky to be alive. A no knock warrant on the wrong house can have tragic consequences, and is a good way for an innocent person to end up in the big house for 10 years. The courts have ruled you have no right to defend yourself against an unannounced police invasion; you've got to figure out pretty quick whether the ass clowns in your house screaming to get down without identifying themselves are police or criminals. Better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6 has scary implications when it comes to these kind of police "tactics." I'd rather see a court actually look at the Constitution and say "no, this document says we can't use unlawful (ie illegal) force to see if you are doing anything illegal," but that's not going to happen anytime soon in the day and age of exponentially expanding government power.
All of this is in the guise of protecting the officers serving the warrants. Sorry, but my thoughts have always been that the police protect the innocent; they don't invade their homes in the dark of night and point guns at them. Police take an oath to protect the very people these warrants endanger. You want to serve a warrant, you do it the right way by announcing your presence in daylight. Anything else is jackboot goon bullshit.
Don't know much about federal law enforcement, do you? There are quite a few federal agencies involved in law enforcement from the FBI to the Secret Service, Postal Inspectors to CGIS, the Pentagon Force Protection Agency to US Marshals and many IG folks including DoEd. All have their own role and help enforce federal laws, usually ones relevant to their specific area of expertise with the FBI being the most equal among them. Do some overlap? Sure, but the system works pretty well most of the time.
As for your assertion that the DoEd folks may have been SWAT in everything but name, do you realize that regular federal agents and police officers serve such warrants all the time with no special tools or weapons and lacking all the tacti-cool gear often associated with SWAT or similar police units? Other than the claims of the homeowner, how do you know if they were in 'batman' gear? They could have been just wearing vests and dark blue windbreakers with yellow lettering as feds are wont to do.
If there was something unconstitutional about such warrants they wouldn't be conducted but yet they continue to be and for very good reason, they work. As I already noted they can be abused and sometimes lead to tragic results, but for the number conducted tragedy is pretty rare on either end. You might not like it that much personally but they are legal and police use them effectively.
If there was something unconstitutional about such warrants they wouldn't be conducted but yet they continue to be and for very good reason, they work. As I already noted they can be abused and sometimes lead to tragic results, but for the number conducted tragedy is pretty rare on either end. You might not like it that much personally but they are legal and police use them effectively.
The very arguments before the judge who decided they were legal used the phrase "otherwise unlawful force" to describe the no knock entry techniques. Maybe I'm just retarded, but unlawful usually means illegal to me.
Oh wait. It's obviously not illegal if the government can do it. I forgot. A judge somewhere (because they have never been found to be corrupt) decided the system counts extra for some, but not for others. Got ya.
Remember that slippery slope people complain about? How it starts with nudey patdowns by McSecurity Guards at the airports, and dudes reading your naughty emails because you might be a terrorist? It ends with federal Agents coming into your house without announcing their presence, at night, with an incomplete warrant, looking for the wrong person with guns pointed at you and your family. Good luck with that.
What would it take before you would call it a police state?
Unconstitutional SHIT happens ALL THE TIME. ALL THE TIME. And it doesn't get addressed until it goes to court because someone fought it. Look at the DC gun ban. That was in effect for years... and surprise surprise it was found to be unconstitutional.
The final authority for constitutional / unconstitutional rests in the hands of the SCOTS, and even then sometimes they overturn cases. The above was a poor argument.