
From NASA to Amtrak, These Are All the Government Agencies with Tactical Teams - tomohawk
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36343/from-nasa-to-amtrak-these-are-all-the-government-agencies-with-tactical-teams
======
liability
I suppose I'm meant to be disturbed by this apparent militarization of federal
agencies, but I doubt NASA SWAT account for much if any of the civil rights
abuses going on in America right now. Rather, most of that stuff is
doubtlessly coming from the usual suspects (local cops, FBI, ATF, ICE, etc),
not the oddball outfits.

Maybe instead I'm supposed to think these organizations are wasting taxpayer
money on matters that are outside their wheelhouse.. maybe that's the case. I
can see why NASA would need a security team but perhaps that could be more
efficiently provided by another agency. The article doesn't really seem to
make this argument though.

I suppose maybe I'm just being a grump and the article is meant for general
edification with no agenda.

~~~
jcrawfordor
I think it speaks mostly to the general trend of police militarization, which
is both enabled and normalized to the extent that basically every law
enforcement agency is expected to have a tactical unit, even if it's a
relatively obscure and small agency.

Of course this mostly stands out in the federal government, which is almost
certainly wasting money by maintaining so many separate law enforcement
agencies, especially when a certain degree of standardization is in place in
that most federal law enforcement officers (but not all) train at FLETC. This
makes you question whey there are a million separate agencies instead of one
large one.

And for the most part the answer isn't really a good one... just an
agglomeration of history, with the most significant part being a result of the
Inspectors General Act which basically created the situation that every
executive branch agency has its own internal law enforcement organization.

For example, given that the Federal Protective Service exists, one wonders
about the necessity of so many executive branch agencies having their own law
enforcement unit to protect their facilities. But then one wonders why the
Federal Protective Service exists when there is some historical justification
for assigning that duty to the Secret Service. And so on.

Look at it this way: a similar controversy has existed at a local level over
university and school district police departments acquiring ex-military
equipment and establishing tactical units. Once again it's probably a lower
risk than the municipal police department, but it does say something about the
state of militarization. And then one can wonder why it is typical in many
areas for universities and school districts to have their own police
departments, which often face funding, training, and retention challenges
compared to the municipal departments... Around here the university police
departments have a reputation as a mill that pays for people to attend the
academy, after which they spend their mandatory six months and then
immediately transfer to a municipal agency with better pay. As you can imagine
this does wonders for the quality of the workforce in the university
departments.

More broadly, this whole thing also touches on the uneven training and
staffing standards for US law enforcement agencies, which seems to result in
good part from both the sheer number of such agencies and the various
peculiarity of the state laws under which they obtain their authority (e.g.
consider states that do and do not commission security police). This should be
less of a problem with federal agencies due to the de facto standards
established by FLETC, but we've seen in e.g. Portland that the inconsistent
policies of federal agencies with regard to oversight, use of force, etc. can
very much be wielded against the citizenry.

~~~
throw0101a
> _I think it speaks mostly to the general trend of police militarization,
> which is both enabled and normalized to the extent that basically every law
> enforcement agency is expected to have a tactical unit, even if it 's a
> relatively obscure and small agency._

In some ways have these types of teams/units could be useful, as it could
allow more 'aggressive' tactics to be standard operating procedure (SOP) for
only certain officers allowing others to be trained for other things.

* [https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/06/am...](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/06/america-police-violence-germany-georgia-britain/612820/)

* [http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/06/29/many-countries-po...](http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/06/29/many-countries-police-rarely-use-their-guns-heres-why)

It's like in the UK where most officers are unarmed, and only a select few are
trained for firearms:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialist_Firearms_Command](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialist_Firearms_Command)

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_unit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_unit)

In Germany, where all (?) officers are armed:

* [https://www.dw.com/en/why-german-police-officers-rarely-reac...](https://www.dw.com/en/why-german-police-officers-rarely-reach-for-their-guns/a-17884779)

* [https://www.dw.com/en/when-are-german-police-allowed-to-use-...](https://www.dw.com/en/when-are-german-police-allowed-to-use-guns/a-53826205)

Perhaps putting all the "warriors" into special units that are only deployed
in certain circumstances could allow for the beat cops to have different
mentality:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Warrior_Cop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Warrior_Cop)

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throw0101a
See also "SWAT World Challenge" that ran for a few years:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWAT_World_Challenge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWAT_World_Challenge)

Some interesting participants are US DOE/OST, DOE-Lawrence Livermore, and
Bruce Power (which runs a nuclear station in Ontario, Canada):

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Power#Nuclear_Response_T...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Power#Nuclear_Response_Team)

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Nuclear_Generating_Stati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Nuclear_Generating_Station#Security_and_safety)

There are a number of competitions, both local/regional and international:

* [https://policinginsight.com/news/international-event-dubai-p...](https://policinginsight.com/news/international-event-dubai-police-to-host-the-uae-swat-challenge-2020/)

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tyh
If you are curious about the trend of the militarization of the police I'd
suggest reading "The Rise of the Warrior Cop" by Radley Balko.

One thing the book points out is that since the first SWAT team was formed in
LA back in the 1960s, even law enforcement agencies with as few as 28 officers
have SWAT teams. One of the things the author attributes this to is a "me too"
attitude where one department hears another local agency has a SWAT team with
special equipment and weapons. Somewhat jealously the agency decides they need
one too. Even if the population they are serving has no history of the kinds
of violent and/or dangerous crimes that normally require SWAT.

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noodlesUK
I’m not tremendously surprised by this. Even in countries with largely
demilitarized police, like the U.K., there are odd groups with tactical
response forces like the Civil Nuclear Constabulary... What matters is keeping
these sorts of thing on-task and within the scope that they were established
for.

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rsync
Tangent: All of these agencies _also have firefighting crews_.

I learned this 19 years ago at ground zero.

I saw a guy with FBI bunker gear on. I saw another guy with NTSB bunker gear
on. There was a guy with US Secret Service bunker gear on.

Who knew ?

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SV_BubbleTime
The IRS has ordered a Remington 870 shotgun that’s pretty interesting. It’s
the MCS, shorty, illegal for civilians without a tax stamp. Same version used
in Afghanistan for breaching.

[https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010/02/05/the-irs-
shotg...](https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010/02/05/the-irs-shotgun/)

Now... why the IRS needs them, IDK. But the real trip is the Dept of Education
ordered the same ones awhile back. So... yay budget justifications?

~~~
wtn
Tax agencies in the United States have criminal investigation divisions.

IRS-CI Special Agents are authorized to carry and use firearms.

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joncrane
HHS (The agency that administers Medicare/Medicaid in the US) has a 2-person
SWAT Team on the rolls?

~~~
trothamel
They also have a lab with samples of smallpox. I suspect having people who
know the lab and are trained to work with SWAT teams is probably useful.

~~~
thoughtstheseus
Having people prepared to deal with a wide variety of situations is highly
advisable.

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dmode
Why do each agency need their own ? For example, why can't FBI SWAT teams be
also used for emergency responses for Amtrack ?

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njharman
TIL Amtrak is a government agency and not a private company. Sounds simliar to
USPS

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak)

