Turn your tap water on and stand back from the faucet – now!
They’re turning every government agency in our country into mini-armies.
EPA agents don SWAT gear to conduct water quality tests in Alaska
When agents with the Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force surged out of the wilderness around the remote community of Chicken wearing body armor and jackets emblazoned with POLICE in big, bold letters, local placer miners didn’t quit know what to think.
Did it really take eight armed men and a squad-size display of paramilitary force to check for dirty water? Some of the miners, who run small businesses, say they felt intimidated.
Miners suggest it might have been better all around if officials had just shown up at the door — as they used to do — and said they wanted to check the water.
Miners from the Chicken area — a gold mining town of just 17 full-time residents and dozens of seasonal miners off the Taylor Highway, between Tok and the Canadian border — said that during the third week of August they were surprised by groups of four to eight armed officers, who swarmed onto their mining claims with little or no warning.
The officers were armed and wearing body armor. They were part of the Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force and were there to check for violations of section 404 of the Clean Water Act, according to several miners who were contacted by the group. Section 404 governs water discharges into rivers, streams, lakes and oceans.
The task force’s methods are now being questioned by the miners as well as the Alaska congressional delegation.
Both Alaska U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich have inquired into the task force’s actions. Congressman Don Young is also looking into it. They have been having a difficult time getting straight answers from the EPA.
speaking of all those DHS bullets and whatnot:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/24/dhs-employee-behind-website-promoting-race-war-on-paid-leave/
Theatre of the F_cking Absurd.
Ever seen one of these:
In fact I have, oddly enough, but where was it? Christopher Street Halloween Parade? San Fran’s Gay Pride Day? Somewhere like that.
DAMN Word Press!!!!
This is the link I tried to embed above:
mental midget warriors donning that kind of gear, no doubt.
probably didn’t even get accepted to coast guard reserves. now, they’re rambo and loving it.
If I read the article correctly, it stated the task force members were out in the middle of nowhere, wearing police emblems and carrying sidearms.
Big deal.
Whatever article you’re reading must not be the one I linked to:
i stand corrected
Macho cops showing off sink boat, then tell owner to relax.
Cop should be permanently beached and the damage reparations should come out of his pension fund.
My understanding is when govt workers strap on a sidearm they are labeled “essential” and get to retire in twenty years just like cops.
The government and the police are rapidly losing the confidence and trust of the middle class. I’ll concede that’s probably irrelevant until the day comes when the authorities need the co-operation of the middle class and find out it no longer exists.
The 2010 census puts the population of Chicken, AK at 7.
Locals say the current population is 16.
Do ya’ think the locals might notice “heavy human trafficking?”
The EPA sent a heavily armed SWAT team of 8.
Here’s my tale of an experience with the New York State Police in 1994:
September 30, 1994
Ed spilled his coffee in bed. I remember that because even before the stain dried, I had written on the mattress in big black magic marker the outline of the spill, and 9-30-94, Ed’s coffee. (Just in case anyone who may have looked askance at a soiled mattress was ignorant of the benign origins of the stain.)
But I digress. This has to do with warrantless searches.
On September 30, 1994, around 9 pm, I heard a car door slam. Having retired early watching TV (NPR McLaughlin Group) and reading or crosswording in bed, I went to the front window upstairs to see if Ed was home from a long day working with the cattle.
Instead, it was a large, armed, uniformed (hatless with a buzz cut) man whom I learned to be Trooper William Gormley, NY State police, Baldwinsville Barracks.
Trooper Gormley had been persistently knocking, front door and back, calling Edward. (My friend Ed, the Cowboy, was staying with me at the time. He raised cattle, and had them in pastures and farms in the area around Syracuse. ) As I was not Edward, I didn’t respond, just quietly stayed upstairs, minding my own business.
He was a persistent bastard.
I dressed (jeans and oxford button down shirt), went down to answer the front door. He was looking for Edward Harke he said through the screen door. Yes, he lives here. Last saw him this morning when he went to work.
Do you know when he’ll be back?
I have no idea where or when he’ll be back. He didn’t confide in me his schedule this morning.
Do you mind if I come in and look around?
Yes. I do mind.
Why, do you have a problem with the law?
As he was saying that he opened my screen door, and pushed his way into my house. It was clear he wasn’t waiting for permission.
And went through every room, attic to basement.
In the course of this search (using some justification or explanation to me about O J Simpson, and situations where police may come in yadayadayada. It seemed like he was BS-ing.) I learned that Ed had missed the Interstate exit, and instead straddled the high curb divider, which destroyed the undercarriage of the nearly new F250 red pickup (co-signed for by his half sister, Jerri, among other things, a bartender at a local place out near the farm north of Syracuse.) The driver, presumably Ed, was nowhere to be found. There were empty beer bottles in his truck, as well as his attaché case with mail that led Trooper Gormley to my house. (There’s that pesky Fourth Amendment again.) Not to mention his records of the cattle and his spiral notebook.
He asked about my relationship with Harke: friend, and business associate (cattle business – he kept my pet cow, Erna).
Trooper Gormley left after not finding anything or anyone of interest.
I asked a local Syracuse attorney whose services Ed had needed previously, Jim McGinty, if I had any recourse.
If I wanted to ante up $10,000 to start legal proceedings, I could do that.
But, I didn’t have ten grand for a lawsuit.
And, at the time, driving the Thruway to call on clients was essential to my earning a living. All I need would be to be in their state database as someone to harass. So, nothing done.
If they do that to a middle class, blond hair, blue eyed (is that racist?) homeowner I am appalled to think what they do to those in less fortunate circumstances.
(And that was almost 20 years ago!)
Forever changed my perception of Police. Big. Armed. Thugs.
Why people still use to read news papers when in this technological world everything is available on
web?