Why is DHS supplying colleges & universties with armored personnel carriers?
The Ohio State University Department of Public Safety has acquired an armored military vehicle that looks like it belongs in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Gary Lewis, a senior director of media relations at OSU, told The Daily Caller via email that the “unique, special-purpose vehicle is a replacement” for the “police fleet.” He called the vehicle “an all-hazard, all-purpose, public safety-response vehicle” with “obviously enhanced capabilities." (calling them a "public safety-response vehicle" is total B/S, they're Lenco armored personnel carriers! Do we expect anything else from authorities today?)
Lewis did not specify exactly what previous mode of transport was replaced.
He noted that the vehicle was “acquired at no cost from Military Surplus.” He also bragged that it has “extremely low miles and is in nearly new condition” but elaborated no further concerning the acquisition.
“We are in the process of making it usable for our needs in an urban campus environment,” Lewis explained. “Specifically we are removing the top turret and repainting.”
Lewis also noted that OSU’s campus cops are “the first agency in the state to acquire such a vehicle”—presumably ahead of less vital departments such as the Ohio Emergency Management Agency.
He did not provide the make and model of the vehicle despite the Daily Caller’s specific request.
The vehicle looks like an MRAP, which is the general name for an armored fighting vehicle designed to survive ambushes and improvised explosive device (IED) attacks. Lewis mentioned nothing about IEDs or ambushes in his email to TheDC. Instead, the school envisions a number of uses for the vehicle including “officer rescue,” “hostage scenarios,” “bomb evaluation” and active killers loose on campus.
The vehicle also boasts a “sniper perch” and it is ideal “for crew protection under threat of explosives and small arms fire.”
“Disaster deployment” is another possible use because the vehicle can function under all kinds of extreme weather conditions including blizzards and floods up to 36 inches. The “multi-purpose” onboard winch is also a plus.
Several attempts to extract information from the OSU Police Division proved fruitless. No one who will presumably be using the vehicle wanted to answer questions about it, nor would anyone say if any of these scenarios has actually occurred on campus in recent (or non-recent) years.
Colleges have been receiving offers for these vehicles from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The University of California Berkeley Police Department (UCPD Campus Police) reported they are getting a $200,000 grant from DHS to purchase an “Armored Response Counter Attack Truck,” a police department spokesman told the Campus Reform in 2012. The Berkeley Patch later reported Chancellor of Berkley Robert Birgenau refused the armored vehicle because “an eight-ton armored truck has no place on campus.“
In Racine, Wisconsin recently a Sheriff armored vehicle has been purchased and roaming around. Do we need tanks to help “direct traffic“?
Does anyone else think it’s a little odd that armored vehicles are popping up all over the place?
http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/17/the-cops-at-ohio-state-have-an-armored-fighting-vehicle-now/
http://www.freep.com/article/20130724/NEWS/307240127/Wayne-County-acquires-armored-personnel-carrier
http://www.constitutioncampaign.org/blog/?p=8432#.UjnSV5TD-Uk
http://freedomoutpost.com/2012/07/armored-personnel-carrier-for-uc-berkeley-via-dhs/
Ohio State's Dept. of Public Safety phone numbers and contacts:
http://www.osu.edu/departments/dept/Public%20Safety%20Department
Is Homeland Security spending paying off:
In the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, where police fear militants might be eyeing DreamWorks Animation or the Disney creative campus, a $205,000 Homeland Security grant bought a 9-ton BearCat armored vehicle, complete with turret. More than 300 BearCats — many acquired with federal money — are now deployed by police across the country; the arrests of methamphetamine dealers and bank robbers these days often look much like a tactical assault on insurgents in Baghdad.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-911-homeland-money-20110828,0,3913741,full.story
Civil Liberties Union questions increasing use of costly military-style equipment by NH law enforcement:
http://www.unionleader.com/article/20130728/NEWS07/130729284/1013
http://intellihub.com/2013/08/13/is-new-hampshire-preparing-for-economic-collapse-martial-law/
University of Kentucky installs 2,000 security cameras under the guise of security:
Kentucky just installed a whopping 2,000 security cameras across its campus in the name of security, but some students – along with the ACLU – have voiced privacy concerns – noting one of the cameras is even aimed at the school’s free-speech zone.
The $5 million security system also includes electronic IDs for students that will help monitor students’ whereabouts, as the cards will be used by students to access campus buildings and dorms after hours.
University of Kentucky Police Chief Joe Monroe told the Lexington Herald-Leader that the security cameras and electronic student ID cards will “allow us unprecedented capability for monitoring the campus for crime and protecting our students.”
But not everyone is thrilled with the new system, students and privacy advocates alike.
“You’re capturing a lot of information about people who are completely innocent,” Amber Duke, a spokeswoman for the ACLU, told the Lexington Herald-Leader. “That’s a lot of information that could be misused.”
Yet an editorial published Monday in the Kentucky Kernel, the student newspaper at UK, questioned the need for such an extensive and possibly invasive system.
“This intrusiveness might be justifiable if UK was a particularly dangerous place, but it is not,” the editorial stated. “The university’s online crime log is mostly filled with small thefts and drinking-related issues.”
“Even if UK was a particularly dangerous place, increasing the security to Orwellian proportions wouldn’t necessarily prevent crime. The cameras can only offer information to police after a crime has been committed. And tracking which buildings students access after hours with their IDs seems even less helpful in preventing crimes.”
Closely monitoring students is an issue that has raised red-flags at other universities besides the University of Kentucky. At the University of Texas, for example, it has a similar ID system that tracks student locations with ID cards, and that has prompted students to voice privacy concerns as well.
Two UT students, in a recent column in The Daily Texas, called the program “warrantless access to students’ whereabouts.”
“While (the University of Texas Police Department’s) prying comes nowhere close to the appalling transgressions of the NSA’s civil liberties breach, (the University of Texas Police Department’s) actions still raise ethical questions,” the two UT students who co-signed the piece wrote. “UT students and faculty have an inherent right to privacy, as do all citizens. It is a necessary, deserved privilege that maintains the people’s autonomy from the government, a necessary and just feature of all free societies.”
http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/14588/
Campus free speech zones: They’re not what they sound like
We live in a nation of euphemisms: from “police action” as another term for war to “downsizing” as a way to avoid saying “layoffs,” Americans are increasingly becoming accustomed to meaning one thing and saying another. If, like me, you don’t see this as a positive development, you may be dismayed to know that our nation’s campuses are doing their part to encourage this culture—and one way they do it is by establishing “free speech zones.”
As an American (and, of course, a free speech advocate), I love the sound of this one. Heck, isn’t America the greatest free speech zone the world has ever known? Unfortunately, though, on our campuses, free speech zones aren’t a reason to celebrate—because in too many cases, the existence of a free speech zone serves simply to make the rest of campus a censorship zone.
The problem is widespread. A survey of the more than 400 schools included in the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s (FIRE’s) Spotlight speech codes database indicates that approximately 1 in 6 of America’s largest and most prestigious schools have designated areas where speech is supposedly free, leaving speech on the rest of campus explicitly unfree. I say “supposedly” because even many “free speech zones” still have time limits, waiting periods, and approval regimes that students must navigate in order to claim their (now laughable) right to speak.
FIRE’s latest video tells the shameful story of these free speech zones, concentrating on perhaps their most recent defeat in court, at the University of Cincinnati, which threatened libertarian students with arrest if they left the tiny free speech zone in order to college signatures for a statewide right-to-work initiative.
While this story had a happy ending, the battle to end these zones isn’t over. Not even in the state of Ohio, where, only 100 miles away, Columbus State Community College was sued last month for telling students they could only pass out pro-life flyers in —guess where!— the school’s tiny free speech zone. I guess word travels slower than you’d think between the academics in Cincinnati and Columbus. Does your favorite school have a free speech zone? Check it out on FIRE’s database, and if it does, consider writing administrators there and asking them why they’re so scared of free speech.
But don’t hold your breath waiting for a response.http://collegeinsurrection.com/2013/09/campus-free-speech-zones-theyre-not-what-they-sound-like/
Campus cop stops student from handing out Constitutions... on Constitution Day:
A police officer at Modesto Junior College in California told a patriotic libertarian student that it was against college rules for him to hand out copies of the U.S. Constitution on campus.
Ironically, this flagrant violation of the student’s Constitutional rights took place on September 17th: Constitution Day.
The exchange between student Robert Van Tuinen and a campus police officer was captured on video. Tuinen told the officer that he wished to start a Young Americans for Liberty chapter on campus, and hoped that passing out copies of the Constitution would generate interest in that. The officer, however, maintained that Van Tuinen was not allowed to distribute flyers without college authorization.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education lambasted the college’s callous and Orwellian behavior, asserting that Van Tuinen did indeed have the right to distribute copies of the Constitution wherever he pleased.
“Passing out flyers outdoors is one of the most Constitutionally-protected activities there is,” said FIRE Senior Vice President told The Daily Caller. “Every single person enforcing this should have realized something was wrong.”
FIRE sent a letter to the college advising it to drop its free speech prohibition immediately.
Shibley warned that while Modesto’s policy takes the cake for heavy-handed oppressiveness, dozens of other campuses have similarly unconstitutional policies.
“Out of the 400 largest and most prestigious schools that FIRE evaluates, 1 in 6 have free speech zones,” he said. “This sort of thing is happening at 1 in 6 schools.”
http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/19/campus-cop-stops-student-from-handing-out-constitutions-on-constitution-day/
Man arrested for protesting against the use of red light cameras:
Police in Apopka, Florida arrested a man on Saturday morning for distributing a petition that would put the issue of ending red light camera use to a public vote. Mark E. Schmidter, a 66-year-old commercial roofing contractor, stood on the side of the road waiting for the light to turn red at the corner of East Main Street and South Park Avenue. Once traffic came to a stop, he would walk in between cars and distribute a double-sided sheet of paper. One side had a petition form that residents could fill out and a message urging participation in Wednesday's city council meeting. The other side provided information on why cameras should not be used.
"Red light cameras are all about money -- not safety," the flyer said in large type. "Governments choose tax money over safety of motorists."
Officer Robert Campbell watched what was going on and used the public address system on his squad car to order Schmidter to stop. Schmidter says he was not able to understand what was said on the loudspeaker. Officer Campbell described the scene in his arrest report.
"As I was approaching him, I read 'BAN CAMS' on the sign he was wearing," Officer Campbell wrote. "He was holding a large stack of papers... I asked him if he had a permit to protest the red light cameras, and he said no."
At this point, Officer Campbell asked for Schmidter's identification. Since he was not driving, the man explained he was not carrying any. The officer then asked for his name and date of birth. Schmidter declined to do so unless the officer could show him what law he had violated. Officer Campbell said he did not have to do that. After asking one more time he grabbed Schmidter's wrist, handcuffed him, and placed him under arrest.
Schmidter was charged with obstructing an officer without violence, a misdemeanor. He was also given a $65 ticket for a "pedestrian violation" and held for nearly twelve hours before being released on a $500 bond. Schmidter plans to fight the charges in court before a jury of his peers, saying his First Amendment rights were being trampled.
http://thenewspaper.com/news/42/4208.asp
http://www.banthecams.org/articles/read-light-camera/4685-florida-police-jail-man-for-protesting-red-light-cameras
