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I suppose I'm meant to be disturbed by this apparent militarization of federal agencies, but I doubt NASA SWAT account for much if any of the civil rights abuse

I suppose I'm meant to be disturbed by this apparent militarization of federal agencies, but I doubt NASA SWAT account for much if any of the civil rights abuses going on in America right now. Rather, most of that stuff is doubtlessly coming from the usual suspects (local cops, FBI, ATF, ICE, etc), not the oddball outfits. Maybe instead I'm supposed to think these organizations are wasting taxpayer money on matters that are outside their wheelhouse.. maybe that's the case. I can see why NASA would need a security team but perhaps that could be more efficiently provided by another agency. The article doesn't really seem to make this argument though. I suppose maybe I'm just being a grump and the article is meant for general edification with no agenda.

nickff 6y ago
I am not sure what the article's intended message is, but I take the view that this shows just how militarized the government has gotten. Aggressive, violent action seems to be the first resort.
klyrs 6y ago
> I suppose I'm meant to be disturbed by this apparent militarization of federal agencies... Alternatively, you could meant to be detached but curious or pleased with the transparency of this release. Or, you could meant to be gleeful about the heavy armament that various departments have, or distressed by the transparency of the release. I'm never sure what I'm meant to think, so I'd look at the tone of the article. It appears to be the detached, informative variety. One of the frequent complaints I've seen about militarized federal forces in DC and Portland is that they were largely unidentified. Is that lack of transparency concerning, pleasing, or neutral?
jcrawfordor 6y ago
I think it speaks mostly to the general trend of police militarization, which is both enabled and normalized to the extent that basically every law enforcement agency is expected to have a tactical unit, even if it's a relatively obscure and small agency. Of course this mostly stands out in the federal government, which is almost certainly wasting money by maintaining so many separate law enforcement agencies, especially when a certain degree of standardization is in place in that most federal law enforcement officers (but not all) train at FLETC. This makes you question whey there are a million separate agencies instead of one large one. And for the most part the answer isn't really a good one... just an agglomeration of history, with the most significant part being a result of the Inspectors General Act which basically created the situation that every executive branch agency has its own internal law enforcement organization. For example, given that the Federal Protective Service exists, one wonders about the necessity of so many executive branch agencies having their own law enforcement unit to protect their facilities. But then one wonders why the Federal Protective Service exists when there is some historical justification for assigning that duty to the Secret Service. And so on. Look at it this way: a similar controversy has existed at a local level over university and school district police departments acquiring ex-military equipment and establishing tactical units. Once again it's probably a lower risk than the municipal police department, but it does say something about the state of militarization. And then one can wonder why it is typical in many areas for universities and school districts to have their own police departments, which often face funding, training, and retention challenges compared to the municipal departments... Around here the university police departments have a reputation as a mill that pays for people to attend the academy, after which they spend their mandatory six months and then immediately transfer to a municipal agency with better pay. As you can imagine this does wonders for the quality of the workforce in the university departments. More broadly, this whole thing also touches on the uneven training and staffing standards for US law enforcement agencies, which seems to result in good part from both the sheer number of such agencies and the various peculiarity of the state laws under which they obtain their authority (e.g. consider states that do and do not commission security police). This should be less of a problem with federal agencies due to the de facto standards established by FLETC, but we've seen in e.g. Portland that the inconsistent policies of federal agencies with regard to oversight, use of force, etc. can very much be wielded against the citizenry.
- throw0101a 6y ago
  > I think it speaks mostly to the general trend of police militarization, which is both enabled and normalized to the extent that basically every law enforcement agency is expected to have a tactical unit, even if it's a relatively obscure and small agency. In some ways have these types of teams/units could be useful, as it could allow more 'aggressive' tactics to be standard operating procedure (SOP) for only certain officers allowing others to be trained for other things. * https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/06/america-police-violence-germany-georgia-britain/612820/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/06/am... * http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/06/29/many-countries-police-rarely-use-their-guns-heres-why http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/06/29/many-countries-po... It's like in the UK where most officers are unarmed, and only a select few are trained for firearms: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialist_Firearms_Command https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialist_Firearms_Command * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_unit In Germany, where all (?) officers are armed: * https://www.dw.com/en/why-german-police-officers-rarely-reach-for-their-guns/a-17884779 https://www.dw.com/en/why-german-police-officers-rarely-reac... * https://www.dw.com/en/when-are-german-police-allowed-to-use-guns/a-53826205 https://www.dw.com/en/when-are-german-police-allowed-to-use-... Perhaps putting all the "warriors" into special units that are only deployed in certain circumstances could allow for the beat cops to have different mentality: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Warrior_Cop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Warrior_Cop
  - bigiain 6y ago
    > Perhaps putting all the "warriors" into special units that are only deployed in certain circumstances could allow for the beat cops to have different mentality: "Man, I've so gotta get out of this shitty beta cuck beat cop crap, I need to prove my alpha stud warriorness to them to get into the kind of job I deserve! I know, I'll switch off my body cam and beat down the next black guy I see, then plant some drugs and charge him for resisting arrest and assault of a police officer as well. A few of those a week will get me noticed for promotion!" :sigh:
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
JarlUlvi 6y ago
NASA needs a specialized unit because when it comes to large launches at Kennedy (144,000 acres), or Wallops (6,200 acres) they have to secure a significant amount of real estate. Terrorists and Nuts would love nothing more than use a surface-to-air missile against a launch. To head off that threat, you'd need real operators trained with small arms extensively, and not the contracted security most feds use. Kennedy looks like a mix of mangroves, swamp and dense terrain with gators in the water, and panthers about. Throw in a few extras at other locations to respond to an active shooter situation and that fits a fairly small team. As far as another agency providing that security, if you do launches regularly, and have to pay for all the travel and TDY, it would get expensive in a quick hurry. Better to keep in house, and pay local law enforcement to help out where needed for the truly big launches, as 33 operators wouldn't go far enough with that much territory to protect. Federal LE probably helps in those big launches too.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  > Terrorists and Nuts would love nothing more than use a surface-to-air missile against a launch. And yet never in history has that been attempted, despite the presence of suicide bombers.
  - austincheney 6y ago
    That line of thinking destroyed the wealth of millions of people in the 2008 housing crash. So many people were certain it can’t happen only because it hasn’t happened.
    - craftinator 6y ago
      He's not saying it can't happen, he's pointing out that there is no historical justification for the protections they render.
  - onetimemanytime 6y ago
    >>And yet never in history has that been attempted, despite the presence of suicide bombers. That, in itself is not really an argument. Nothing has been attempted until it happens.
Spooky23 6y ago
Cross agency collaboration is difficult in any government environment, but especially across the sprawling Federal workforce. End of the day, these groups probably ultimately save money and provide a higher level of professionalism as opposed to practices like deputizing local police.
ashtonkem 6y ago
My general take is that you are most likely to be oppressed by a local politician on a power trip. Similarly, you are by and far more likely to be shot by your town’s police department than any other member of the government, because there are a lot more of them and they are a lot less trained and monitored than their federal counterparts. That doesn’t mean places like DHS don’t do bad things, they do, but you should look at your local cops first.
- vageli 6y ago
  > Similarly, you are by and far more likely to be shot by your town’s police department than any other member of the government, because there are a lot more of them and they are a lot less trained and monitored than their federal counterparts. > That doesn’t mean places like DHS don’t do bad things, they do, but you should look at your local cops first. I would posit that many places don't have police at the town-level. As you move away from the coasts where the cities are far and the towns sparsely populated, policing responsibilities tend to rest at the county level or in a sheriff's department or similar.
  - wjossey 6y ago
    I grew up in a small town of less than 6,000 people, and we had a full time police that was very visible and then county sheriff that operated outside the city limits. There was one police officer per thousand people in the town. They were very visible and everyone ended up having interactions with them at some point in their lives. The one time I needed them in my life they were supremely unhelpful and unsympathetic. Basically said to me and my family “not our problem.” Ended up using social services instead, who got the sheriff involved, who immediately took action and was helpful, sympathetic, and checked in after their time assisting was over. In hindsight, my town would have been better off allocating the police funding to drug rehab and social services, and just asking the sheriff to handle policing in the town.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      It’s patently obvious that while most cops view themselves as protecting society from chaos, they do not see the actual citizens that make up said society as people that they are ultimately responsible to. And sometimes you’re lucky if they view the citizens that make up society as people at all, tragically. I’m glad that the Sheriff was responsive and helpful though, it’s always nice to hear about public servants actually serving the public.

nickff 6y ago

I am not sure what the article's intended message is, but I take the view that this shows just how militarized the government has gotten. Aggressive, violent action seems to be the first resort.

klyrs 6y ago

> I suppose I'm meant to be disturbed by this apparent militarization of federal agencies... Alternatively, you could meant to be detached but curious or pleased with the transparency of this release. Or, you could meant to be gleeful about the heavy armament that various departments have, or distressed by the transparency of the release. I'm never sure what I'm meant to think, so I'd look at the tone of the article. It appears to be the detached, informative variety. One of the frequent complaints I've seen about militarized federal forces in DC and Portland is that they were largely unidentified. Is that lack of transparency concerning, pleasing, or neutral?

jcrawfordor 6y ago

I think it speaks mostly to the general trend of police militarization, which is both enabled and normalized to the extent that basically every law enforcement agency is expected to have a tactical unit, even if it's a relatively obscure and small agency. Of course this mostly stands out in the federal government, which is almost certainly wasting money by maintaining so many separate law enforcement agencies, especially when a certain degree of standardization is in place in that most federal law enforcement officers (but not all) train at FLETC. This makes you question whey there are a million separate agencies instead of one large one. And for the most part the answer isn't really a good one... just an agglomeration of history, with the most significant part being a result of the Inspectors General Act which basically created the situation that every executive branch agency has its own internal law enforcement organization. For example, given that the Federal Protective Service exists, one wonders about the necessity of so many executive branch agencies having their own law enforcement unit to protect their facilities. But then one wonders why the Federal Protective Service exists when there is some historical justification for assigning that duty to the Secret Service. And so on. Look at it this way: a similar controversy has existed at a local level over university and school district police departments acquiring ex-military equipment and establishing tactical units. Once again it's probably a lower risk than the municipal police department, but it does say something about the state of militarization. And then one can wonder why it is typical in many areas for universities and school districts to have their own police departments, which often face funding, training, and retention challenges compared to the municipal departments... Around here the university police departments have a reputation as a mill that pays for people to attend the academy, after which they spend their mandatory six months and then immediately transfer to a municipal agency with better pay. As you can imagine this does wonders for the quality of the workforce in the university departments. More broadly, this whole thing also touches on the uneven training and staffing standards for US law enforcement agencies, which seems to result in good part from both the sheer number of such agencies and the various peculiarity of the state laws under which they obtain their authority (e.g. consider states that do and do not commission security police). This should be less of a problem with federal agencies due to the de facto standards established by FLETC, but we've seen in e.g. Portland that the inconsistent policies of federal agencies with regard to oversight, use of force, etc. can very much be wielded against the citizenry.

throw0101a 6y ago
> I think it speaks mostly to the general trend of police militarization, which is both enabled and normalized to the extent that basically every law enforcement agency is expected to have a tactical unit, even if it's a relatively obscure and small agency. In some ways have these types of teams/units could be useful, as it could allow more 'aggressive' tactics to be standard operating procedure (SOP) for only certain officers allowing others to be trained for other things. * https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/06/america-police-violence-germany-georgia-britain/612820/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/06/am... * http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/06/29/many-countries-police-rarely-use-their-guns-heres-why http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/06/29/many-countries-po... It's like in the UK where most officers are unarmed, and only a select few are trained for firearms: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialist_Firearms_Command https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialist_Firearms_Command * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_unit In Germany, where all (?) officers are armed: * https://www.dw.com/en/why-german-police-officers-rarely-reach-for-their-guns/a-17884779 https://www.dw.com/en/why-german-police-officers-rarely-reac... * https://www.dw.com/en/when-are-german-police-allowed-to-use-guns/a-53826205 https://www.dw.com/en/when-are-german-police-allowed-to-use-... Perhaps putting all the "warriors" into special units that are only deployed in certain circumstances could allow for the beat cops to have different mentality: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Warrior_Cop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Warrior_Cop
- bigiain 6y ago
  > Perhaps putting all the "warriors" into special units that are only deployed in certain circumstances could allow for the beat cops to have different mentality: "Man, I've so gotta get out of this shitty beta cuck beat cop crap, I need to prove my alpha stud warriorness to them to get into the kind of job I deserve! I know, I'll switch off my body cam and beat down the next black guy I see, then plant some drugs and charge him for resisting arrest and assault of a police officer as well. A few of those a week will get me noticed for promotion!" :sigh:
AmericanChopper 6y ago

JarlUlvi 6y ago

NASA needs a specialized unit because when it comes to large launches at Kennedy (144,000 acres), or Wallops (6,200 acres) they have to secure a significant amount of real estate. Terrorists and Nuts would love nothing more than use a surface-to-air missile against a launch. To head off that threat, you'd need real operators trained with small arms extensively, and not the contracted security most feds use. Kennedy looks like a mix of mangroves, swamp and dense terrain with gators in the water, and panthers about. Throw in a few extras at other locations to respond to an active shooter situation and that fits a fairly small team. As far as another agency providing that security, if you do launches regularly, and have to pay for all the travel and TDY, it would get expensive in a quick hurry. Better to keep in house, and pay local law enforcement to help out where needed for the truly big launches, as 33 operators wouldn't go far enough with that much territory to protect. Federal LE probably helps in those big launches too.

srtjstjsj 6y ago
> Terrorists and Nuts would love nothing more than use a surface-to-air missile against a launch. And yet never in history has that been attempted, despite the presence of suicide bombers.
- austincheney 6y ago
  That line of thinking destroyed the wealth of millions of people in the 2008 housing crash. So many people were certain it can’t happen only because it hasn’t happened.
  - craftinator 6y ago
    He's not saying it can't happen, he's pointing out that there is no historical justification for the protections they render.
- onetimemanytime 6y ago
  >>And yet never in history has that been attempted, despite the presence of suicide bombers. That, in itself is not really an argument. Nothing has been attempted until it happens.

Spooky23 6y ago

Cross agency collaboration is difficult in any government environment, but especially across the sprawling Federal workforce. End of the day, these groups probably ultimately save money and provide a higher level of professionalism as opposed to practices like deputizing local police.

ashtonkem 6y ago

My general take is that you are most likely to be oppressed by a local politician on a power trip. Similarly, you are by and far more likely to be shot by your town’s police department than any other member of the government, because there are a lot more of them and they are a lot less trained and monitored than their federal counterparts. That doesn’t mean places like DHS don’t do bad things, they do, but you should look at your local cops first.

vageli 6y ago
> Similarly, you are by and far more likely to be shot by your town’s police department than any other member of the government, because there are a lot more of them and they are a lot less trained and monitored than their federal counterparts. > That doesn’t mean places like DHS don’t do bad things, they do, but you should look at your local cops first. I would posit that many places don't have police at the town-level. As you move away from the coasts where the cities are far and the towns sparsely populated, policing responsibilities tend to rest at the county level or in a sheriff's department or similar.
- wjossey 6y ago
  I grew up in a small town of less than 6,000 people, and we had a full time police that was very visible and then county sheriff that operated outside the city limits. There was one police officer per thousand people in the town. They were very visible and everyone ended up having interactions with them at some point in their lives. The one time I needed them in my life they were supremely unhelpful and unsympathetic. Basically said to me and my family “not our problem.” Ended up using social services instead, who got the sheriff involved, who immediately took action and was helpful, sympathetic, and checked in after their time assisting was over. In hindsight, my town would have been better off allocating the police funding to drug rehab and social services, and just asking the sheriff to handle policing in the town.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    It’s patently obvious that while most cops view themselves as protecting society from chaos, they do not see the actual citizens that make up said society as people that they are ultimately responsible to. And sometimes you’re lucky if they view the citizens that make up society as people at all, tragically. I’m glad that the Sheriff was responsive and helpful though, it’s always nice to hear about public servants actually serving the public.