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ACLU Launches Nationwide Police Militarization Investigation
The timing of this comes right as Rand Paul spoke for 13 hours as part of the filibuster to block Obama's CIA nomination:
We need transparency on these issues. Our POTUS should not be overriding the Constitution. Our police should not be militarizing. The American People are not the enemy, they are the foundation of this country. Our rights MUST remain enshrined and maintained. Any of our lawmakers who refuse to place that as the highest priority of the United States is a traitor.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has launched a nationwide campaign to assess police militarization in the United States. Starting Wednesday, ACLU affiliates in 23 states are sending open records requests to hundreds of state and local police agencies requesting information about their SWAT teams, such as how often and for what reasons they're deployed, what types of weapons they use, how often citizens are injured during SWAT raids, and how they're funded. More affiliates may join the effort in the coming weeks.
Additionally, the affiliates will ask for information about drones, GPS tracking devices, how much military equipment the police agencies have obtained through programs run through the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, and how often and for what purpose state National Guards are participating in enforcement of drug laws.
"We've known for a while now that American neighborhoods are increasingly being policed by cops armed with the weapons and tactics of war," said Kara Dansky, senior counsel at the ACLU's Center for Justice, which is coordinating the investigation. "The aim of this investigation is to find out just how pervasive this is, and to what extent federal funding is incentivizing this trend."
The timing of this comes right as Rand Paul spoke for 13 hours as part of the filibuster to block Obama's CIA nomination:
“I will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court,” Paul said.
We need transparency on these issues. Our POTUS should not be overriding the Constitution. Our police should not be militarizing. The American People are not the enemy, they are the foundation of this country. Our rights MUST remain enshrined and maintained. Any of our lawmakers who refuse to place that as the highest priority of the United States is a traitor.
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