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ATF Puts Up Surveillance Cameras Around Seattle ... To Catch Illegal Grease Dump (muckrock.com)
v3rgEz writes: Last summer, Seattleites noticed that utility poles around town were showing some odd growths: A raft of surveillance cameras that, under Seattle's strict surveillance equipment laws, shouldn't have been there without disclosure and monitoring. But Seattle Police said that they weren't theirs, and one enterprising citizen followed up with a series of public records requests, only to discover that they were actually the ATF's cameras — on the watch for grease dumpers. Now the requester is fighting for the full list of federal surveillance watching over Seattle, and answers to how often federal agencies pursue what appear to be purely local crimes.
Why is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms interested in illegal grease dumping? Illicit grease disposal is a potential environmental, water quality, and combustion hazard issue; but that's more the EPA's thing, perhaps local authorities, maybe FBI if it's a interstate conspiracy.
Does somebody think that Tyler Durden is skimming off the grease to manufacture nitroglycerin for Project Mayhem and his anarcho-primitivist insurgency?
5) Who would actually take their cover-story at face value?
It doesn't pass the smell test.
My God, it's Full of Source!
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We'll just get the feds to do all the monitoring and share their information because they don't have to listen to the local ordinance. It's like the local departments that use the federal civil forfeiture rules when their city or state tells them they can't steal from their citizens anymore. I wish federal courts would start smacking departments that do this hard, both collectively and individual officers and higher.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
WTF does the ATF have to do with illegal grease dumping? What's that? Nothing at all?
They have neither the jurisdiction nor the interest in these crimes. If they're claiming it's for policing this kind of stuff, it's a big fucking lie.
This is just making shit up to allow them to put up cameras, against local laws, and then refuse to explain what the hell they're doing.
Yet more evidence that law enforcement doesn't give a crap about the law.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Who needs God when you have Big Brother looking up your asshole?
1) How the hell does that fall under the ATF's jurisdiction?
I am sure it isn't but when in recent memory has that stopped a federal agency from doing anything. People talk a lot about waste fraud and abuse. Then the big government advocates say how import $AGENCY'S mission is and how it can't meet its obligations as it is. I wonder how much waste there is in duplication of effort, equipment, and training. Wow all that before we even get started on the civil liberties, rule of law, and accountability issues. We should all be calling our representatives demanding Sequestration 2.0 get started immediate, its the anything that has worked.
2) Who dumps something they can sell as a (heating) fuel?
Lots of people when oil hits $32 dollars a barrel. You probably can't economically process that used grease enough that the EPA would let you burn it, at these prices. Naturally this discounts the overall environmental impacts of shipping cleaner fuel in from elsewhere and the associated production impacts. Hey its clearing at the point you burn it though, big brother knows best.
3) Does Seattle actually have that much of a problem with french fries that they need federal intervention?
Probably not but FEDs want to play with their tax payer funded toys.
4) Why can't you dump a biodegradable substance? Better bulldozed into an empty lot than rotting in a landfill for 150 years...
See 2.
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and it also wouldn't be much of a surprise if on-site/near-site illicit dumping by individual operators looking to avoid paying for collection would be pretty common
Uh, restaurants get paid for their grease, this might not be the case right now since soybeans had a good year last year and crude is so cheap that biodiesel isn't going to be in high demand, but over the last 10+ years it's been the case. That's why people working on B90 conversions have to be sure to ask the restaurants before they take grease for their vehicle.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Everything after 1) is completely irrelevant.
Why would anybody believe that the ATF is even investigating illegal grease dumping into municipal sewers? You might as well expect me to believe the FBI is actively investigating people who don't mow their lawns or who spit on sidewalks.
It's completely implausible.
Yes, crap clogging sewers is a real thing. But this has nothing to do with a federal agency putting up surveillance cameras and then coming up with a bogus cover story for it.
This is the Men in Black saying "Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus" ... it's a cheap cover story, by agencies who won't admit to what they're really doing.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Grease can also be used as an animal feed supplement. My chickens love bacon grease, or used frying oil mixed with their feed. I don't understand why anyone would just dump perfectly good grease. It should be easy to find someone to take it, and possibly even pay for it.
My guess is that the grease is just a cover story, and the real purpose of the cameras is something else entirely.
Ask yourself why the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is hunting down grease dumping instead of, say, the EPA?
Yup, when asked why they were there, someone thought fast..." Yes, it's to catch.......grease dumpers..... Ya thats what they're for...grease dumpers......Because there are not laws against catching grease dumpers are there.....