June 27, 2014 • 41 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 in to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
From UFOs two ghosts and government cover ups histories where
with unexplained events you can turn back now or learn
the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello, I
am Matt and I am Ben, and this is stuff
they don't want you to know. Uh. And as always,
(00:22):
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 sure we have plenty of those just
in the mixx 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
(00:47):
in the middle of Bucket. Yeah. The neighborhood of Buckhead
in Atlanta, Georgia, for those who are not illuminated to
this idea, is full of crank 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
(01:09):
kind of like the Uh. They're right, there are some
big businesses 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
(01:31):
people tickets for bad driving. Yes, there's lots of money
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 room. There's no one on the road
but me and my Mercedes. Slash BMW slash whatever you
(01:54):
want to assert there. But for most people, just the threat,
the possibility city 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
(02:16):
police have a psychologically crucial role in the I guess,
the 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
(02:39):
coming up all over the place. I'm seeing links, tons
of links, 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
raid and a baby was sleeping in the room I
guess the living room with the rest of the family
and flash bang grenade landed in the crib. The child
(03:03):
was in a medically induced coma for a while. I
believe the child is out now the coma or I'm
not positive on that. I need to look back up
and that. Anyway, Yeah, it's all over the place. The
Cato Institute has been talking about this. What's a what's
no knock grade is when in the middle of the night,
a swat team or other form of paramilitary style police
(03:26):
force breaks into 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 threat. Theoretically, it is based on intelligence that has
been gathered, so they're not just rolling the dice and
(03:47):
picking a 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 than a
person and so I know we're getting a little deep
already before we're getting into this bin. These are just
the things that have been on my mind. Yeah, I
(04:09):
think 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 um that the police might show
(04:31):
up for some reason, maybe just because they have wrong
intel and busting your house. Okay, So the transformation of
perception of the police from a protective force to a uh,
punitive force. Okay, That's what's interesting here is that we
(04:51):
have these two groups, right, the police and the military. Uh.
And in our video series this week, we you'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 Can You Record Police? One of
(05:13):
our old episodes, updated as excellent remix and classic out
there on Monday, 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.
(05:33):
One of one of the easiest, most basic B level
if I could say that is, ways to differentiate between
the 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
(05:55):
Warrior Cop, the Militarization of America's Police forces, and the
other is Kill The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America.
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
(06:16):
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
and have the whoa hold on sound effect there. Thanks Noel,
everybody who objected to that differentiation by Balco, we understand
(06:38):
where you're coming from. It is it is an oversimplification
to say the military's job is to annihilate foreign enemies. Uh,
some people would prefer something like something a little more
glass half ful, like to protect America's interest abroad that heah,
well that's alas uh filled with something, okay, Uh, the
(06:58):
role of police officers 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.
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,
(07:21):
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
on who you're talking to, referred to in this kind
of monolithic block figure, this entire group that you speak about,
(07:43):
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
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
(08:04):
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
the other side of a debate to try to discredit
you or dissuade you is to rely upon emotional arguments,
(08:27):
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
of the way and say that we're not talking about
these people as just some group of faceless, mindless machines.
(08:48):
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.
It's this difference has been rather evident between police officers
(09:08):
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 difference
(09:29):
between police and military, and we know that there's some
overlap too. Write both the police and members of 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 like the infamous
(09:51):
Blue line of loyalty where cops will band together to
protect another police officer. Well, and there's a reason they
do at 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 other citizen, or
(10:12):
even you know, protecting you know, you're really good friend
perhaps who was also happening he happens to be on
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 the way
(10:36):
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 flipped and went dirty for
a little bit of side money off drugs, or someone
(10:58):
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 a lot of people may
(11:21):
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, Yeah,
that's right, the Posse Commentatous Act of eighteen seventy eight.
(11:41):
So this thing was basically designed to 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 cannot intervene
in law enforcement operations, so domestic stuff that the police
(12:02):
would do. Um, no matter how bad 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
(12:25):
lot of these stories closed. Farkbuster. I want 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, yeah, there's there are a couple of different exceptions.
There's one provision in there that says the law can
(12:47):
be temporarily um, 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 miller terry 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, at least twice, um,
(13:12):
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
(13:36):
current trend between the police and the military tell us
that pretty much from the jump, Posse comitatas 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,
(13:59):
the National Guard and state defense forces are under the
governor of a state, so those don't really apply with
Possi 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
(14:21):
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 attacked by Godzilla,
we can't handle that well, yeah, or if there's a
(14:43):
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 the stay debate about whether or
not posse comitatus is being eroded, as well as the
(15:06):
specifics about how and when a 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
(15:26):
a 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
(15:48):
and 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
(16:11):
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 some
problems that the l a p D was actually having,
(16:33):
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 unrest
that would be like a regional war. Full scale writing
(16:56):
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 are already on
the brink of catastrophic violence. And uh, this worked in there.
(17:16):
Not only their public perception continued 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 nine eighties, Nixon gave his famous speech,
or I guess it was a little talking point that
(17:36):
he added in about public Enemy Number one being drugs
and drug abuse. Then we 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
(17:58):
in six we have a short up of this. In
nine six the 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.
(18:21):
You know, I just want to point out when you
said not that 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
(18:43):
your birth certificate. But um, yeah, that's right. That's a
great point. In nineteen six, Reagan did issue this National
Security Decision Directive. And this is interesting because it calls
drugs a threat to US national security and now national
security all in addition to being a legitimate concern for
(19:05):
a country. In the 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, sir, 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 I know we're
(19:28):
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 passed. Right. So we talked about Reagan, but then, uh,
(19:52):
in nineteen nine, 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 looking for
(20:14):
the plants themselves. In 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. So how do we
(20:35):
best coordinate uh this transfer of equipment or vehicles, 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 of narco wars all across Central
(20:59):
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 d D issued
this memorandum that authorizes a transfer of equipment in tech
to state and local police. And in that same year,
(21:22):
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 between and nine seven, the Pentagon distributed three thousand,
(21:45):
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 two civilian police agencies all
across the country right one year alone, that totals up
to more than one point two million pieces of military equipment.
(22:08):
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 the United States and several
(22:29):
other countries are increasingly militarized, both in terms of tactics
and equipment. Okay, Ben, 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, almost nine percent of cities
(22:50):
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 and
(23:10):
police forces looked at 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. Get right. Uh. Sixty two of those
(23:32):
raids survey were to conduct searches for drugs, 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.
(23:52):
This is what we call mission creep um. Just under
eight percent where to serve a search warrant set ME
eight and ten of these SWAT raids were not initiated
to get a school shooter or a hostage taker and
escaped fellon, But to investigate someone who is still suspected
(24:13):
of committing a crime. Yeah, they sent the big dogs
to find someone suspected of a crime. 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
(24:33):
to prove, right. Yeah. So you know, we're not saying
they're all good guys or all bad guys. It's just
their suspects. But what we are saying is 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.
(24:57):
But it looks like according to a cl you report,
at least that just seven percent of those SWAT raids
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
(25:17):
l you study, in at least thirty six percent of
these SWAT raids studies, no contraband at all was found.
So in you know, a home invasion, right or an
active mission. Uh. And not only not only do they
not prevent violent crime, which I don't know, that's kind
(25:40):
of unfair to say, Matt, because it's really tough to
say that someone didn't prevent something, right, Yeah, but but
there wasn't any you know, contrabands, no illegal weapons or
counterfeit money or drugs or something like that. Uh. The
scary part is that the the a c l U
(26:02):
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 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
(26:27):
boot explosive device. And then and over half of those
raids the police find fail to find anything. Really any
kind of weapon, um, but the presence of which is
cited for the reason of these violent tactics. So they
will 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
(26:50):
know if they're not armed? Right? Well, yeah, and if
you think they may be armed, how do 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
(27:13):
return from a word from our sponsor will get into
some of the scarier conspiratorial stuff. Oh man, I don't
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(27:33):
It's just hard work all day, all night, 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 you
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But never mind. Out I would have rammed it down anyway.
(27:54):
I couldn't help. But over here on the wire tap
that you're having a 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, it's tough. Yeah,
it's a it's a noble profession for sure, but it
also seems like it could be one fraught with problems.
(28:16):
What what kind of problems do you have farming these beats? Well,
sometimes the beats are too close together, and they may
make it like a double beat harder, and it's harder
for those to get them out. Some of the machine
realiable 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
(28:38):
entirely new set of problems that you've never seen before.
To be honest, I'm not really interested much in that.
Maybe I can get a do you have 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 me, don't worry.
(29:03):
You'll have armor too, and 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. Certainly, just
(29:26):
from the military 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
(29:47):
money beats. Yes, okay, 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 I
am not kidding? I am legally not allowed to make jokes.
Oh my god, I can't believe. I feel like luckiest
(30:10):
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(30:53):
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Military Serplus ft W duckup is legally part from any comments, consideration,
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the s S, the UN or NDC, brought to you
by Illumination Global Unlimited and we're back. Uh So that's
(31:14):
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 Yeah, Now, if
you're the chief of a local police department, you can
kind of have your own military on a very small scale, right,
(31:35):
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, things like
(31:56):
body armor and bulletproof helmets absolutely nest a theory too. Right.
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
arms and weapons have made these big agreements with the
(32:20):
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. Right, Like,
if you don't use the entirety of your budget, then
(32:41):
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 legs slating an agreement that goes past, you know,
(33:03):
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.
(33:25):
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
(33:47):
Urban Shield Expo? Uh? I have. I don't mean to
say that much of it that was good though, 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 and basically
(34:11):
it's this huge expo, think comic Con but with military
grade weapons for your 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 points on a raid. It's essentially
(34:35):
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 it's
(34:57):
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
(35:18):
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
(35:40):
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 said, somebody said conspiracy if I'm
a conspiracy theorist, or maybe you're a coincidence theorist. Yeah
that man, where was that? I think that was on YouTube?
Maybe I was on YouTube? Okay comment, Yeah, that that
(36:03):
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
way more often than you would think, way more often
(36:25):
than you even hear about. Yes, 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. They
don't care. I'm not saying they're violent by any means. Well, yeah,
you just when you lose, when you lose that desire
(36:47):
to live on for the next, for the future, what's
coming future. It's a little 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 hear about these active functioning groups. And it makes
(37:10):
you think maybe the news is controlled. Ben 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
keep these various disparate groups and territories united and to
(37:33):
quell rebellions, right, so those rebellions are often not advertised
in the Chinese news the way they are in the
United States. Yea, the Internet itself is controlled so much
they're trying to stop You saw the I forget I
think it's a John Oliver piece maybe about the Genemen
(37:54):
Square protests. Uh that happened every year. But the Internet
is trolled so heavily that they've actually blocked phrases, all
these different phrases the groups have been trying to put
out there to refer to the tienam And Square massacre,
and now all of them are blocked. You know, it's
really strange. I don't know if this is still the case,
(38:15):
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, the weirdest thing was they have blue eyes.
(38:38):
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 an historic threat to any empire. And if
(39:01):
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 John Q Public are are very concerned that uh,
(39:25):
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 then I have to
say there there are quite a few things that John
and Jane Q public in the US might be a
bit ticked off about a ton of little things, a
(39:47):
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. Right,
And it's a highly controversial subject, but we're gonna look
(40:07):
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 brings.
Send some of those to us if we haven't replied yet.
Don't you worry. We are storing these up and checking
(40:28):
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 stuffing. 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. You can find us on Twitter.
(40:49):
We have a website where you can find all of
our videos and all of our podcasts. We'll eve into
a blog occasionally. Our website is stuff they don't want
you to know dot com. Oh, remember that we mentioned earlier.
We're just a hot skip and digital jump away. You
can write to us directly at conspiracy at how stuff
works dot com. For more on this topic another unexplained phenomenon,
(41:16):
visit test tube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can
also get in touch on Twitter at the handle at
conspiracy stuff
From UFOs two ghosts and government cover ups histories where
with unexplained events you can turn back now or learn
the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello, I
am Matt and I am Ben, and this is stuff
they don't want you to know. Uh. And as always,
(00:22):
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 sure we have plenty of those just
in the mixx 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
(00:47):
in the middle of Bucket. Yeah. The neighborhood of Buckhead
in Atlanta, Georgia, for those who are not illuminated to
this idea, is full of crank 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
(01:09):
kind of like the Uh. They're right, there are some
big businesses 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
(01:31):
people tickets for bad driving. Yes, there's lots of money
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 room. There's no one on the road
but me and my Mercedes. Slash BMW slash whatever you
(01:54):
want to assert there. But for most people, just the threat,
the possibility city 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
(02:16):
police have a psychologically crucial role in the I guess,
the 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
(02:39):
coming up all over the place. I'm seeing links, tons
of links, 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
raid and a baby was sleeping in the room I
guess the living room with the rest of the family
and flash bang grenade landed in the crib. The child
(03:03):
was in a medically induced coma for a while. I
believe the child is out now the coma or I'm
not positive on that. I need to look back up
and that. Anyway, Yeah, it's all over the place. The
Cato Institute has been talking about this. What's a what's
no knock grade is when in the middle of the night,
a swat team or other form of paramilitary style police
(03:26):
force breaks into 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 threat. Theoretically, it is based on intelligence that has
been gathered, so they're not just rolling the dice and
(03:47):
picking a 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 than a
person and so I know we're getting a little deep
already before we're getting into this bin. These are just
the things that have been on my mind. Yeah, I
(04:09):
think 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 um that the police might show
(04:31):
up for some reason, maybe just because they have wrong
intel and busting your house. Okay, So the transformation of
perception of the police from a protective force to a uh,
punitive force. Okay, That's what's interesting here is that we
(04:51):
have these two groups, right, the police and the military. Uh.
And in our video series this week, we you'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 Can You Record Police? One of
(05:13):
our old episodes, updated as excellent remix and classic out
there on Monday, 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.
(05:33):
One of one of the easiest, most basic B level
if I could say that is, ways to differentiate between
the 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
(05:55):
Warrior Cop, the Militarization of America's Police forces, and the
other is Kill The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America.
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
(06:16):
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
and have the whoa hold on sound effect there. Thanks Noel,
everybody who objected to that differentiation by Balco, we understand
(06:38):
where you're coming from. It is it is an oversimplification
to say the military's job is to annihilate foreign enemies. Uh,
some people would prefer something like something a little more
glass half ful, like to protect America's interest abroad that heah,
well that's alas uh filled with something, okay, Uh, the
(06:58):
role of police officers 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.
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,
(07:21):
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
on who you're talking to, referred to in this kind
of monolithic block figure, this entire group that you speak about,
(07:43):
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
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
(08:04):
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
the other side of a debate to try to discredit
you or dissuade you is to rely upon emotional arguments,
(08:27):
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
of the way and say that we're not talking about
these people as just some group of faceless, mindless machines.
(08:48):
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.
It's this difference has been rather evident between police officers
(09:08):
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 difference
(09:29):
between police and military, and we know that there's some
overlap too. Write both the police and members of 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 like the infamous
(09:51):
Blue line of loyalty where cops will band together to
protect another police officer. Well, and there's a reason they
do at 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 other citizen, or
(10:12):
even you know, protecting you know, you're really good friend
perhaps who was also happening he happens to be on
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 the way
(10:36):
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 flipped and went dirty for
a little bit of side money off drugs, or someone
(10:58):
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 a lot of people may
(11:21):
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, Yeah,
that's right, the Posse Commentatous Act of eighteen seventy eight.
(11:41):
So this thing was basically designed to 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 cannot intervene
in law enforcement operations, so domestic stuff that the police
(12:02):
would do. Um, no matter how bad 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
(12:25):
lot of these stories closed. Farkbuster. I want 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, yeah, there's there are a couple of different exceptions.
There's one provision in there that says the law can
(12:47):
be temporarily um, 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 miller terry 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, at least twice, um,
(13:12):
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
(13:36):
current trend between the police and the military tell us
that pretty much from the jump, Posse comitatas 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,
(13:59):
the National Guard and state defense forces are under the
governor of a state, so those don't really apply with
Possi 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
(14:21):
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 attacked by Godzilla,
we can't handle that well, yeah, or if there's a
(14:43):
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 the stay debate about whether or
not posse comitatus is being eroded, as well as the
(15:06):
specifics about how and when a 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
(15:26):
a 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
(15:48):
and 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
(16:11):
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 some
problems that the l a p D was actually having,
(16:33):
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 unrest
that would be like a regional war. Full scale writing
(16:56):
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 are already on
the brink of catastrophic violence. And uh, this worked in there.
(17:16):
Not only their public perception continued 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 nine eighties, Nixon gave his famous speech,
or I guess it was a little talking point that
(17:36):
he added in about public Enemy Number one being drugs
and drug abuse. Then we 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
(17:58):
in six we have a short up of this. In
nine six the 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.
(18:21):
You know, I just want to point out when you
said not that 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
(18:43):
your birth certificate. But um, yeah, that's right. That's a
great point. In nineteen six, Reagan did issue this National
Security Decision Directive. And this is interesting because it calls
drugs a threat to US national security and now national
security all in addition to being a legitimate concern for
(19:05):
a country. In the 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, sir, 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 I know we're
(19:28):
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 passed. Right. So we talked about Reagan, but then, uh,
(19:52):
in nineteen nine, 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 looking for
(20:14):
the plants themselves. In 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. So how do we
(20:35):
best coordinate uh this transfer of equipment or vehicles, 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 of narco wars all across Central
(20:59):
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 d D issued
this memorandum that authorizes a transfer of equipment in tech
to state and local police. And in that same year,
(21:22):
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 between and nine seven, the Pentagon distributed three thousand,
(21:45):
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 two civilian police agencies all
across the country right one year alone, that totals up
to more than one point two million pieces of military equipment.
(22:08):
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 the United States and several
(22:29):
other countries are increasingly militarized, both in terms of tactics
and equipment. Okay, Ben, 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, almost nine percent of cities
(22:50):
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 and
(23:10):
police forces looked at 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. Get right. Uh. Sixty two of those
(23:32):
raids survey were to conduct searches for drugs, 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.
(23:52):
This is what we call mission creep um. Just under
eight percent where to serve a search warrant set ME
eight and ten of these SWAT raids were not initiated
to get a school shooter or a hostage taker and
escaped fellon, But to investigate someone who is still suspected
(24:13):
of committing a crime. Yeah, they sent the big dogs
to find someone suspected of a crime. 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
(24:33):
to prove, right. Yeah. So you know, we're not saying
they're all good guys or all bad guys. It's just
their suspects. But what we are saying is 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.
(24:57):
But it looks like according to a cl you report,
at least that just seven percent of those SWAT raids
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
(25:17):
l you study, in at least thirty six percent of
these SWAT raids studies, no contraband at all was found.
So in you know, a home invasion, right or an
active mission. Uh. And not only not only do they
not prevent violent crime, which I don't know, that's kind
(25:40):
of unfair to say, Matt, because it's really tough to
say that someone didn't prevent something, right, Yeah, but but
there wasn't any you know, contrabands, no illegal weapons or
counterfeit money or drugs or something like that. Uh. The
scary part is that the the a c l U
(26:02):
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 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
(26:27):
boot explosive device. And then and over half of those
raids the police find fail to find anything. Really any
kind of weapon, um, but the presence of which is
cited for the reason of these violent tactics. So they
will 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
(26:50):
know if they're not armed? Right? Well, yeah, and if
you think they may be armed, how do 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
(27:13):
return from a word from our sponsor will get into
some of the scarier conspiratorial stuff. Oh man, I don't
know if I can call these beats much more. I
swear beat farming is not what Dad said it would be.
(27:33):
It's just hard work all day, all night, 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 you
want to get in here, Well you've left the door open,
But never mind. Out I would have rammed it down anyway.
(27:54):
I couldn't help. But over here on the wire tap
that you're having a 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, it's tough. Yeah,
it's a it's a noble profession for sure, but it
also seems like it could be one fraught with problems.
(28:16):
What what kind of problems do you have farming these beats? Well,
sometimes the beats are too close together, and they may
make it like a double beat harder, and it's harder
for those to get them out. Some of the machine
realiable 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
(28:38):
entirely new set of problems that you've never seen before.
To be honest, I'm not really interested much in that.
Maybe I can get a do you have 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 me, don't worry.
(29:03):
You'll have armor too, and 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. Certainly, just
(29:26):
from the military 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
(29:47):
money beats. Yes, okay, 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 I
am not kidding? I am legally not allowed to make jokes.
Oh my god, I can't believe. I feel like luckiest
(30:10):
man in the world. Bring it in, boys. Oh, 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, a fat farmer, or anything between. We
two can help you here at Military Surplus f t
W dot gov and that stands for or the war.
(30:33):
That's right, So do your part and 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 dut dove is not the part of
the United States Government, the government of Mexico, Canada, the Bahamas,
or any other Gribbean nations. Military Surplus f W duck dove.
(30:53):
He is not legally a recognized charity and cannot see donations.
Military Serplus ft W duckup is legally part from any comments, consideration,
or statement regarding privatized military is the International Criminical Cort
the s S, the UN or NDC, brought to you
by Illumination Global Unlimited and we're back. Uh So that's
(31:14):
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 Yeah, Now, if
you're the chief of a local police department, you can
kind of have your own military on a very small scale, right,
(31:35):
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, things like
(31:56):
body armor and bulletproof helmets absolutely nest a theory too. Right.
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
arms and weapons have made these big agreements with the
(32:20):
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. Right, Like,
if you don't use the entirety of your budget, then
(32:41):
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 legs slating an agreement that goes past, you know,
(33:03):
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.
(33:25):
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
(33:47):
Urban Shield Expo? Uh? I have. I don't mean to
say that much of it that was good though, 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 and basically
(34:11):
it's this huge expo, think comic Con but with military
grade weapons for your 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 points on a raid. It's essentially
(34:35):
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 it's
(34:57):
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
(35:18):
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
(35:40):
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 said, somebody said conspiracy if I'm
a conspiracy theorist, or maybe you're a coincidence theorist. Yeah
that man, where was that? I think that was on YouTube?
Maybe I was on YouTube? Okay comment, Yeah, that that
(36:03):
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
way more often than you would think, way more often
(36:25):
than you even hear about. Yes, 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. They
don't care. I'm not saying they're violent by any means. Well, yeah,
you just when you lose, when you lose that desire
(36:47):
to live on for the next, for the future, what's
coming future. It's a little 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 hear about these active functioning groups. And it makes
(37:10):
you think maybe the news is controlled. Ben 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
keep these various disparate groups and territories united and to
(37:33):
quell rebellions, right, so those rebellions are often not advertised
in the Chinese news the way they are in the
United States. Yea, the Internet itself is controlled so much
they're trying to stop You saw the I forget I
think it's a John Oliver piece maybe about the Genemen
(37:54):
Square protests. Uh that happened every year. But the Internet
is trolled so heavily that they've actually blocked phrases, all
these different phrases the groups have been trying to put
out there to refer to the tienam And Square massacre,
and now all of them are blocked. You know, it's
really strange. I don't know if this is still the case,
(38:15):
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, the weirdest thing was they have blue eyes.
(38:38):
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 an historic threat to any empire. And if
(39:01):
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 John Q Public are are very concerned that uh,
(39:25):
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 then I have to
say there there are quite a few things that John
and Jane Q public in the US might be a
bit ticked off about a ton of little things, a
(39:47):
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. Right,
And it's a highly controversial subject, but we're gonna look
(40:07):
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 brings.
Send some of those to us if we haven't replied yet.
Don't you worry. We are storing these up and checking
(40:28):
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 stuffing. 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. You can find us on Twitter.
(40:49):
We have a website where you can find all of
our videos and all of our podcasts. We'll eve into
a blog occasionally. Our website is stuff they don't want
you to know dot com. Oh, remember that we mentioned earlier.
We're just a hot skip and digital jump away. You
can write to us directly at conspiracy at how stuff
works dot com. For more on this topic another unexplained phenomenon,
(41:16):
visit test tube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can
also get in touch on Twitter at the handle at
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United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
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