K. Lloyd Billingsley
The squad came at dawn, Remington model 870 shotguns at the ready.
They broke down the door, rushed in and handcuffed a man before shoving
him into a police car. One might think they were after a terrorist,
escaped convict, or murderer. In reality, this was a
raid by the enforcement division of the office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education.
The target was a woman wanted on some student loan issue. She was not
there, but the armed squad carted off her estranged husband Kenneth
Wright and their three kids. Such armed raids, the DOE explains, are
necessary to combat issues such as bribery, fraud, and embezzlement of
federal student aid funds.
An armed squad decked out in bulletproof vests worked their way
through a crowded train station and an observer might have thought they
pursued an armed attacker. Actually, this was an operation of the
Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response squad of the Transportation Security Administration.
Tasked to screen airline passengers, the TSA has expanded to sporting
events, music festivals, rodeos and train terminals. With bomb-sniffing
dogs in tow, the armed VIPR squads stop people at random, which amounts
to an unwarranted search that violates constitutional protections.
The federal government increasingly deploys military force and thuggish tactics against civilians...
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