Guess who militarized the cops

You've been hearing more and more about "the militarization of the police."

It's about time.

I actually introduced this phrase into the vernacular beginning back in 1997 when I first spotted the trend – a trend that has several different facets to it, all dangerous. WND has been aggressively tracking these stories and began doing so long before any other news agency noticed.

The first thing to hit me was the way Washington was arming to the teeth federal agencies not previously known for being police-style agencies. When the Environmental Protection Agency starting packing heat, I took notice.

That's right – 1997. Do you know who was president in 1997? More on that later …

The next angle to this story had to do with the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia – where everyone from the EPA cops to local police agencies and even foreign law enforcement receives training from the feds.

The next shoe to drop for me was the discovery that the federal government was supplying local police departments with massive amounts of military-style weaponry. Training, armaments – what's going on here? Then it dawned on me.

The federal government isn't in the charity business. It wasn't giving anything away. It was buying control. It wasn't just militarizing local police departments, it was federalizing them.

That all got me thinking about how police states are born. I started to see not only that police departments were getting this military training and equipment, but they were beginning to show signs that it was all going to their heads.

While WND was daily chronicling these stories, I noticed the establishment press was not very interested. Neither were liberal Democrats, nor conservative Republicans. The civil libertarian organizations didn't show much concern either. Literally, back then, in the 1990s, WND was alone in the whistleblowing on the militarization and federalization of local domestic police agencies.

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In fact, no one was listening. I wondered out loud: Where were the hippies? Where were all the activists of the past – especially those on the left?

So frustrated grew I over this issue and the inattention it was getting, I renounced being a "conservative." If conservatives weren't willing to stand up for limited government and the Constitution and Posse Comitatus, why would I want to be one?

WND covered this story inside out during the Clinton administration and into the Bush administration.

But it's worth noting when it really got started – under Democratic Party leadership. Remember when Bill Clinton bragged about putting 100,000 new cops on the street? It was part of the same program – co-opting local law enforcement, luring away their independence and sovereignty, enlisting them into Big Government dependence.

Think about how easy it would be.

What does almost every beat cop dream about? Working for the FBI. So how much would it mean to get trained by federal law enforcement, rubbing shoulders with guys from the FBI and Secret Service and getting the military-style equipment?

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Fortunately, today everyone seems to be noticing the effects of what began 20 years ago. But still they only see through a glass darkly. They miss too much.

Take, for example, the case of Miriam Carey. How does a young black dental hygienist and mother wind up getting fatally shot more than a dozen times by cops near the nation's Capitol for making a wrong turn? Where are the protests for her? Where are the media demanding answers like they demanded in Ferguson, Missouri?

WND and WND alone has been on the Carey story for nearly a year now.

This is not a black and white issue. It is not a liberal-conservative issue. It is not a Democrat vs. Republican issue. This is an issue of right vs. wrong.

Do we want to live in a police state or not?

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