Centralizing Law Enforcement

The New American ^ | November 8, 2001 | William Norman Grigg

[Verax]

Centralizing Law Enforcement by William Norman Grigg The cumulative experience of totalitarianism -- the gulags and gas chambers, the arbitrary arrests and summary executions -- can be summed up in the chilling phrase "police state." Americans, who have long looked upon the police as a benevolent force for order, may find it difficult to imagine the horrors that have descended upon altogether too many societies. But should Americans relinquish the constitutional principles upon which their liberties depend, they will find that they enjoy no special immunity to the totalitarian plague that has wrought such horrors in this bloody century.

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Every tyrannical government relies on centralized, unaccountable police power to enforce its dictates. Although America's Founding Fathers were not familiar with modern totalitarianism, they were imbued with a deep distrust of concentrated political power. Accordingly, the Constitution they devised serves as an "anti-trust act for government"; by designing institutions that diffuse political power, the Founders sought to prevent the consolidation of authority in a remote government that would ruthlessly impose its will. Regrettably, America's apostasy from constitutional principles has abetted the growth of centralized, politicized law enforcement -- a development that portends the extinction of liberty. The American Concept In Federalist essay number 45, James Madison set forth the principle that "The powers delegated by the ... Constitution to the federal government are few and well defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite .... The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the state" (emphasis added). The police power -- that is, the regulation of the "internal order" of communities -- was therefore among the "unenumerated powers" reserved to the states and the people. This state of affairs prevailed as late as 1945. In the majority opinion delivered in the 1945 Supreme Court decision Screws v. U.S., Justice William O. Douglas wrote, "Our national government is one of delegated powers alone. Under our federal system the administration of criminal justice rests with the states except as Congress, acting within the scope of those delegated powers, has created offenses against the United States." A dissenting opinion in the same case concurred with Douglas' analysis, noting that "to have provided for the national government to take over the administration of criminal justice from the states ... would have constituted a break with the past overnight." That "break with the past" has come not through a sudden revolution, but rather as a product of patient, persistent gradualism. Using a legal doctrine called "incorporation," federal courts have employed the 14th Amendment to assert federal jurisdiction in state and local affairs, particularly in matters of law enforcement and civil rights. By shackling state and local police, the courts have contributed to the growth of violent crime while allowing police powers to accumulate at the federal level, where those powers are deployed by political elites who are not directly accountable to the citizenry. Although the "incorporation" doctrine has been justified in the name of protecting the civil rights of individuals against corrupt local authorities, that doctrine has been used to remove the impediments to the direct exercise of federal power upon the individual. By routing local and state police authorities, the federal government has hastened the day when the embattled individual stands naked before the power of the central government -- a terrifying prospect to those with a sense of history. Capitalizing on a "Crisis" Although Germany's Nazi (National Socialist) Party was a collection of squalid criminals, it found favor with the German public by promising "law and order." On February 27, 1933 (shortly after Hitler became chancellor), the Reichstag building was set afire. Although it was (and remains) unclear whether the fire was set by a communist saboteur or a Nazi agent provocateur, the Nazis capitalized upon the incident. Insisting that the Reichstag fire prefigured a communist onslaught against the German state, Hitler persuaded President Hindenburg to sign an emergency decree suspending constitutional liberties and allowing the state to exercise extraordinary powers in the name of "public safety." Hitler and his comrades cultivated the impression that Germany was undergoing a crisis of criminality. As a remedy for the supposed crisis, Hitler proposed a program of Gleichschaltung (coordination or synchronization), through which the central government would absorb the power and political functions of the German states. On March 23, 1933, the Reichstag passed the "Enabling Act" (also called the "Law for Removing the Distress of People and Reich"), which made the central government responsible for all law enforcement in the German Reich. Hitler sought to placate critics of the measure by issuing assurances that this enrichment of the state's power would not lead to abuses: The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures .... The separate existence of the federal states will not be done away .... The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a law is in itself a limited one. Of course, these assurances were utterly useless. Leftist historian William Shirer pointed out, "It was this Enabling Act alone which formed the legal basis for Hitler's dictatorship. From March 23, 1933 ... Hitler was the dictator of the Reich, freed of any restraint by Parliament" or the country's constitution. With astonishing efficiency, the Nazi state devoured the legal and constitutional authorities of all intermediate governments in Germany. As Shirer noted, within a short time the Nazi Party formalized the completion of a unified police state: ... on June 16, 1936, for the first time in German history, a unified police was established for the whole of the Reich -- previously the police had been organized separately by each of the states -- and Himmler was put in charge as Chief of the German Police. This was tantamount to putting the police in the hands of the S.S., which since its suppression of the Roehm "revolt" in 1934 had been rapidly increasing its power .... The Third Reich, as is inevitable in the development of all totalitarian dictatorships, had become a police state. Hitler's National Socialist police state was indebted to the pioneering work of Lenin's communist regime. On December 20, 1917, the Soviet government created the "All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-revolution and Sabotage," or Cheka, and appointed Feliks Dzerzhinsky, a man of singular ruthlessness, as its head. Notes historian John Barron, "Formation of the Cheka was not accompanied by any announcement of its powers and purposes" -- that is, the body was given unspecified and unsupervised powers. On February 6, 1922, the body was renamed the GPU (State Political Directorate) and placed under the authority of the NKVD, or "People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs," which also controlled the conventional police. When the Soviet republics were consolidated into a socialist "union" in 1923, the GPU was detached from the NKVP and renamed the OGPU, or "Unified Political Directorate." In 1954, after enduring several more permutations, the body acquired its most familiar name, the KGB. However the body was named, it was the Soviet Union's presiding law enforcement agency, consolidating police and intelligence functions and serving the political will of Moscow. Ominous Parallels Despite the fact that there was an actual decline in the rate of violent crime in 1993, the American public has been told that the crime "crisis" is America's top domestic priority. High profile criminal atrocities, such as the Long Island commuter train shooting, are quickly seized upon by those anxious to find an event that will persuade the public that freedoms must be surrendered in the interests of"order." The Omnibus Crime Control Act could be considered Bill Clinton's "Enabling Act." The measure would extend federal jurisdiction to cover scores of crimes that have traditionally been within the purview of state and local authorities. The most ominous feature of the measure is Section 1121, which would create a 100,000-man national Police Corps under the supervision of a director appointed by the President. Although Police Corps officers would be attached to existing state and local police agencies, they would be accountable to the federal government -- not to the communities in which they would be assigned. Furthermore, the program would increase federal regulation of state and local police agencies and increase their dependence upon financial subsidies from Washington. In a fashion reminiscent of Hitler's empty promises that his government would respect the prerogatives of individual German states, the Clinton Administration is emitting assurances that the enlargement of the federal government's powers under the crime bill would not lead to abuses, but rather to an enhanced state/federal "partnership" in fighting crime. That "partnership" began last summer when Congress passed a measure appropriating $150 million to be dispensed as "community policing" grants. Although this sum is relatively modest, it will whet the appetite of state and local officials for greater federal subsidies and help generate support for the passage of the Omnibus Crime Control Act. Since December 20th, 107 American cities have received federal "community policing" grants. The subsidies were announced in White House conference calls during which the President, in the manner of an Oriental potentate, invited the recipients to express awestruck gratitude. Those not favored with federal funds received this invitation at the end of the February 9th conference call: "To all those hundreds of communities who have applied for these grants who haven't been given funds ... that's why we need to pass the crime bill." Mr. Clinton's strategy is to use the pleas of fiscally overextended state and municipal leaders to sell the crime bill to Congress and the public. It should be remembered that with federal funding comes federal control. ReGo and the KGB The crime bill is not the only avenue through which the Administration seeks to nationalize law enforcement. On September 7, 1993, Vice President Al Gore published the final report of his National Performance Review task force (known as the "Reinventing Government" task force or ReGo). Among the proposals made by the task force was the designation of "the Attorney General as the Director of Law Enforcement to coordinate federal law enforcement efforts" and unspecified changes in "the alignment of federal law enforcement responsibilities." A report carried by Scripps Howard News Service issued just prior to ReGo's publication offered a more indepth description of the proposal's implications: "All federal law enforcement activities would be moved into the Justice Department under the control of the Attorney General .... The proposal would bring under a single federal umbrella most existing federal law agencies, including the FBI; Drug Enforcement Administration; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; Secret Service; Internal Revenue Service and Postal Service." This mega-police agency Would be governed by a Stalinesque "Directorate of Central Law Enforcement" headed by the Attorney General. Even more ominously, notes the wire service article, "The plan, which would dramatically centralize federal law enforcement powers, suggests the new directorate could be modeled after the CIA director's organizational structure. The attorney general would serve dual roles -- one as head of the Justice Department and the other as leader of the entire U.S. law enforcement community." Significantly, Janet Reno has spoken favorably of greater collaboration between law enforcement and intelligence bodies. In a November 19th speech to the American Bar Association's "Law and National Security Breakfast," she asserted that it is "critically important ... for the intelligence community to come together with law enforcement," particularly regarding "strategic planning" of both foreign and domestic initiatives. If implemented, the ReGo proposal would make Janet Reno (and each of her successors) the institutional descendant of Heinrich Himmler and Feliks Dzerzhinsky. Soldiers in the Streets In a fashion similar to that displayed by the Nazis following the Reichstag fire, Establishment figures are preparing the public for extraordinary impositions upon individual rights. Adam Walinsky (CFR), a former top adviser to the late Robert F. Kennedy, said in an early 1993 interview that violent crime had created "the most serious threat domestically that the country has faced since the Civil War." During the Civil War, it will be recalled, President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, placed severe restrictions upon the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, and enacted many fundamental changes in America's political system by presidential ukase. Walinsky suggested that the national police corps may presage a more general mobilization in the war against crime -- a prospect that has been entertained with increasing frequency by public figures. During the Los Angeles riots in 1992, many of the activists who had condemned the supposed abuses of the Los Angeles Police Department openly invited intervention by federal troops in order to restore order. Two days after the riot began, President George Bush dispatched 4,000 troops of the 7th Infantry and 1,000 heavily armed federal police to Los Angeles. Mr. Bush also federalized the California National Guard and placed it at the disposal of General Colin Powell, then head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. These decisions received an enthusiastic endorsement from many of the same civil rights leaders who had condemned the LAPD as a racist and abusive entity. One of the LAPD's most indefatigable critics is city council member Zev Yaroslavsky. During a cable television interview last September, Yaroslavsky invited the federal government to send military forces into Los Angeles in a UN-style "peacekeeping" mission: You know, when George Bush sent the Marines into Mogadishu [Somalia], he explained that the reason for sending in the military was the following: We want to restore normalcy. Bands of marauding gangs are making it impossible for the people of Somalia to carry on their business. He could have been talking about Los Angeles. I don't know what our Army is doing that is so important ... but perhaps we can bring some of those folks in and relieve some of our [police] officers .... And perhaps we can even use some of the military to assist in providing greater security to our community. A deployment similar to that suggested by Yaroslavsky has already taken place. Last October in Puerto Rico, National Guard units were assigned to perform routine law enforcement duties alongside the police, the first time that military personnel have been put to such use on U.S. soil since America achieved independence from Great Britain. In Washington, DC (like Puerto Rico, another jurisdiction in which the Welfare State has incubated a virulent strain of violent crime), links are being established between local police and the military. According to the October 12, 1993 Washington Times, DC Metropolitan Police Chief Fred Thomas has "moved his department closer to militarized training with the announcement of a program for police recruits at the U.S. Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va." The Global Gulag Steadily but unobtrusively, the groundwork is being laid for the construction of a global police state. On February 2nd the Senate approved a State Department appropriations measure that contained a "sense of Congress" resolution supporting "the establishment of an International Court with jurisdiction over crimes of an international character...." This court would be created by the UN and have concurrent jurisdiction with national courts in countries that have ratified UN treaties. It would have the power to order extraditions of those identified as suspects by the "international community" or try and convict such individuals in absentia. The Senate rejected the arguments of Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) that such a body would eventually be used to "try individuals, including Americans, for such vague crimes as 'colonialism' or 'environmental crimes.' These crimes and these cases would be tried before judges who could be from North Korea, Cuba, or other unfriendly places." Most American law enforcement personnel retain a different perspective on the source of the law's authority; accordingly, they would have compunctions about seizing their countrymen and delivering them into the custody of a foreign court. For this reason it is significant that a cryptic provision of the Omnibus Crime Control Act appears to foreshadow the use of foreigners as federal police. According to Section 5108 of the measure: Not later than 6 months after the date of enactment of this Act, the Attorney General, in concert with the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Commissioner of the Customs Service, shall report to Congress and the President on efforts made, and the success of such efforts, to recruit and hire former Royal Hong Kong Police officers into Federal law enforcement positions. The report shall discuss any legal or administrative barriers preventing a program of adequate recruitment of former Royal Hong Kong Police officers. This provision is pregnant with dreadful possibilities. Once the precedent is established for the recruitment of foreigners to serve in federal law enforcement positions, Washington could recruit veterans of the Soviet KGB or the Cuban or East German secret police to serve in the national police corps; after all, such individuals would be superbly qualified for the job. "Peacekeepers" in the U.S.? Section 5108 could also lay the groundwork for the eventual deployment of multinational UN "peacekeeping" troops within America's borders a possibility that is now being spoken of openly. In remarks made during the May 4, 1992 Larry King Live program on CNN, Michael McGee of the Black Panther Militia predicted that "armed insurrection" in America would lead to UN intervention: "You've ... got to remember that if the UN could go into Beirut, if they can go into Lebanon, if they go into Iraq, eventually the UN, I think, is going to have to come in here, because what I'm talking about organizing is something that's going to be called urban guerilla warfare. It's something that's not going to be fought like a riot." McGee's comments may be dismissed by some as the ranting of a marginalized malcontent. However, his theme has been embraced by at least one "respectable" social commentator. Syndicated columnist Bob Greene offered the following thoughts in the September 29th Chicago Tribune: The United Nations currently has multinational peacekeeping troops stationed in 14 countries around the world. The precise missions vary, but they all have one thing in common: The international soldiers are there to help bring tranquility and safety to places that can't do so on their own. So perhaps there is one more place where a UN multinational force is desperately needed: The United States. Preposterous? Maybe not. Maybe it is an issue for the 184 member nations of the UN to discuss. Sending soldiers from around the world onto the streets of our own country? We probably haven't come to the point where we need such an action yet, but we're veering perilously close. Treasonous actions of our elected representatives have indeed brought us "perilously close" to occupation by UN troops. On September 12, 1990, the UN General Assembly declared its intention to seek the incorporation of international law into local law. On April 2, 1992, the Senate acted to facilitate the General Assembly's wishes by ratifying the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a legal instrument which (if implemented) would subject the Godgiven liberties of Americans to UN-defined limitations. In order to assuage critics of the measure, the Senate attached a series of "reservations" to the Covenant. However, one of those "reservations" actually creates greater danger for constitutional liberty: ... the United States understands that this Covenant shall be implemented by the Federal Government to the extent that it exercises legislative and judicial jurisdiction over the matters covered therein, and otherwise by the state and local governments; to the extent that state and local governments exercise jurisdiction over such matters, the Federal Government shall take measures appropriate to the Federal system to the end that the competent authorities of the state or local governments may take appropriate measures ffuor the lfillment of the Covenant. That is to say that as law enforcement is federalized through the crime bill, it would simultaneously be globalized. The embryonic federal police state is to be an affiliate of the global police state, as will whatever vestigial state and local police agencies that remain. The imposition of a police state represents the ultimate triumph of criminality. Perhaps this is why there is such affinity between the street criminals who prey upon the law-abiding and the political criminals who seek total power. It is certain that the best defense against criminals in both high and low places can be found in strong, effective, independent, local police -- and an armed, responsible citizenry. Source: THE NEW AMERICAN, April 4, 1994.

[Verax]

He did call for that Fred25...ad that's commendable.

But you're going to have to dig a little deeper here.

Do you really think GW's running the show?

[Verax]

, responsible citizenry is detrimental to the security of the people and the nation.

I think you meant fundamental

[brityank]

See. Proof we don't need to worry. Just give up your guns and GovGod will take good care of you. </sarcasm>

[Verax]

Oh come one!!!

I don't believe it...your a lunatic-psycho-Area 51-Trilateral-William Cooper Conspiratorialist

ummm...wait, did you say he actually said that??

[meadsjn]

Fundamental, yeah, that one. Too many syllables is risky business.

[Verax]

The American Civil Defense Association

"TACDA believes that for a government to hold a population hostage to known dangers, as occurred with policies like Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), is at best irresponsible and goes against the Constitutional mandate to provide for the common defense."

Locate the civil defense agency in your area...and join today!

[Fred25]

Yes, I think George Bush is running the federal show. Who do you think is running the show?

[dasboot]

Fred, Thanks for the reply and your optomism. I hope your right. My optomism is more cautious. I became intimately familiar with the fed plan to improve education (G2000) and watched as the true reformers were "Delphied" out of the sweep. What was left were a bunch of local tyrants who jumped to the crack of the fed whip. Local control was along the design of the fed model; and the money that came with the submission to the plan was frittered away on a gaggle of carpet-bagging "experts" that came and went, who advocated the psycho-normative, socialist, dumbed-down, curriculum. ( OTOH, the silver lining to the mess was that I was forced to educate my own kids; and I've no regrets there). The damage done to our pockets and the minds of a generation of public school students is permanent, and a continuing danger to the health of the States United : who among this generation will vote for a president or party that requires they feed and fend for themselves? Heck, half of the highschool graduates foisted from the public schools in the last two decades are functionally illeriterate! I know this: after having schooled our own kids, my wife and I have made a hobby of teaching young adults to read and cypher. Not easy undoing the damage.

If George's plan recognizes the jurisdiction of the States and operates under the proper idea of co-sovereignty, than I'm bully; but I fear that the command structure will be lifted out of some pre-existing FEMA plan, and the statist pols, bureaucrats, and citizens within my state--tails wagging, desirous of a piece of federal power and imprimatur--will further suborn their allegence to the state in favor of becoming fed actors.

I love my state; I hate to see it "dissed". The FEDGUV acts with great force and alacrity, but the result of their labors, within the realm of non-delegated powers, is most often a sub-standard product, to wit: federally subsidized housing--a thing bleak, at best.

[gulfcoast6]

Good policemen leave because of the politics, the average stay for someone on a police dept is 7 years. National I don't know but a lot of money could be saved if they would let Sheriffs offices take over some of the towns.

[dasboot]

Allegiance....manual spell-check.

[Verax]

You are sooo right VW!