On fb to ask why is this happening

They only law they recognize is themselves.

You have no argument from me that Blackwater is bad ju-ju but this isn't Blackwater or even Blackwater-esque. These are public employees, the police, distorting the law in order to declare themselves above the law.

hide their true nature, then we should assume the worst.

a mercenary holds the image of someone paid by the state acting on the state's behalf but still a separate entity from the state. That means the state still has some influence over that entity.

This is the state itself going rogue under its own power. These aren't mercenaries, they are rogue usurpers undermining democratic government.

and run by public employees, yes?

From what I'm seeing they're just pretending to be a private business so they don't have to disclose their documentation.

We do so because we're a genuine non-profit and we solicit donations from the public. But I guess that's the way we do things I suppose. If push comes to shove we can find out by asking the governmental agency what they asked the so-called "business" to do and try to eke out information that way. Besides this should go further in the legal process because they are acting as agents for the governmental agency that hired them.

Some elected officials have a responsibility in this matter. I hope it gets their attention.

The PDs are sharing assets between cities and towns and using a shell configuration to make that work.

The state needs to pass a law saying that these types of arrangements, when using public assets, do not exempt said assets from disclosure regulations.

is that the idea? the government can't restrict free speech or torture but they can outsource governmental operations to private corporations, and if those private corporations then restrict free speech or torture or kill without due process or make unreasonable searches and seizures, well, that's not the government doing that so it's all ok then, is that the idea?

that send a chill up my spine and basically, scare the crap out of me.

How long, how many lives could be destroyed before it reaches that level...and then, to think it could go to THIS Supreme Court scares the crap out of me all over again.

Turning the cops into Blackwater is a shitty idea.

Ollie North wanted the muscle to help keep America safe from forners and protesters.

TPTB have carved the country up into zones..think FEMA zones, think Governmental Zones,.
Fusion Center info here:
http://www.dhs.gov/state-and-major-urban-area-fusion-centers
and ACLU's take on them, here:
https://www.aclu.org/fusion-centers-force-multiplier-spying-local-communities

there is a push on to remove Gov. positions from public accountability...think of the unelected City Managers, esp. in Detroit.
Spain, Italy, and Greece ..and Ireland???...were all handed over to unelected "managers" who then implemented "austerity", which is another word for stealing tax money and giving it away to un-named cronies.

It is pretty clear that SWAT Teams have become a tool of oppression for the Dark Side.

to allow one of the biggest private para-military forces in the world (Blackwater)to operate in North America. Like-wise private SWAT teams. He wrote that it's a threat to Democracy. Congress has failed to enact legislation that would regulate any of these companies. Dick Cheney absolutely loathed congressional oversight which is why he and Rumsfeld moved to privatize as much of the Armed Forces as they could in the time they had, Looks like police departments are doing the same thing. Corporations could hire these companies ,couldn't they? The implications are terrifying.

claiming private corporate status to skirt their legal obligations.

appeal to the government to rein them in but when it is the government itself that has gone rogue to whom do we appeal?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

The police always and only have our best interest in mind. They would never lie to us

Said people should reconsider.

This could have been seen coming, privatization of police forces.

It gets more and more like a third world banana republic here every day.

to subdue anyone who refused to obey the dictates. And then they imagine these paramilitary forces will go quietly back into their cages.

and our government is captured and sold out to the owners while scarcity is coming.

We are supposed to just lie down while we are deprived of water, forced from our homes, and are put under control? Insane.

history and even the nightly news is filled with accounts of the plebs battling the militarized forces of the establishment. If suppressing insurrections were as easy as some believe Iraq and Syria are the two most recent examples that leap to mind. The former was an insurgency against the most high-tech military in the world; the latter is an insurgency against one of the world's most ruthless regimes.

So, strictly on technical merits, the ability to oppose government force is not as far-fetched as some might suggest.

And how so many hearken back to such things as the Revolutionary War using "Indian" tactics to fight against a superior enemy. But that is just nonsense. First of all, the desert/mountain fighters in Afghanistan live basically survivalist lives all the time. They are used to a level of physical toil and privation that most Americans can't even dream about. Look at what happened on Bundy Ranch, a bunch of losers who thought they were tough and just ended up fighting each other and some being so looney tunes as to shoot two cops.

Let's just say, that if you want to resist the powers that be, with their incredible military force, it's not going to be with handguns or Rambo ripoffs. It's going to be with IDEAS. Ideas that get a whole lot of people to mobilize and resist. General Strike: see Gandhi. Building community that cuts off the reliance on big corps. Being able to care for and lead themselves. If people think they can hide behind their guns, they are dead wrong.

They cannot be assuaged by appeals to higher ideals because they murder and brutalize people day after day without compunction or consequence. They should not be allowed to own any weapon that cannot be readily purchased on the civilian market and their military hardware should be stripped from them. Any officer who acts negligently or maliciously in the conduct of their duties in such a manner that results in injury during a non-violent encounter should face long, hard prison sentences.

They use the excuse that they need superior weapons to civilians. Loading civilians with high-powered weapons has been an excuse for a one-upmanship game. Fighting tanks in the streets or drones or mercenaries in body armor is just a teenage boy's fantasy.

By ideas, I mean the rest of us. We have some basics we need to understand, those that Occupy and others are trying to educate people that the corps are not our friends. That our society can be different. That we don't have to be hamsters on the wheel for shiny things. The religious right is doing its best to confuse the subject: that the problem is gays and abortions and the poor. All so we don't organize. Violent revolutions have never achieved their goal and too many people have died in the process. We KNOW how to do this; we have a blueprint. It will have to be updated for current conditions, but the basics are still relevant.

How in heaven can some lowly heathens ever resist the mighty American forces????

Who won that one, brother?

Gun haters love to pull out the old, "you really gonna take on the US military", on the one hand and then yell "fucking cop pigs" out of the other in other posts and replies.

All the while missing the main point that the peoples' will often, if not usually, trumps military strength.

See Viet Nam, See the American Revolution, take a little peek at Afghanistan.

yawn.

get real.

Clinging to guns isn't about self-protection from home intruders or animals; it's some bizarre Red Dawn fantasy. And so to feed that fantasy, we have a nation drowning in guns and violence. Other nations have moved on, but the Santa Claus notion that a few rebels can resist keeps us in the Dark Ages. Kids afraid to go to school, people intimidated where they shop, activists getting death threats. Because there's no other way, right? Because Indians didn't defeat the mightiest empire the world had ever known with non-violent resistance? Because MLK never walked? Because the workers of the world can't figure it out to unite so we have to hope some whacko at Chipotle saves us? That's real? You win, because that kind of logic has left me speechless.

Call me a gunner?

I haven't touched a gun in possibly more than a decade.

I work with facts and logic, not emotion, and I look at the history of the world and talk to people regularly from several continents about their conditions and strife.

None of these conversations are about guns or resistance, generally, but more about economics and opportunity.

Maybe you're a genius, or maybe you're an armchair keyboardist opinionated accept what you read without question kind of person.

I don't much care, those who resist logic and truth ultimately become victims of their ignorance.

I would simply prefer that such folks don't take down the rest of society with them and their narrow minds.

Second Amendment, baby!

Fuckin' eh! And it's nice to be in good company, DU and liberal gun owners groups, awesome!

is that what the most militarized and dangerous arm of public law enforcement does is none of the public's business, the public will do nothing about it, their elected representatives will do nothing, and the police aren't too worried about the courts.

SWAT into 501(c)(3) should be thrown out of their position and lose their pension.

I'm wondering how they are able to incorporate as a 501(c)(3)?

A 501(c)(3) is described as such:

by the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth (Corporations Division). If I am correct, the state of Massachusetts, by the authority vested in that office has already ok'd the 501(c)(3) status, or they would not exist as such.

I did a search of their site using the search term SWAT and found this page: http://corp.sec.state.ma.us/CorpWeb/CorpSearch/CorpSearchResults.aspx

If you look at the listings, it's hard to say for certain if any one of the listed are them... Furthermore, as a 'private' entity, they may be using some more ambiguous type of name.

ETA: If I am correct, the ACLU is probably already looking into the filing and would hopefully challenge it... If I am wrong, than please just disregard.

That 501(c)3 status is granted by the IRS not by Massachusetts.

In most states, I believe that one has to file w/their secretary of state to become a corporate entity.

All that is done at the state level is to file as a corporation and based on the filing with the IRS determines the status at the state level.

States do not confer 401(c)3 status on a corporation or any entity within their borders. They do recognize it in determining tax exempt status based on their own laws.

I've always known that filing non-profit status requires getting a pass w/the IRS-

I was just pointing out that I believe one has to file w/the secretary of state to incorporate whether it be a for-profit or non-profit corporate entity... the further (and main) point being that the state plays a role, that hopefully the ACLU will question.

Sorry I wasn't very clear about that.

I hope.

are public. Write letters to add to their next review. You can make those public and the letters can have multiple signatures so public knowledge will be attached to their records. The letters could tell who hired them? It is just documentation of their service in the community, to include letters about acts of valor.

Bad practice

exception to this particular configuration, the legislature on Beacon Hill should get cracking.

The configuration likely exists to maximize assets over a region, and that's fine. What's not fine is using that configuration to excuse themselves from public scrutiny.

Why would you think that anyone would "calmly explain" that public employees hiding public records behind a shell configuration would be "OK?" That's kind of odd.

If they are a private organization, then how do they get around the Federal Law that requires class 3 Federal License for anyone who owns a fully automatic weapon? Police Officers are exempted from the requirement, but if the Police Officers are doing so for a private organization, then we have a violation of the spirit, if not the letter of the law. Certainly an examination of Federal Grants to Law Enforcement in Massachusetts is warranted. Because if grants and programs targeted to state, county, and local police is instead going to a private organization this is at a minimum misappropriation of funds.

So should we ask the President to announce that the Justice Department is reviewing all Law Enforcement grants and programs from the Federal Government to see if the "private" organization is violating the law? The Rethugs would get on board defending federal funding for private swat teams, they love the things, and it could help us win in November to have the Rethugs on the record as supporting private groups with fully automatic weapons and zero oversight.

for the government is still answerable as a government entity. I worked for a private corporation that built equipment for the military, and because we worked for them we had to follow all of the same laws that governed the DOD. No, we were NOT exempt from that because of being a private corporation. Buncha BS!

These LECs are claiming to be private corporations, hired by municipal police departments, so the same rules don't apply to them.

Don't get me wrong. I think it's bullshit. However they're technically correct.

On the leading independent Democratic blog in Mass, Blue Mass Group: http://bluemassgroup.com/2014/06/massachusetts-swat-teams-claim-theyre-private-corporations-immune-from-open-records-laws/

I'd be shocked if this doesn't get fixed.

military hardware. They should be restricted to only use what is commercially available to the general population. The use of violence for non-violent offenses should carry stiff criminal penalties.