February 16, 2021 • 42 mins
No, not the band featuring Sting. What if the actual, local law enforcement in the your neck of the global woods started using military-grade weaponry, patrolling the streets with the same door-to-door tactics used in occupied countries? According to some concerned advocates, this is a worldwide trend -- and it shows no signs of slowing. Listen to this classic episode to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So everyone, this is one of our classic episodes, and
this is one of the episodes that appeared to unfortunately
become increasingly prescient. Yeah, m wraps hanging out on your street?
Is this the one about the seminole um rock band
the police becoming your army? No, but but somebody sure
(00:24):
was a smart alec when they wrote the meta for
this one. Yeah. Any time, anytime my dog on something
related to the show, it's usually my fault. But yeah,
this is this is a topic that you know, originally
we got we got a little bit of pushback about
we did an episode on the militarization of police, the
(00:45):
origins of that recent militarization, and a little bit of
speculation about the future and the economics behind this. Not
for nothing. Uh did Matt just shout out im wraps, Yeah,
M wraps grenade launchers. Uh? Serious, surplus headed to us
(01:08):
your not hopefully not doorway, but maybe around the corner,
just on the street sometimes. So sit back and you
don't have to but put on that red and blue
light and enjoy this episode from UFOs two Ghosts and
Government cover Ups. History is writ with unexplained events. You
can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't
(01:28):
want you to Now. Hello, I am Matt and I
am Ben, and this is stuff they don't want you
to know. Uh, and that's always we're with our super
producer Noel here, Noel, could we get some sirens or
maybe like the remember that Cops theme song? I'm pretty
(01:49):
sure we're gonna have any of those just in the
mix already. Oh, that's true. For anyone who's a long
time listener, you may have heard references now our show
or other shows to the sirens that occasionally come through
our super secret studio here, super super secret in the
middle of Bucket. Yeah. The neighborhood of Buckhead in Atlanta, Georgia,
(02:11):
for those who are not illuminated to this idea, is
full of cranky people. Yeah, it's a fair way to
say it. It is the I don't know, I guess
the financial district of Atlanta. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of
like the Uh. They're right. There are some big businesses
(02:32):
here and some upscale areas, so one would think, hey, wait,
Matt and Ben, aren't police sirens more likely to be
associated with less wealthy areas well? The problem here is
that a lot of those sirens come from cops giving
people tickets for bad driving. Yes, there's lots of money
(02:54):
to be made from citations. I mean people to protect
from speeding drivers. Right, Well, there are also quite a
few drivers here. My car show host is coming out
who don't feel like they should need to obey the
rules of the road. There's no one on the road
but me and my Mercedes. Slash BMW slash whatever you
want to assert there. But for most people, just the threat,
(03:17):
the possibility of being punished by the police or cited
by the police, is enough of a deterrent that we
will pretend that those lines in the middle of the
road are something else other than paint. Right. The police
have a psychologically crucial role in the I guess, the
(03:42):
cohesion of a state, not just the United States. And
today we're talking about something that was um, that's an
idea that you had proposed force earlier, which was the
militarization of police. Well, yeah, the this topic is coming
up all over the place. I'm seeing links, tons of links,
(04:02):
especially on Reddit, about certain instances. There was one in
Georgia not long ago, I think it was the last
month where there was a no knock drug grade house
and a baby was sleeping in the room I guess
the living room with the rest of the family, and
flash band grenade landed in the crib. The child was
in a medically induced coma for a while. I believe
(04:24):
the child is out now the coma or I'm not
positive on that. I need to look back up and anyway, Yeah,
it's all over the place. The Cato Institute has been
talking about this what's the what's no knock grade is
when in the middle of the night, a swat team
or other form of paramilitary style police force breaks into
(04:46):
a home, usually just bust through the front door and
takes everybody, basically detains everyone in the house, and searches
the house. And that is typically or the thread the read.
Really it is based on intelligence that has been gathered,
so they're not just rolling the dice and picking a
(05:07):
house they believe. The problem is a lot of times
the information that they're given is maybe not perfect, or
perhaps they are raiding the wrong house. There are many
instances of the wrong houses being rated then a person
And so I know we're getting a little deep already
before we're getting into this bend. These are just the
things that have been on my mind. Yeah, I think
(05:28):
it's important to know why you wanted to cover this. UM.
I think it's just something that I don't potentially see
myself dealing with, cross crossing fingers, knocking out wood and all.
But it is UM a fear now I think that
exists across America, especially that the police might show up
(05:50):
for some reason, maybe just because they have wrong intel
and busting your house. Okay, So the transformation of perception
of the police UM a protective force to a uh,
punitive force. Okay. That's what's interesting here is that we
have these two groups, right, the police and the military. UH.
(06:15):
And in our video series this week, we've taken a
look at some of the intersections between the rights of
civilians or citizens and the rights and responsibilities of police officers.
We had Cany Record Police, one of our old episodes
updated as excellent remix and classic out there on Monday.
(06:38):
I think of this week, and we have another upcoming
episode which is going to be about this militarization of
police topic. We found a lot of interesting things while
we were doing UH. While we're doing this UM, one
of one of the easiest, most basic B level if
I could say that is way to differentiate between the
(07:02):
police and the military comes to us from a guy
named Radley Balco. Yes, he has a quote here. Well,
he's also it should be noted that he's the author
of several books. One of them is Rise of the
Warrior Cop, the Militarization of America's police forces, and the
other is Overkill The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America.
(07:22):
And you can re Overkill for free online via the
Cato Institute. Nice and his quote that he has here
where I guess we're going to kind of get things
rolling with this. He says, quote, these are two very
different jobs. The role of police officers is to protect
our rights and keep the peace, while the military's job
is to annihilate foreign enemies. And uh, let's go ahead
(07:46):
and have the whoa hold on sound effect there? Thanks Noel,
everybody who objected to that differentiation by Balco, we understand
where you're coming from. It is it is an over
simplification to say the military's job is to annihilate foreign enemies. Uh,
some people would prefer something like something a little more
(08:07):
glass half full, like to protect America's interest abroad. Yeah,
well that's uh filled with something okay. Uh the role
of police officers to protect rights, keep the peace. Some
people would say, well, the role of police officers is
just to enforce the law and not necessarily to protect people.
(08:28):
But yeah, I think that it's it's sad that it
used to go without saying and it doesn't anymore that
both members of the military current and past, and uh,
members of police forces current past are also people who
would save innocent lives, you know, people who would save
criminal lives, honestly, absolutely, and the police and military, depending
(08:53):
on who you're talking to, referred to in this kind
of monolithic block figure, this entire group that you speak about,
uh if you know, if you're talking about them one
occurrence or something the way I did earlier. I kind
of talked about the police as this one thing, but
really it's just a group of individuals and each one
just as different from the last. So we kind of
(09:16):
have to remember that when we're talking about this subject. Yeah,
these are all human beings on both sides of this debate.
And one of the reasons that we take pains to
set this up is because the militarization of police can
be a controversial topic, and whenever you deal with the
controversial topic. One thing that unscrupulous opponents will do on
(09:38):
the other side of a debate to try to discredit
you or dissuade you is to rely upon emotional arguments,
you know, to say, uh, you know, like the wars
that people have been falsely led into hinged upon emotional things,
not on facts. So what we're doing is just talking
about the facts, and we want to get it out
(10:00):
of the way and say that we're not talking about
these people as just some group of faceless, mindless machines.
These are these are real people and in many in
the vast majority of cases, uh, neither members of the
military nor most police officers are responsible for the policies
that come down, right, These mandates been for for decades.
(10:23):
It's this difference has been rather evident between police officers
or the police force and military. And that's on all
kinds of different levels. You can look at the tactics,
you can look at their equipment, um, kind of the
methodology that they used to go about what they're doing.
And this diconomy ben was kind of taken as a
given basically, like there is there is an absolute underlying
(10:48):
difference between police and military, and we know that there's
some overlap to write. Both the police and members of
the military do differ from civilians in with some very
expectations as well and in practice at least different treatment
under the law. It could be something formal like a
military court that a soldier goes to, or something informal
(11:09):
like the infamous Blue line of loyalty where cops will
band together to protect another police officer. Well, and there's
a reason they do that a lot of times, and
it's because they're in harm's way almost constantly, well, a
lot of the time they're in harm's way, and that
could be because they're protecting themselves, protecting a civilian and
(11:30):
other citizen, or even you know, protecting you know, you're
really good friend perhaps who was also happening he happens
to beyond the police force. Sure, or there's you know,
let's not forget that mob rule is a thing that
can happen, and there are times when police are protecting
criminals so that they could have their do rights under
the law. And let's also point out that because of
(11:54):
the way that um entertainment disguised as news is often
presented to people, you're probably not going to hear about
a lot of the heroic stories which are often going
to hear about are going to be the bad guy cases,
you know, the one the someone who uh flipped and
went dirty for a little bit of side money off drugs,
(12:16):
or someone who committed a war crime because that sells
more advertising space. Right. Um, But we do know, uh,
we do know that in the United States, at least,
the concept of the separation between the police and the
military is a huge deal, and it's it's something that
(12:39):
a lot of people may have heard about for the
first time, but it is by no means the first
time that this has been a concern in the United States.
As a matter of fact, are older legislators that came
before US were so concerned about this that they passed
a law about it, right, That's right, the posse commentat
US Act of So this thing was basically designed to
(13:02):
create a clear division between the military and the domestic forces,
the police forces in the US. So, yeah, it says
that the US military. Originally it's aid the US military
uh cannot intervene in law enforcement operations, so domestic stuff
that the police would do. Um, no matter how bad,
(13:24):
Blockbuster may want you to return that blue ray, you
stole right before the store closed. They cannot send the
Marines after you. That is a comforting thought. I mean
that there still is like one Blockbuster open I think
I think it's in Alaska. Actually there's several. I'm sorry, Blockbuster.
Just a lot of these stories closed. Farbuster. I want
(13:46):
you to know that I would still be using your
store if you were open. I did until you closed.
Oh gosh, yeah, I brought it down. Sorry, man, So
now my best example. But this is not a uniform, um,
not a blanket law. Right. There exceptions, Oh yeah, there's
there are a couple of different exceptions. There's one provision
in there that says the law can be temporarily um,
(14:08):
I guess repealed for certain instances. And there's even a
waiver that the president can sign that can kind of
suspend the law. Yeah, like a hall pass for the
military to enter into the that's for emergency situations, right,
and you know it's I think it's been used twice
in the US. Yeah, least twice. Yeah, at least twice. Um,
(14:31):
probably more than that. Now that that comes from a
um House stuff Works article that our buddy Josh wrote
on the Delta Force. Right. Oh yeah, that's exactly I
remember that, and they're they're a fairly mysterious thing that
we should probably cover um in a future episode two
now that I think about it. So, critics of the
(14:56):
current trend between the police and the military tell us
that pretty much from the jump, Posse commatatas has been
under attack by various, various interest groups. And it is
true that over the decades, this Act has been changed
and there have been exceptions added, and a lot of
these either existed in the original Act, like the you know,
(15:19):
the National Guard and State Defense forces are under the
governor of a state, so those don't really apply with
Posse commatatas um, and then there are some added later
with the Insurrection Act during the Los Angeles riots, right, Yeah,
that was a huge one. And then gosh, there's one
(15:41):
where the Attorney General can request that the Secretary of
Defense provides emergency assistance if basically a civilian law enforcement
agency can't handle a situation there they have inadequate equipment
or forces. Um l a p D attack by Godzilla,
we can't handle that, well, yeah, or if there's a
(16:03):
real nuclear material threat that kind of thing, radiological weapons. Yeah, oh,
the military can also come in as a support role
for certain joints Special Operations Command stock Yeah. Uh yeah,
so people still to this day debate about whether or
not posse comitatus is being eroded, as well as the
(16:26):
specifics about how and when nation's military should be called
to act domestically. Um. So this militarization, right, So we've
established that there's a history of it, and in our
video we talked about the history of swat teams a
(16:47):
little bit, right, Yeah, if you want to learn more
about that, please go back and watch our videos. Um.
But okay, so long story short, the SWAT team became
really popular with the police and the public to an
extent and politicians. Uh. And that's because they there were
several highly publicized events where SWAT team was used and
(17:09):
they came out looking really good because they were effective.
They were fast and mostly effective. Right. Yeah. They became
sort of the next hot item. I mean the movies
involving swat teams, television shows. Uh. When they when they
first came out, which is towards the sixties, as we
(17:31):
talked about our upcoming episode, Uh, they had a fairly
narrowly defined mission and they operated in primarily urban areas.
So throughout the seventies there these they come out in
um probably the mid sixties as a result of, uh,
some problems that the l a p D was actually having,
(17:54):
not Godzilla related. Well, yeah, larger firearms being used by
criminals when they were trying to respond, body armor being used,
enormous racial tension getting very close to um a a
unrest that would be like a regional war. Yeah, full
(18:15):
scale writing was happening. Yeah, like a city war. So
gradually swat teams increase. You know, this large urban area
gets one, this one gets one. People are saying, oh,
finally we have someone for hostage negotiations or things that
are already on the brink of catastrophic violence. And uh
this worked in there. Not only their public perception continued
(18:38):
to rise, but more and more police departments looked at
these paramilitary units favorably. And then something crazy happened in
the nineteen eighties. Well yeah, right, well right before the yeah, yeah,
Nixon gave his famous speech or I guess it was
a little talking point that he added in about public
enemy number one being drugs and drug use. Then we
(19:01):
get to the Reagan administration in the eighties, and we
look at not that nothing happened in between those two,
because there are certainly things that happened, But that's during
the Reagan administration. We had all kinds of new funding,
new equipment. UM. I think in nineteen eight six, we
have a short clip of this. In ninety six, the
(19:23):
Reagan administration had increased the Drug Enforcement Agency and basically
War on drugs um amount of money they were spending
by three times at least from one to eighty six UM.
And that includes swat teams and all kinds of other
paramilitary police units all across the country. You know, I
just want to point out when you said not that
(19:43):
we're saying nothing happened in the seventies. What if that's
the phantom history. Nine seventies just didn't happen. If you
were born, then they lied to you, go go find
the hospital, asked for the original birth certificate. It goes
so deep, man, I am, I am so kidding. Please
don't do that unless you need a copy of your
(20:04):
birth certificate. But UM, yeah, that's right. That's a great
point in X. Reagan did issue this National Security Decision Directive,
and this is interesting because it calls drugs a threat
to US national security and national security all in addition
to being a legitimate concern for a country. In the
(20:26):
United States at least and in a lot of Western countries,
it's begun to function as this password for unlimited money.
It's like the Konami code. That's exactly what it is.
National security. Oh, thank you, I'll take all of that. Well,
so we really can't handle it national security. Okay, that's fine.
Here's seven more billion dollars. So yeah, that's that's a
(20:47):
I know we're being a bit tongue in cheek about it,
but it does, in this case at least unlock a
hell of a lot of funding. And the every uh,
everybody is cooperating to share information, equipment, tactics. We have
a little bit of a list of the different things,
uh that that we're pasted. Right, So we talked about Reagan,
(21:11):
but then, uh, in nineteen n some other stuff happened. Yeah,
Congress ordered the National Guard to assist drug enforcement efforts,
and and because of his order, National Guard troops today
still patrol for marijuana plants and assist in basically this
huge anti drug operation, and every state in the country
(21:33):
looking for the plants themselves. In nineteen eighty nine, President
Bush created a series of regional task force in the
d D Department of Defense just to cooperate, just to
facilitate cooperation, excuse me, between the military and police forces.
(21:54):
So how do we best coordinate uh this transfer of
equipment or vehicle weaponry, tactics training, Uh, people that were
on the lookout for you know, you can also if
you read between the lines here, clearly that's a comment
on wire tapping. Oh sure, well, and keep in mind
we're we're involved. The US is involved in all kinds
(22:15):
of narco wars all across Central and South America, and
it's the military performing all of those actions. So then
they're working directly with perhaps people and you know, if
anything gets inside the United States, they're trying to coordinate
with that. So then in the do o D issued
this memorandum that authorizes a transfer of equipment and tech
(22:39):
to state and local police. And in that same year,
Congress created the Reutilization Program, which essentially facilitated the handling
of military gear over to civilian and police agencies. So
if we look at specific numbers, what what does that mean? Exactly? Okay,
So just but between and nineteen seven the Pentagon distributed
(23:04):
three thousand, eight hundred M sixteens, two thousand, one hundred
and eighty five M fourteens, seventy three grenade launchers, and
a hundred and twelve armored personnel carriers to civilian police
agencies all across the country. Right one year alone, that
totals up to more than one point two million pieces
(23:26):
of military equipment. And this is just a brief history.
So we can now we can talk about the current
state of militarization. Because, as I believe we say in
our video, whether or not you are an opponent of
this you think it's bad, or you're an advocate of
it and you think that it's an effective way to
prevent crime. No one can deny that the police in
(23:48):
the United States and several other countries are increasingly militarized,
both in terms of tactics and equipment. Okay, man, So
let's look at the current state. We've talked about seventies, eighties, nineties.
Where are we right now. In a widely cited survey,
this criminologist Peter Kraska, he found that as of seven,
(24:08):
almost nine percent of cities with populations fifty thousand or
more had at least one paramilitary police unit. That's twice
as many in the mid nineteen eighties. And let's stroll
through some more numbers here. Uh, this is from the
Washington Post. Uh. The a c. L. You released a
yearlong study of this tendency and police forces looked at
(24:32):
eight hundred deployments of SWAT, special weapon and tactics teams
across twenty local, state, and federal agencies from two thousand
eleven to two thousand twelve. So statistically speaking, this is
pretty much fresh fresh out of the pizza oven, as
fresh as we can probably get, right. Uh. Sixty two
of those raids survey were to conduct searches for drugs,
(24:55):
not the narrowly defined uh, incredibly dangerous stuff. Now, of course,
these these people are putting their lives at risk when
they do this, but the uh, the interdiction of drugs
was not originally a SWAT team mission or even within
their realm. This is what we call mission creep um.
(25:16):
Just under eight percent were to serve as search warrant,
so that means eight and ten of these SWAT raids
were not initiated to get a school shooter or a
hostage taker and escaped felon, but to investigate someone who
is still suspected of committing a crime. Yeah, they sent
the big dogs to find someone suspected of a crime.
(25:39):
I mean, you know, suspected is a heck of word
because legally in the u s you're required to say suspectful. Yeah,
and and if you are able to get a warrant,
there's probably enough evidence against you to at least what
they believe to prove, right. Yeah. So you know, we're
not saying they're all good guys or all bad guys.
It's just their suspect. But what we are saying is
(26:01):
that some of the reasons that SWAT teams are often
justified right as a as an expense because it's expensive
to have such a high level of training, expertise, and equipment. Um,
the common justification is to prevent violent things from happening.
But it looks like, according to this a c LU report,
at least that just seven percent of those SWAT raids
(26:23):
were for hostages, barricades, or active shooter scenarios. So kind
of the original reasoning for having a SWAT team, just
in back in the day, the reason for their creation, right.
And additionally, we'll just launch, a list, a couple more effects,
and it's all again According to the a c l
you study, in at least thirty six percent of these
SWAT raids studies, no contraband at all was found. So
(26:46):
in you know, a home invasion, right or an active mission. Uh.
And not only not only do they not prevent violent crime,
which don't know, that's kind of unfair to say, Matt,
because it's really tough to say that someone didn't prevent
something negative, right, Yeah, but but there wasn't any you know, contrabants,
(27:12):
no illegal weapons or counterfeit money or drugs or something
like that. Uh. The scary part is that the the
a c l U estimates that, due to incomplete police reports,
this figure could be higher than thirty six. It could
be sixty. Um. Now, we do know that there are
(27:33):
other things that occur here, like swat tactics are disproportionately
used on people of color. If you just look at
the numbers, UM, there's usually fourced century swat deployments involved
a fourth century battering ram boot explosive device. Then in
over half of those raids, the police find failed to
(27:53):
find anything really any kind of weapon. Um. But the
presence of which is cited for the reason of these
violent attacks. So they they'll go in saying, well these
this guy's armed or this group is armed, but then
they won't find anything. And there's another question there that
goes back to the safety of the people conducting these things.
How do you know if they're not armed? Right? Well, yeah,
and if you think they may be armed, how do
(28:15):
you not go in guns blazing and throwing flash bangs.
So yeah, so this is our this is our overall
look with a little more detail about the nature of
militarization in this day and age in this state. And
when we return from a word from our sponsor will
(28:37):
get into some of the scarier conspiratorial stuff. Oh man,
I don't know if I can call these beats much more.
I s where beat farming is not what Dad said
it would be. They's just hard work all day, all night,
(28:58):
and then all the next day. Oh man, I wonder
what's on TV. Oh, can't watch TV. I got a
harvest rest of these beats. Oh excuse me, excuse me?
Their friends? What do you get in here? Well, you
have left the door opened, But never mind that I
would have rammed it down anyway. I couldn't help. But
over here on the wire tap that you're having a
(29:20):
you're having a tough time at your day job. What
what is that exactly? Well, I've been farming beats on
this farm, has been in my family of seven generations. Uh,
you know, yeah, it's a it's a noble profession for sure,
but it also seems like it could be one fraught
with problems. What what kind of problems do you have
farming these beats? Well, sometimes the beats are too close
(29:42):
together and they may make like a double beat harder.
It's harder for those to get him out. Some of
the machine yable malfunction. A lot of times there's not
enough water. That's one of the biggest problems. To be honest, Well,
what would you say if I told you that we
could not only fix your problems, but give you an
entirely new set of problems that you've never seen before.
(30:03):
To be honest, I'm not really interested much in that.
Maybe I can get a brochure. Just imagine instead of
this beat up old tractor, what if you had a tank,
a mind resistant ambush proof vehicle with armor. Now, now
you got my don't worry, You'll have armor too, and
(30:26):
those other beat farmers are going to be absolutely no
possible potential threat that they might someday be if you're
also armed with armor piercing rounds, because, believe me, friend,
those other beat farmers already have armor. Now do you
have any money? Yes, we have. We have so many minds.
We have mind launchers. Uh. Certainly, just from the military
(30:49):
surplus of the past four minutes alone, we have produced
enough armor and war grade weaponry to supply your beat
farm for decades to come. Are you interested, Well, that depends,
uh how much? How much are we talking here? Because
you know I don't exactly make a lot of money. Oh, yes, okay,
(31:10):
not to worry. Are you a terrorist? No? Do you
sell drugs? No? Then it's free. What yes, sir, that's right,
free just for doing your parts? Are you giving me?
I am not kidding. I am legally not allowed to
make jokes. Oh my god, I can't believe. I feel
like luckiest made in the world. Bring it in, boys. Oh,
(31:33):
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could feel the power. Yes, that's right. Whether you're a
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I S S, the U N or NBC brought to
you by Illumination Global Unlimited and we're back. Uh So
(32:35):
that's a little bit of a tongue in cheek commercial
for sure, but it leads us seamlessly into some of
the conspiracy theories about militarization of the police. Right now,
if you're the chief of a local police department, you
can kind of have your own military on a very
(32:55):
small scale, right, And that's what the opponents would say. Uh,
I guess Before we dive into this, one point I
do want to make is that for cash strapped police
precincts in rural areas or something, uh, this is a
gigantic boon. And indeed, it would be a little bit
thick headed to walk away from this because you know,
(33:17):
things like body armor and bulletproof helmets absolutely necessary to write.
But the one of the big conspiracy theories, of course,
is that there is a what Huffington's Post called a
police industrial complex, the idea that private corporations that manufacture
(33:37):
arms and weapons have made these big agreements with the
US government and that they're making military hardware that no
one actually needs. Well, yeah, you get the money. Somebody
has to take it now that we've manufactured it, or
else we just lost a whole bunch of money, and
then someone will notice and we won't get as much
money for our our budget next our next funding cycle.
(33:59):
Right Like, if you don't use the entirety of your budget,
then it looks as though you should get your budget
cut next year. You've got to increase the budget. So
the what's interesting about this theory is that there is
a there's a little bit of plausibility to it because
we know. One of the strange one of the strange
things about legislating an agreement that goes past, you know,
(34:24):
two or four years, is that the people who sign
it are often not in office to see what happens later,
see the effects of it, whether it's a good idea,
whether it's a smart one, whether there are too many
jets or not enough jets. And and this is something
that is a common concern in the world's militaries as well.
(34:46):
You know, if we just look at the F thirty
five debacle going on now, and then there's the and
then there's the other idea, a little bit more conspiratorial,
which is that maybe the companies themselves are pushing this
for a new market. Yeah. Have you ever heard of
(35:09):
Urban Shield Expo? Uh? I have. I don't mean to
say to that much of it that was good though
ractorial things. We mentioned this I think every year in Oakland, California.
Right yeah. This is where they essentially invite as many
police departments and sheriff departments of local police out there
(35:31):
and basically it's this huge expo think comic con, but
with military grade weapons for your police department, right yeah,
And these these vendors are advertising various various hardware, but
they're also training sessions on things like how to diffuse
a bomb or how to uh run point on a raid.
(35:56):
It's essentially it really is just a gun show with
more equipment, because if you've ever been to a gun show,
you know there's all kinds of things like training available
to you there. Well, now, let's talk about one of
the conspiracy conspiratorial ideas, because it's not just one idea
that is uh maybe the furthest from mainstream discourse, but
(36:18):
it's something that a lot of people are really worried about. Right, Yeah,
this this is the idea that the reason all of
these weapons are in the hands of the local police
is because the government or someone is preparing for mass
civil unrest. And this goes back to the FEMA camps theories.
This goes back to I mean there's so many the
(36:39):
ammunition buy up. Yeah, there are a lot of aspects
to this, and there are a lot of pieces. To
be honest, they're not necessarily connected at least to that
head of the octopus thing, but there are a lot
of interesting, let's say, happenings, right, Yeah, some I can't
remember who it was, it was either somebody on our
(37:01):
Facebook or our Twitter, which you can you can hang
out with us there as well, anytime you wish. Matt
and I are on there all the time. Uh. On
one of those somebody's somebody said conspiracy if I'm a
conspiracy theorist, or maybe you're a coincidence theorist. Yeah, oh man,
where was that? I think that was on YouTube? Maybe
(37:21):
I was on YouTube? Okay comment, Yeah that that made
me laugh and I thought that was a well written
turn of phrase. But yeah. We also have videos on
the Second Civil War, the people who wanted to succeed,
And that's really interesting because as you and I know, uh,
groups of people in the United States attempt to succeed
(37:43):
way more often than you would think, way more often
than you even hear about. Yeah, so much more often.
And uh, you know, around the United States alone, dozens
and dozens of apocalyptic groups think the world will end,
so they don't care what's gonna happen next year. Uh,
they don't care. I'm not saying they're violent by any means. Well, yeah,
(38:04):
you just when you lose, when you lose that desire
to live on for the next, for the future, what's
coming right, future. It's terrifying and and because and of
course when you think about it, it would be this
massive swell of problems if these succession movements were advertised
on the news, right, which is why we very rarely
(38:27):
hear about these active functioning groups. And it makes you
think maybe the news is controlled. Then yeah, well maybe
the news will succeed in uh start their own countries, right,
But then also you know the same thing will happen
in other large countries like China is constantly working to
(38:49):
keep these various disparate groups and territories united and to
quell rebellions, right, so those rebellions are off not advertised
in the Chinese news the way they are in the
United States. The Internet itself is controlled so much they're
trying to stop You saw the I forget. I think
(39:11):
it's a John Oliver piece maybe about the Genemen Square
protests that that happened every year. But the Internet is
controlled so heavily that they've actually blocked phrases, all these
different phrases that groups have been trying to put out
there to refer to the Tenement Square massacre, and now
all of them are blocked. You know, it's really strange.
(39:33):
I don't know if this is still the case, but um,
using in the past, using uh the Internet in some
parts of China, not only would it be monitored, but
there'd be these little like cartoon cop characters who would
show up and say, hey, you know, just for your safety,
keeping an eye on you. And the weirdest thing was, man,
(39:56):
the weirdest thing was they have blue eyes. So if
you ever get a chance to look up these characters, yeah,
this is my my One of my old professors pointed
this out and he and I talked about it for
a while, and I still don't know what's going on there,
but it is it is true that the possibility of
domestic unrest, it is a historic uh is it an
(40:20):
historic threat to any empire? And if you look at
just the size of the United States and the elements
that it brings together. I were I one of the
chess masters of the country, I would also be concerned
with domestic unrest and national security. You know, it is
a real thing. But a lot of people, Jane and
(40:42):
John q public are are very concerned that, uh, for
some reason, a group might come down on them. Uh.
The you know, if you look at what happened in
the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Uh. That raised a lot
of people's concerns as well. And I have to say
there there are quite a few things that John and
Jane Q public in the US might be a bit
(41:05):
ticked off about a ton of little things, a couple
really big things. And that's what we're gonna be talking
about next week. Well that's what we talked about every week,
isn't it. But we're gonna be covering some very specific things, um,
about the food we put into our bodies, about the
things that are added to that food. And it's a
(41:26):
highly controversial subject, but we're gonna look at it and
see what we can find. So in the meantime, we would,
as always like to thank you so much for uh
taking some time to check out our show. We are
overdue for listener mail episodes. Rings send some of those
to us if we haven't replied yet. Don't you worry.
(41:47):
We are storing these up and checking our list twice
like some sort of weird um duo Santa clause. I
don't know, yeah, yeah, the pieces of the Joker. I
have a huge external hard drive now that's just pumping
emails and stuff it's true. Yeah, and we do have
a naughty, nice algorithm, but that is not true. But
what is true is that you can find us on Facebook,
(42:09):
you can find us on Twitter. We have a website
where you can find all of our videos and all
of our podcasts. Will even into a blog occasionally. Our
website is Stuff they Don't Want You to Know dot Com.
And that's the end of this classic episode. If you
have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you can
get into contact with us in a number of different ways.
(42:30):
One of the best is to give us a call.
Our number is one eight three three std w y
t K. If you don't want to do that, you
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conspiracy at i heart radio dot com. Stuff they Don't
Want You to Know is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
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(42:53):
your favorite shows.
So everyone, this is one of our classic episodes, and
this is one of the episodes that appeared to unfortunately
become increasingly prescient. Yeah, m wraps hanging out on your street?
Is this the one about the seminole um rock band
the police becoming your army? No, but but somebody sure
(00:24):
was a smart alec when they wrote the meta for
this one. Yeah. Any time, anytime my dog on something
related to the show, it's usually my fault. But yeah,
this is this is a topic that you know, originally
we got we got a little bit of pushback about
we did an episode on the militarization of police, the
(00:45):
origins of that recent militarization, and a little bit of
speculation about the future and the economics behind this. Not
for nothing. Uh did Matt just shout out im wraps, Yeah,
M wraps grenade launchers. Uh? Serious, surplus headed to us
(01:08):
your not hopefully not doorway, but maybe around the corner,
just on the street sometimes. So sit back and you
don't have to but put on that red and blue
light and enjoy this episode from UFOs two Ghosts and
Government cover Ups. History is writ with unexplained events. You
can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't
(01:28):
want you to Now. Hello, I am Matt and I
am Ben, and this is stuff they don't want you
to know. Uh, and that's always we're with our super
producer Noel here, Noel, could we get some sirens or
maybe like the remember that Cops theme song? I'm pretty
(01:49):
sure we're gonna have any of those just in the
mix already. Oh, that's true. For anyone who's a long
time listener, you may have heard references now our show
or other shows to the sirens that occasionally come through
our super secret studio here, super super secret in the
middle of Bucket. Yeah. The neighborhood of Buckhead in Atlanta, Georgia,
(02:11):
for those who are not illuminated to this idea, is
full of cranky people. Yeah, it's a fair way to
say it. It is the I don't know, I guess
the financial district of Atlanta. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of
like the Uh. They're right. There are some big businesses
(02:32):
here and some upscale areas, so one would think, hey, wait,
Matt and Ben, aren't police sirens more likely to be
associated with less wealthy areas well? The problem here is
that a lot of those sirens come from cops giving
people tickets for bad driving. Yes, there's lots of money
(02:54):
to be made from citations. I mean people to protect
from speeding drivers. Right, Well, there are also quite a
few drivers here. My car show host is coming out
who don't feel like they should need to obey the
rules of the road. There's no one on the road
but me and my Mercedes. Slash BMW slash whatever you
want to assert there. But for most people, just the threat,
(03:17):
the possibility of being punished by the police or cited
by the police, is enough of a deterrent that we
will pretend that those lines in the middle of the
road are something else other than paint. Right. The police
have a psychologically crucial role in the I guess, the
(03:42):
cohesion of a state, not just the United States. And
today we're talking about something that was um, that's an
idea that you had proposed force earlier, which was the
militarization of police. Well, yeah, the this topic is coming
up all over the place. I'm seeing links, tons of links,
(04:02):
especially on Reddit, about certain instances. There was one in
Georgia not long ago, I think it was the last
month where there was a no knock drug grade house
and a baby was sleeping in the room I guess
the living room with the rest of the family, and
flash band grenade landed in the crib. The child was
in a medically induced coma for a while. I believe
(04:24):
the child is out now the coma or I'm not
positive on that. I need to look back up and anyway, Yeah,
it's all over the place. The Cato Institute has been
talking about this what's the what's no knock grade is
when in the middle of the night, a swat team
or other form of paramilitary style police force breaks into
(04:46):
a home, usually just bust through the front door and
takes everybody, basically detains everyone in the house, and searches
the house. And that is typically or the thread the read.
Really it is based on intelligence that has been gathered,
so they're not just rolling the dice and picking a
(05:07):
house they believe. The problem is a lot of times
the information that they're given is maybe not perfect, or
perhaps they are raiding the wrong house. There are many
instances of the wrong houses being rated then a person
And so I know we're getting a little deep already
before we're getting into this bend. These are just the
things that have been on my mind. Yeah, I think
(05:28):
it's important to know why you wanted to cover this. UM.
I think it's just something that I don't potentially see
myself dealing with, cross crossing fingers, knocking out wood and all.
But it is UM a fear now I think that
exists across America, especially that the police might show up
(05:50):
for some reason, maybe just because they have wrong intel
and busting your house. Okay, So the transformation of perception
of the police UM a protective force to a uh,
punitive force. Okay. That's what's interesting here is that we
have these two groups, right, the police and the military. UH.
(06:15):
And in our video series this week, we've taken a
look at some of the intersections between the rights of
civilians or citizens and the rights and responsibilities of police officers.
We had Cany Record Police, one of our old episodes
updated as excellent remix and classic out there on Monday.
(06:38):
I think of this week, and we have another upcoming
episode which is going to be about this militarization of
police topic. We found a lot of interesting things while
we were doing UH. While we're doing this UM, one
of one of the easiest, most basic B level if
I could say that is way to differentiate between the
(07:02):
police and the military comes to us from a guy
named Radley Balco. Yes, he has a quote here. Well,
he's also it should be noted that he's the author
of several books. One of them is Rise of the
Warrior Cop, the Militarization of America's police forces, and the
other is Overkill The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America.
(07:22):
And you can re Overkill for free online via the
Cato Institute. Nice and his quote that he has here
where I guess we're going to kind of get things
rolling with this. He says, quote, these are two very
different jobs. The role of police officers is to protect
our rights and keep the peace, while the military's job
is to annihilate foreign enemies. And uh, let's go ahead
(07:46):
and have the whoa hold on sound effect there? Thanks Noel,
everybody who objected to that differentiation by Balco, we understand
where you're coming from. It is it is an over
simplification to say the military's job is to annihilate foreign enemies. Uh,
some people would prefer something like something a little more
(08:07):
glass half full, like to protect America's interest abroad. Yeah,
well that's uh filled with something okay. Uh the role
of police officers to protect rights, keep the peace. Some
people would say, well, the role of police officers is
just to enforce the law and not necessarily to protect people.
(08:28):
But yeah, I think that it's it's sad that it
used to go without saying and it doesn't anymore that
both members of the military current and past, and uh,
members of police forces current past are also people who
would save innocent lives, you know, people who would save
criminal lives, honestly, absolutely, and the police and military, depending
(08:53):
on who you're talking to, referred to in this kind
of monolithic block figure, this entire group that you speak about,
uh if you know, if you're talking about them one
occurrence or something the way I did earlier. I kind
of talked about the police as this one thing, but
really it's just a group of individuals and each one
just as different from the last. So we kind of
(09:16):
have to remember that when we're talking about this subject. Yeah,
these are all human beings on both sides of this debate.
And one of the reasons that we take pains to
set this up is because the militarization of police can
be a controversial topic, and whenever you deal with the
controversial topic. One thing that unscrupulous opponents will do on
(09:38):
the other side of a debate to try to discredit
you or dissuade you is to rely upon emotional arguments,
you know, to say, uh, you know, like the wars
that people have been falsely led into hinged upon emotional things,
not on facts. So what we're doing is just talking
about the facts, and we want to get it out
(10:00):
of the way and say that we're not talking about
these people as just some group of faceless, mindless machines.
These are these are real people and in many in
the vast majority of cases, uh, neither members of the
military nor most police officers are responsible for the policies
that come down, right, These mandates been for for decades.
(10:23):
It's this difference has been rather evident between police officers
or the police force and military. And that's on all
kinds of different levels. You can look at the tactics,
you can look at their equipment, um, kind of the
methodology that they used to go about what they're doing.
And this diconomy ben was kind of taken as a
given basically, like there is there is an absolute underlying
(10:48):
difference between police and military, and we know that there's
some overlap to write. Both the police and members of
the military do differ from civilians in with some very
expectations as well and in practice at least different treatment
under the law. It could be something formal like a
military court that a soldier goes to, or something informal
(11:09):
like the infamous Blue line of loyalty where cops will
band together to protect another police officer. Well, and there's
a reason they do that a lot of times, and
it's because they're in harm's way almost constantly, well, a
lot of the time they're in harm's way, and that
could be because they're protecting themselves, protecting a civilian and
(11:30):
other citizen, or even you know, protecting you know, you're
really good friend perhaps who was also happening he happens
to beyond the police force. Sure, or there's you know,
let's not forget that mob rule is a thing that
can happen, and there are times when police are protecting
criminals so that they could have their do rights under
the law. And let's also point out that because of
(11:54):
the way that um entertainment disguised as news is often
presented to people, you're probably not going to hear about
a lot of the heroic stories which are often going
to hear about are going to be the bad guy cases,
you know, the one the someone who uh flipped and
went dirty for a little bit of side money off drugs,
(12:16):
or someone who committed a war crime because that sells
more advertising space. Right. Um, But we do know, uh,
we do know that in the United States, at least,
the concept of the separation between the police and the
military is a huge deal, and it's it's something that
(12:39):
a lot of people may have heard about for the
first time, but it is by no means the first
time that this has been a concern in the United States.
As a matter of fact, are older legislators that came
before US were so concerned about this that they passed
a law about it, right, That's right, the posse commentat
US Act of So this thing was basically designed to
(13:02):
create a clear division between the military and the domestic forces,
the police forces in the US. So, yeah, it says
that the US military. Originally it's aid the US military
uh cannot intervene in law enforcement operations, so domestic stuff
that the police would do. Um, no matter how bad,
(13:24):
Blockbuster may want you to return that blue ray, you
stole right before the store closed. They cannot send the
Marines after you. That is a comforting thought. I mean
that there still is like one Blockbuster open I think
I think it's in Alaska. Actually there's several. I'm sorry, Blockbuster.
Just a lot of these stories closed. Farbuster. I want
(13:46):
you to know that I would still be using your
store if you were open. I did until you closed.
Oh gosh, yeah, I brought it down. Sorry, man, So
now my best example. But this is not a uniform, um,
not a blanket law. Right. There exceptions, Oh yeah, there's
there are a couple of different exceptions. There's one provision
in there that says the law can be temporarily um,
(14:08):
I guess repealed for certain instances. And there's even a
waiver that the president can sign that can kind of
suspend the law. Yeah, like a hall pass for the
military to enter into the that's for emergency situations, right,
and you know it's I think it's been used twice
in the US. Yeah, least twice. Yeah, at least twice. Um,
(14:31):
probably more than that. Now that that comes from a
um House stuff Works article that our buddy Josh wrote
on the Delta Force. Right. Oh yeah, that's exactly I
remember that, and they're they're a fairly mysterious thing that
we should probably cover um in a future episode two
now that I think about it. So, critics of the
(14:56):
current trend between the police and the military tell us
that pretty much from the jump, Posse commatatas has been
under attack by various, various interest groups. And it is
true that over the decades, this Act has been changed
and there have been exceptions added, and a lot of
these either existed in the original Act, like the you know,
(15:19):
the National Guard and State Defense forces are under the
governor of a state, so those don't really apply with
Posse commatatas um, and then there are some added later
with the Insurrection Act during the Los Angeles riots, right, Yeah,
that was a huge one. And then gosh, there's one
(15:41):
where the Attorney General can request that the Secretary of
Defense provides emergency assistance if basically a civilian law enforcement
agency can't handle a situation there they have inadequate equipment
or forces. Um l a p D attack by Godzilla,
we can't handle that, well, yeah, or if there's a
(16:03):
real nuclear material threat that kind of thing, radiological weapons. Yeah, oh,
the military can also come in as a support role
for certain joints Special Operations Command stock Yeah. Uh yeah,
so people still to this day debate about whether or
not posse comitatus is being eroded, as well as the
(16:26):
specifics about how and when nation's military should be called
to act domestically. Um. So this militarization, right, So we've
established that there's a history of it, and in our
video we talked about the history of swat teams a
(16:47):
little bit, right, Yeah, if you want to learn more
about that, please go back and watch our videos. Um.
But okay, so long story short, the SWAT team became
really popular with the police and the public to an
extent and politicians. Uh. And that's because they there were
several highly publicized events where SWAT team was used and
(17:09):
they came out looking really good because they were effective.
They were fast and mostly effective. Right. Yeah. They became
sort of the next hot item. I mean the movies
involving swat teams, television shows. Uh. When they when they
first came out, which is towards the sixties, as we
(17:31):
talked about our upcoming episode, Uh, they had a fairly
narrowly defined mission and they operated in primarily urban areas.
So throughout the seventies there these they come out in
um probably the mid sixties as a result of, uh,
some problems that the l a p D was actually having,
(17:54):
not Godzilla related. Well, yeah, larger firearms being used by
criminals when they were trying to respond, body armor being used,
enormous racial tension getting very close to um a a
unrest that would be like a regional war. Yeah, full
(18:15):
scale writing was happening. Yeah, like a city war. So
gradually swat teams increase. You know, this large urban area
gets one, this one gets one. People are saying, oh,
finally we have someone for hostage negotiations or things that
are already on the brink of catastrophic violence. And uh
this worked in there. Not only their public perception continued
(18:38):
to rise, but more and more police departments looked at
these paramilitary units favorably. And then something crazy happened in
the nineteen eighties. Well yeah, right, well right before the yeah, yeah,
Nixon gave his famous speech or I guess it was
a little talking point that he added in about public
enemy number one being drugs and drug use. Then we
(19:01):
get to the Reagan administration in the eighties, and we
look at not that nothing happened in between those two,
because there are certainly things that happened, But that's during
the Reagan administration. We had all kinds of new funding,
new equipment. UM. I think in nineteen eight six, we
have a short clip of this. In ninety six, the
(19:23):
Reagan administration had increased the Drug Enforcement Agency and basically
War on drugs um amount of money they were spending
by three times at least from one to eighty six UM.
And that includes swat teams and all kinds of other
paramilitary police units all across the country. You know, I
just want to point out when you said not that
(19:43):
we're saying nothing happened in the seventies. What if that's
the phantom history. Nine seventies just didn't happen. If you
were born, then they lied to you, go go find
the hospital, asked for the original birth certificate. It goes
so deep, man, I am, I am so kidding. Please
don't do that unless you need a copy of your
(20:04):
birth certificate. But UM, yeah, that's right. That's a great
point in X. Reagan did issue this National Security Decision Directive,
and this is interesting because it calls drugs a threat
to US national security and national security all in addition
to being a legitimate concern for a country. In the
(20:26):
United States at least and in a lot of Western countries,
it's begun to function as this password for unlimited money.
It's like the Konami code. That's exactly what it is.
National security. Oh, thank you, I'll take all of that. Well,
so we really can't handle it national security. Okay, that's fine.
Here's seven more billion dollars. So yeah, that's that's a
(20:47):
I know we're being a bit tongue in cheek about it,
but it does, in this case at least unlock a
hell of a lot of funding. And the every uh,
everybody is cooperating to share information, equipment, tactics. We have
a little bit of a list of the different things,
uh that that we're pasted. Right, So we talked about Reagan,
(21:11):
but then, uh, in nineteen n some other stuff happened. Yeah,
Congress ordered the National Guard to assist drug enforcement efforts,
and and because of his order, National Guard troops today
still patrol for marijuana plants and assist in basically this
huge anti drug operation, and every state in the country
(21:33):
looking for the plants themselves. In nineteen eighty nine, President
Bush created a series of regional task force in the
d D Department of Defense just to cooperate, just to
facilitate cooperation, excuse me, between the military and police forces.
(21:54):
So how do we best coordinate uh this transfer of
equipment or vehicle weaponry, tactics training, Uh, people that were
on the lookout for you know, you can also if
you read between the lines here, clearly that's a comment
on wire tapping. Oh sure, well, and keep in mind
we're we're involved. The US is involved in all kinds
(22:15):
of narco wars all across Central and South America, and
it's the military performing all of those actions. So then
they're working directly with perhaps people and you know, if
anything gets inside the United States, they're trying to coordinate
with that. So then in the do o D issued
this memorandum that authorizes a transfer of equipment and tech
(22:39):
to state and local police. And in that same year,
Congress created the Reutilization Program, which essentially facilitated the handling
of military gear over to civilian and police agencies. So
if we look at specific numbers, what what does that mean? Exactly? Okay,
So just but between and nineteen seven the Pentagon distributed
(23:04):
three thousand, eight hundred M sixteens, two thousand, one hundred
and eighty five M fourteens, seventy three grenade launchers, and
a hundred and twelve armored personnel carriers to civilian police
agencies all across the country. Right one year alone, that
totals up to more than one point two million pieces
(23:26):
of military equipment. And this is just a brief history.
So we can now we can talk about the current
state of militarization. Because, as I believe we say in
our video, whether or not you are an opponent of
this you think it's bad, or you're an advocate of
it and you think that it's an effective way to
prevent crime. No one can deny that the police in
(23:48):
the United States and several other countries are increasingly militarized,
both in terms of tactics and equipment. Okay, man, So
let's look at the current state. We've talked about seventies, eighties, nineties.
Where are we right now. In a widely cited survey,
this criminologist Peter Kraska, he found that as of seven,
(24:08):
almost nine percent of cities with populations fifty thousand or
more had at least one paramilitary police unit. That's twice
as many in the mid nineteen eighties. And let's stroll
through some more numbers here. Uh, this is from the
Washington Post. Uh. The a c. L. You released a
yearlong study of this tendency and police forces looked at
(24:32):
eight hundred deployments of SWAT, special weapon and tactics teams
across twenty local, state, and federal agencies from two thousand
eleven to two thousand twelve. So statistically speaking, this is
pretty much fresh fresh out of the pizza oven, as
fresh as we can probably get, right. Uh. Sixty two
of those raids survey were to conduct searches for drugs,
(24:55):
not the narrowly defined uh, incredibly dangerous stuff. Now, of course,
these these people are putting their lives at risk when
they do this, but the uh, the interdiction of drugs
was not originally a SWAT team mission or even within
their realm. This is what we call mission creep um.
(25:16):
Just under eight percent were to serve as search warrant,
so that means eight and ten of these SWAT raids
were not initiated to get a school shooter or a
hostage taker and escaped felon, but to investigate someone who
is still suspected of committing a crime. Yeah, they sent
the big dogs to find someone suspected of a crime.
(25:39):
I mean, you know, suspected is a heck of word
because legally in the u s you're required to say suspectful. Yeah,
and and if you are able to get a warrant,
there's probably enough evidence against you to at least what
they believe to prove, right. Yeah. So you know, we're
not saying they're all good guys or all bad guys.
It's just their suspect. But what we are saying is
(26:01):
that some of the reasons that SWAT teams are often
justified right as a as an expense because it's expensive
to have such a high level of training, expertise, and equipment. Um,
the common justification is to prevent violent things from happening.
But it looks like, according to this a c LU report,
at least that just seven percent of those SWAT raids
(26:23):
were for hostages, barricades, or active shooter scenarios. So kind
of the original reasoning for having a SWAT team, just
in back in the day, the reason for their creation, right.
And additionally, we'll just launch, a list, a couple more effects,
and it's all again According to the a c l
you study, in at least thirty six percent of these
SWAT raids studies, no contraband at all was found. So
(26:46):
in you know, a home invasion, right or an active mission. Uh.
And not only not only do they not prevent violent crime,
which don't know, that's kind of unfair to say, Matt,
because it's really tough to say that someone didn't prevent
something negative, right, Yeah, but but there wasn't any you know, contrabants,
(27:12):
no illegal weapons or counterfeit money or drugs or something
like that. Uh. The scary part is that the the
a c l U estimates that, due to incomplete police reports,
this figure could be higher than thirty six. It could
be sixty. Um. Now, we do know that there are
(27:33):
other things that occur here, like swat tactics are disproportionately
used on people of color. If you just look at
the numbers, UM, there's usually fourced century swat deployments involved
a fourth century battering ram boot explosive device. Then in
over half of those raids, the police find failed to
(27:53):
find anything really any kind of weapon. Um. But the
presence of which is cited for the reason of these
violent attacks. So they they'll go in saying, well these
this guy's armed or this group is armed, but then
they won't find anything. And there's another question there that
goes back to the safety of the people conducting these things.
How do you know if they're not armed? Right? Well, yeah,
and if you think they may be armed, how do
(28:15):
you not go in guns blazing and throwing flash bangs.
So yeah, so this is our this is our overall
look with a little more detail about the nature of
militarization in this day and age in this state. And
when we return from a word from our sponsor will
(28:37):
get into some of the scarier conspiratorial stuff. Oh man,
I don't know if I can call these beats much more.
I s where beat farming is not what Dad said
it would be. They's just hard work all day, all night,
(28:58):
and then all the next day. Oh man, I wonder
what's on TV. Oh, can't watch TV. I got a
harvest rest of these beats. Oh excuse me, excuse me?
Their friends? What do you get in here? Well, you
have left the door opened, But never mind that I
would have rammed it down anyway. I couldn't help. But
over here on the wire tap that you're having a
(29:20):
you're having a tough time at your day job. What
what is that exactly? Well, I've been farming beats on
this farm, has been in my family of seven generations. Uh,
you know, yeah, it's a it's a noble profession for sure,
but it also seems like it could be one fraught
with problems. What what kind of problems do you have
farming these beats? Well, sometimes the beats are too close
(29:42):
together and they may make like a double beat harder.
It's harder for those to get him out. Some of
the machine yable malfunction. A lot of times there's not
enough water. That's one of the biggest problems. To be honest, Well,
what would you say if I told you that we
could not only fix your problems, but give you an
entirely new set of problems that you've never seen before.
(30:03):
To be honest, I'm not really interested much in that.
Maybe I can get a brochure. Just imagine instead of
this beat up old tractor, what if you had a tank,
a mind resistant ambush proof vehicle with armor. Now, now
you got my don't worry, You'll have armor too, and
(30:26):
those other beat farmers are going to be absolutely no
possible potential threat that they might someday be if you're
also armed with armor piercing rounds, because, believe me, friend,
those other beat farmers already have armor. Now do you
have any money? Yes, we have. We have so many minds.
We have mind launchers. Uh. Certainly, just from the military
(30:49):
surplus of the past four minutes alone, we have produced
enough armor and war grade weaponry to supply your beat
farm for decades to come. Are you interested, Well, that depends,
uh how much? How much are we talking here? Because
you know I don't exactly make a lot of money. Oh, yes, okay,
(31:10):
not to worry. Are you a terrorist? No? Do you
sell drugs? No? Then it's free. What yes, sir, that's right,
free just for doing your parts? Are you giving me?
I am not kidding. I am legally not allowed to
make jokes. Oh my god, I can't believe. I feel
like luckiest made in the world. Bring it in, boys. Oh,
(31:33):
we're also giving you an army. Oh the power. I
could feel the power. Yes, that's right. Whether you're a
law enforcement or librarian of beat farmer or anything between,
we two can help you here at Military Surplus FT
you've gotten gum and that stands for or the war.
(31:54):
That's right, So do your part it help us use
up this gigantic military surplus that we have built. The
American way, we just got too many tanks. Military Surplus
f t W dout GOV is not the part of
the United States government, the government of Mexico, Canada, the Bahamas,
or any other Gribbean nations. Military Cerplus ft W dut
(32:14):
DOVE is not legally a recognized charity Antonocracy donations. Military
Cyplus ft W DUCKUVE is legally barred from any comment, consideration,
or statement regarding privatized militaries. The International Criminical Cort, the
I S S, the U N or NBC brought to
you by Illumination Global Unlimited and we're back. Uh So
(32:35):
that's a little bit of a tongue in cheek commercial
for sure, but it leads us seamlessly into some of
the conspiracy theories about militarization of the police. Right now,
if you're the chief of a local police department, you
can kind of have your own military on a very
(32:55):
small scale, right, And that's what the opponents would say. Uh,
I guess Before we dive into this, one point I
do want to make is that for cash strapped police
precincts in rural areas or something, uh, this is a
gigantic boon. And indeed, it would be a little bit
thick headed to walk away from this because you know,
(33:17):
things like body armor and bulletproof helmets absolutely necessary to write.
But the one of the big conspiracy theories, of course,
is that there is a what Huffington's Post called a
police industrial complex, the idea that private corporations that manufacture
(33:37):
arms and weapons have made these big agreements with the
US government and that they're making military hardware that no
one actually needs. Well, yeah, you get the money. Somebody
has to take it now that we've manufactured it, or
else we just lost a whole bunch of money, and
then someone will notice and we won't get as much
money for our our budget next our next funding cycle.
(33:59):
Right Like, if you don't use the entirety of your budget,
then it looks as though you should get your budget
cut next year. You've got to increase the budget. So
the what's interesting about this theory is that there is
a there's a little bit of plausibility to it because
we know. One of the strange one of the strange
things about legislating an agreement that goes past, you know,
(34:24):
two or four years, is that the people who sign
it are often not in office to see what happens later,
see the effects of it, whether it's a good idea,
whether it's a smart one, whether there are too many
jets or not enough jets. And and this is something
that is a common concern in the world's militaries as well.
(34:46):
You know, if we just look at the F thirty
five debacle going on now, and then there's the and
then there's the other idea, a little bit more conspiratorial,
which is that maybe the companies themselves are pushing this
for a new market. Yeah. Have you ever heard of
(35:09):
Urban Shield Expo? Uh? I have. I don't mean to
say to that much of it that was good though
ractorial things. We mentioned this I think every year in Oakland, California.
Right yeah. This is where they essentially invite as many
police departments and sheriff departments of local police out there
(35:31):
and basically it's this huge expo think comic con, but
with military grade weapons for your police department, right yeah,
And these these vendors are advertising various various hardware, but
they're also training sessions on things like how to diffuse
a bomb or how to uh run point on a raid.
(35:56):
It's essentially it really is just a gun show with
more equipment, because if you've ever been to a gun show,
you know there's all kinds of things like training available
to you there. Well, now, let's talk about one of
the conspiracy conspiratorial ideas, because it's not just one idea
that is uh maybe the furthest from mainstream discourse, but
(36:18):
it's something that a lot of people are really worried about. Right, Yeah,
this this is the idea that the reason all of
these weapons are in the hands of the local police
is because the government or someone is preparing for mass
civil unrest. And this goes back to the FEMA camps theories.
This goes back to I mean there's so many the
(36:39):
ammunition buy up. Yeah, there are a lot of aspects
to this, and there are a lot of pieces. To
be honest, they're not necessarily connected at least to that
head of the octopus thing, but there are a lot
of interesting, let's say, happenings, right, Yeah, some I can't
remember who it was, it was either somebody on our
(37:01):
Facebook or our Twitter, which you can you can hang
out with us there as well, anytime you wish. Matt
and I are on there all the time. Uh. On
one of those somebody's somebody said conspiracy if I'm a
conspiracy theorist, or maybe you're a coincidence theorist. Yeah, oh man,
where was that? I think that was on YouTube? Maybe
(37:21):
I was on YouTube? Okay comment, Yeah that that made
me laugh and I thought that was a well written
turn of phrase. But yeah. We also have videos on
the Second Civil War, the people who wanted to succeed,
And that's really interesting because as you and I know, uh,
groups of people in the United States attempt to succeed
(37:43):
way more often than you would think, way more often
than you even hear about. Yeah, so much more often.
And uh, you know, around the United States alone, dozens
and dozens of apocalyptic groups think the world will end,
so they don't care what's gonna happen next year. Uh,
they don't care. I'm not saying they're violent by any means. Well, yeah,
(38:04):
you just when you lose, when you lose that desire
to live on for the next, for the future, what's
coming right, future. It's terrifying and and because and of
course when you think about it, it would be this
massive swell of problems if these succession movements were advertised
on the news, right, which is why we very rarely
(38:27):
hear about these active functioning groups. And it makes you
think maybe the news is controlled. Then yeah, well maybe
the news will succeed in uh start their own countries, right,
But then also you know the same thing will happen
in other large countries like China is constantly working to
(38:49):
keep these various disparate groups and territories united and to
quell rebellions, right, so those rebellions are off not advertised
in the Chinese news the way they are in the
United States. The Internet itself is controlled so much they're
trying to stop You saw the I forget. I think
(39:11):
it's a John Oliver piece maybe about the Genemen Square
protests that that happened every year. But the Internet is
controlled so heavily that they've actually blocked phrases, all these
different phrases that groups have been trying to put out
there to refer to the Tenement Square massacre, and now
all of them are blocked. You know, it's really strange.
(39:33):
I don't know if this is still the case, but um,
using in the past, using uh the Internet in some
parts of China, not only would it be monitored, but
there'd be these little like cartoon cop characters who would
show up and say, hey, you know, just for your safety,
keeping an eye on you. And the weirdest thing was, man,
(39:56):
the weirdest thing was they have blue eyes. So if
you ever get a chance to look up these characters, yeah,
this is my my One of my old professors pointed
this out and he and I talked about it for
a while, and I still don't know what's going on there,
but it is it is true that the possibility of
domestic unrest, it is a historic uh is it an
(40:20):
historic threat to any empire? And if you look at
just the size of the United States and the elements
that it brings together. I were I one of the
chess masters of the country, I would also be concerned
with domestic unrest and national security. You know, it is
a real thing. But a lot of people, Jane and
(40:42):
John q public are are very concerned that, uh, for
some reason, a group might come down on them. Uh.
The you know, if you look at what happened in
the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Uh. That raised a lot
of people's concerns as well. And I have to say
there there are quite a few things that John and
Jane Q public in the US might be a bit
(41:05):
ticked off about a ton of little things, a couple
really big things. And that's what we're gonna be talking
about next week. Well that's what we talked about every week,
isn't it. But we're gonna be covering some very specific things, um,
about the food we put into our bodies, about the
things that are added to that food. And it's a
(41:26):
highly controversial subject, but we're gonna look at it and
see what we can find. So in the meantime, we would,
as always like to thank you so much for uh
taking some time to check out our show. We are
overdue for listener mail episodes. Rings send some of those
to us if we haven't replied yet. Don't you worry.
(41:47):
We are storing these up and checking our list twice
like some sort of weird um duo Santa clause. I
don't know, yeah, yeah, the pieces of the Joker. I
have a huge external hard drive now that's just pumping
emails and stuff it's true. Yeah, and we do have
a naughty, nice algorithm, but that is not true. But
what is true is that you can find us on Facebook,
(42:09):
you can find us on Twitter. We have a website
where you can find all of our videos and all
of our podcasts. Will even into a blog occasionally. Our
website is Stuff they Don't Want You to Know dot Com.
And that's the end of this classic episode. If you
have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you can
get into contact with us in a number of different ways.
(42:30):
One of the best is to give us a call.
Our number is one eight three three std w y
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(42:53):
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