… when even Agriculture Department has undercover agents
WASHINGTON — The federal government has significantly expanded undercover operations in recent years, with officers from at least 40 agencies posing as business people, welfare recipients, political protesters and even doctors or ministers to ferret out wrongdoing, records and interviews show.
At the Supreme Court, small teams of undercover officers dress as students at large demonstrations outside the courthouse and join the protests to look for suspicious activity, according to officials familiar with the practice.
At the Internal Revenue Service, dozens of undercover agents chase suspected tax evaders worldwide, by posing as tax preparers, accountants drug dealers or yacht buyers and more, court records show.
At the Agriculture Department, more than 100 undercover agents pose as food stamp recipients at thousands of neighborhood stores to spot suspicious vendors and fraud, officials said.
Undercover work, inherently invasive and sometimes dangerous, was once largely the domain of the F.B.I. and a few other law enforcement agencies at the federal level. But outside public view, changes in policies and tactics over the last decade have resulted in undercover teams run by agencies in virtually every corner of the federal government, according to officials, former agents and documents.
Some agency officials say such operations give them a powerful new tool to gather evidence in ways that standard law enforcement methods do not offer, leading to more prosecutions. But the broadened scope of undercover work, which can target specific individuals or categories of possible suspects, also raises concerns about civil liberties abuses and entrapment of unwitting targets. It has also resulted in hidden problems, with money gone missing, investigations compromised and agents sometimes left largely on their own for months.
We on the Right have often – justifiably – expressed our concerns over the Militarization of Law Enforcement, but, perhaps, we should also worry about the Policization [sic?] of non-Law Enforcement agencies and departments.
I know I will from now on and, interestingly, because of that piece in The New York Times.
proggtardia news
> ” According to the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has appeared frequently in St. Louis with the Brown family and delivered a speech at Mr. Brown’s funeral, Mr. Obama “was concerned about Ferguson staying on course in terms of pursuing what it was that he knew we were advocating. He said he hopes that we’re doing all we can to keep peace.””
Obama wants the protesters to stay on course?
Unbelievable.<
link
Greetings:
I guess that I’m pretty much jaded at this point of the Obama cabal’s reign, but I can’t help but wonder if any ACORN associates are on any of these payrolls or if it’s just regular civil servants helping the Leviathan to locate and extricate some more billions which will then be re-routed to ACORN and similarly deserving progressive groups.
>”Clampdown”
Hey, hey!
Ooh!
The kingdom is ransacked
the jewels all taken back
and the chopper descends
they’re hidden in the back
with a message on a half-baked tape
with the spool going round
saying I’m back here in this place
and I could cry
and there’s smoke you could click on
What are we gonna do now?
Taking off his turban, they said, is this man a Jew?
‘Cause they’re working for the clampdown
They put up a poster saying we earn more than you!
When we’re working for the clampdown
We will teach our twisted speech
To the young believers
We will train our blue-eyed men
To be young believers
<
link
hi atlantic harpy
>You grow up and you calm down
You’re working for the clampdown
You start wearing the blue and brown
You’re working for the clampdown
So you got someone to boss around
It makes you feel big now
You drift until you brutalize
You made your first kill now<
Because fiction too often presages reality, an oldie but a goodie…
Lipidleggin’
The new guy puts his hat on the counter and glances around. He looks uneasy. I know what’s coming but I’m not going to help him out. There’s a little dance we’ve got to do first.
“I need to buy a few things,” he says. His voice has a little tremor in it and close up like this I figure he’s in his mid-twenties.
“Well, this is a general store,” I reply, getting real busy wiping down the counter, “and we’ve got all sorts of things. What’re you interested in? Antiques? Hardware? Food?”
“I’m not looking for the usual stock.”
(The music begins to play)
I look at him with my best puzzled expression. “Just what is it you’re after, friend?”
“Butter and eggs.”
“Nothing unusual about that. Got a whole cabinet full of both behind you there.”
(We’re on our way to the dance floor)
“I’m not looking for that. I didn’t come all the way out here to buy the same shit I can get in the city. I want the real thing.”
“You want the real thing, eh?” I say, meeting his eyes square for the first time. “You know damn well real butter and real eggs are illegal. I could go to jail for carrying that kind of stuff.”
(We dance)
Next to taking his money, this is the part I like best about dealing with a new customer. Usually I can dance the two of us around the subject of what he really wants for upwards of twenty or thirty minutes if I’ve a mind to. But this guy was a lot more direct than most and didn’t waste any time getting down to the nitty-gritty. Still, he wasn’t going to rob me of a little dance. I’ve got a dozen years of dealing under my belt and no green kid’s gonna rob me of that.
A dozen years… doesn’t seem that long. It was back then that the giraffes who were running the National Health Insurance program found out that they were spending way too much money taking care of people with diseases nobody was likely to cure for some time. The stroke and heart patients were the worst. With the presses at the Treasury working overtime and inflation getting wild, it got to the point where they either had to admit they’d made a mistake or do something drastic. Naturally, they got drastic.
The president declared a health emergency and Congress passed something called the National Health Maintenance Act which said that since certain citizens were behaving irresponsibly by abusing their bodies and thereby giving rise to chronic diseases which resulted in consumption of more that their fair share of medical care at public expense, it was resolved that, in the public interest and for the public good, certain commodities would henceforth and hereafter be either prescribed or strictly rationed. Or something like that.
Glenn Beck Part 1 Bottom Up Top Down Inside Out 12 6 2010
Wow. A Democrat President Presiding over a quasi police state. Whoda thunk it?
Except for the fact that it’s happened twice before.
the first time