Slashdot Mirror
Massachusetts SWAT Teams Claim They're Private Corporations, Immune To Oversight
New submitter thermowax sends a report on how Massachusetts SWAT teams are dodging open records requests by claiming to be corporations. From the article:
As it turns out, a number of SWAT teams in the Bay State are operated by what are called law enforcement councils, or LECs. These LECs are funded by several police agencies in a given geographic area and overseen by an executive board, which is usually made up of police chiefs from member police departments. ... Some of these LECs have also apparently incorporated as 501(c)(3) organizations. And it's here that we run into problems. According to the ACLU, the LECs are claiming that the 501(c)(3) status means that they're private corporations, not government agencies. And therefore, they say they're immune from open records requests. Let's be clear. These agencies oversee police activities. They employ cops who carry guns, wear badges, collect paychecks provided by taxpayers and have the power to detain, arrest, injure and kill. They operate SWAT teams, which conduct raids on private residences. And yet they say that because they've incorporated, they're immune to Massachusetts open records laws. The state's residents aren't permitted to know how often the SWAT teams are used, what they're used for, what sort of training they get or who they're primarily used against.
So, they're vigilantes then?
Sorry, but if it looks like a cop, and shoots people like a cop, and can arrest people like a cop, it needs oversight like a cop.
If people think police departments are terrible at investigating their own wrong doing now, wait until they're private corporations and can simply say "piss off".
If these clowns want to be private corporations, fire them all, and then tell them they're only legally allowed to be mall cops.
If they want to be cops, they're part of whatever level of government gives them the legal authority to operate, and subject to the applicable laws.
Any refusal to hand over the records should lead to dismissal, or criminal charges.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Well, no, libertarians in the current erra are against 3rd party public oversight of initiated violence.
It never stops entertaining me when someone who's not a member of a group feels compelled to explain to people who are members of the group how the aforementioned group thinks.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
That means they should also forfeit the right to sovereign immunity. So fuck these assholes.
Correct. They can be prosecuted for breaking and entering, assault with a deadly weapon, involuntary restraint, kidnapping, etc.
Your move, Mass Gestapo, err, I mean SWAT.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Automatic weapons in the hands of corporate employee's protected by a shield? Anyone else see the potential for drama here? I cannot fathom that a ride along will justify this in my mind.
Except that at the federal level we have an FBI and DOJ that spend much of their time advising local law enforcement to if not outright lie, at least not to advertise their capabilities and methods. Then we have all kinds of federal money being appropriated at the federal level and handed to the Homeland Security to distribute to local law enforcement specifically to help them militarize.
In short I don't really really see what you suggest happening, not unless in a surprise upset Gary Johnson is elected president in 2016. Its much more likely the FBI will help intimidate and silence anyone who makes to much noise about this issue.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
No, this is a government entity which has decided it isn't a government entity, but still has the right to operate as if it were.
Sorry, but a government entity doesn't get to declare independence from the part that gives is legitimacy.
If these guys are a corporation, they can pay their own salaries, and operate under the sames rules as private security firms. Which means they're no longer police officers.
If they want to be law enforcement, well, that means they aren't private corporations, and they are subject to oversight.
Especially when they have a history of playing fast and loose with the law, 'using fictional informants to obtain warrants ', and other shady activities.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
"They put up with massive amounts of shit so they should be allowed to get away with this..."
That is your defense?
No, he's right.
SWAT is out of control and needs some serious reigning in. They should be limited to being deployed only where there is solid information that a suspect is armed and dangerous. Addresses should be checked by no less than three people...one on the team, the team supervisor, and upper level supervision. Targets should be observed and confirmed to be present and all attempts made to apprehend them outside of residences.
Further, team members should be criminally and civilly liable for the injury and deaths of innocents at their hand.
Too many innocent people are being killed and maimed by SWAT raids, too many SWAT raids are occurring, and too many times there is no repercussion for fucking things up and blowing a hole in little kid's chest.
If, during an interaction between law enforcement and the public, someone dies, the best option is that it's the bad guy killed by a cop. Second best option is it's a cop killed by a bad guy, the worst option and one that should be avoided at all costs, even the cost of the life of a cop, is an innocent civilian being killed by a cop.
You can't have representatives of the State killing innocents and then just saying "Whoops, my bad" and then throwing money at the family.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
It's become a rather common excuse. These days it is typically mixed up with corporate claims of privacy. Essentially corporate secrecy is used as a way if short circuiting the rule of law. That's how the police departments that use Stingray cell phone interception technology to shred constitutional protections avoid admitting what they are doing: they have a confidentiality clause with the company who makes the device. Same thing with fracking chemicals: they can pump any toxic crap that they want to into the ground because it's a business secret.
So where were all the right wingers when this was going down during the Bush era? You know, the ones who are now claiming that Obama is destroying the constitution? Massive amnesia and/or massive hypocrisy?
(Personally I am furious with Obama because he has continued the blatantly unconstitutional policies of the Bush years, but at least I am not lying through my teeth and supporting one executive while screeching like a stuck pig when a democrat does the same kind of crap.)
Why is Snark Required?
I strongly disagree. The military, including the national guard, has lots of training in killing, but little training in hostage recovery, preservation of criminal evidence, the rights of suspects, and protecting the safety of bystanders.
The police fall down on these things a lot, but at least they know how they're *supposed* to work. The national guard are the people you send in when you intend to kill citizens and you don't intend to have a trial afterward. (This is why the "peaceful" deployments of the guard in the civil rights era ended with dead citizens: that's their job.)
There is a time and a place for military suppression of unrest, but the SWAT team is an absolutely necessary middle ground between the beat cop and martial law.
In its purest ideological form, Libertarianism is about promoting Liberty and the limitation of the use of force by the government for police and common defense not the privatization of the use of force. "Privatizing" by merely contracting with corporations instead of individuals to act as police or government agents has nothing to do at all with libertarianism. Privatizing in this sense is just a form of contract with a group of individuals instead of individuals directly. Similarly to contracting with a labor union that represents public employees.
In this sense "privatizing" in general has nothing to do with libertarianism if it means that government is still paying with taxpayer money which is collected by the use of force. Police and Military are fundamentally the only legitimate use of government's taxing authority and even then taxes should be considered a necessary evil, but only necessary if the government can't collect sufficient money with a voluntary system.
In this case I think an important line would have been crossed if the SWAT team direction, oversight and management is coming from a private corporation. To abdicate the police powers of the government to a private corporation would be very much anti-libertarian. Very anti-libertarian. And regardless of ideology I hope people will recognize it as a bad idea that should be reconsidered.
I think liberty is a worthwhile ideal to work towards, but first you have to understand what it means.
The problem with suing them is that you can only target the corp's assets. Structuring it in such a way that the 'company' doesn't actually have any is pretty standard.
I'm thinking that the BATFE needs to come inspect them to make sure they're in full compliance with the NFA. The regulations are completely different between being a government agency like a police department and a commercial company like a 501(c)(3). I'm also willing to bet that they use government letterhead to purchase restricted stuff.
BATFE: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives
NFA: National Firearms Act. Federal law regul
I don't read AC A human right