U.S. Army ‘Raiders’ Plan Permanent Presence on America’s Streets

MilitaryPatrolAs the burgeoning American police state continues to form, it appears that the U.S. military wants in on the action according to a recent Army Times article appearing below.

The article indicates that the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, also known as the ‘Raiders’, has been assigned to U.S. Northern Command located at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado for deployment within the United States. The deployment is slated to begin October 1st for one year and will most likely become a permanent fixture to NorthComm with different combat units rotating in from year to year.

The article explains the mission of the combat team as follows:

“They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.”

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Active Homeland Security Checkpoint on SR86 Near Mile Post 146

BPRoadblockWell, it looks like the Department of Homeland Stupidity is at it again.

Employees of the department have always acted geographically challenged and today would be no exception. While driving Westbound along Arizona State Route 86 near mile marker 146, I came upon a suspicionless federal checkpoint that appears to be manned by Border Patrol agents employed by Homeland Security. Since this area is well over forty miles North of the international border, it would appear that these so-called “Border Patrol” agents still haven’t figured out where the actual border is.

Instead of using a GPS unit to help them find the border however (a great place to be if you actually want to patrol it), these agents have instead chosen to harass the traveling public well inside the country along a State Highway absent any reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. Of course this location is much closer to local convenience stores than the border which may explain the decision to locate the checkpoint where it is.

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Arizona Daily Star: ‘DUI checkpoints costly, catch few’

DUICheckpoint

The article below was originally published by the Arizona Daily Star on August 26, 2007.

Of special note are the numbers showing sheriff deputies have been paid over $140,000 in overtime from federal grants to conduct DUI roadblocks and that less than half of those arrested at these roadblocks have actually been convicted. Since the arrest rate is already abysmally low at 0.6%, the conviction rate for all motorists needlessly harassed over the past two years is less than 0.3%.

Given the obvious ineffectiveness of these checkpoint regimes, it’s important to point out that our right to travel and our right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure are being violated so that cops can earn overtime pay from their federal handlers.

An important question to consider is how many accidents or deaths have been caused by drunk drivers who weren’t taken off the streets, based upon probable cause, because cops were too busy harassing 46,000+ responsible drivers at suspicionless roadblocks across the county….

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