A longtime reader writes:

Is there an organization advocating against paramilitary raids as a specialty? More generally, who [ACLU?] can one support that in some way is fighting against these daily raids? A couple of your posts today hit a nerve for some reason, I’m looking for ways to start doing something.

Well, the ACLU is one possibility, though to my knowledge they haven’t addressed the SWAT stuff specifically in any formal campaign. They are dealing with the informant issue right now, which is in many ways related to the paramilitary raids problem. And local ACLU chapters do assist with the victims of botched raids on a case-by-case basis. You might check with your state ACLU to see what they’re doing before donating.

The conservative Rutherford Institute has shown quite a bit of interest in police militarization issues, and in fact is helping with the lawsuit filed by the family of the Delaware marine killed in the raid last November.

Of course, I do have some problems with both the ACLU’s and Rutherford’s positions on other issues (though I am a member of the former). Your mileage may vary.

The Cato Institute published Overkill, still hosts the raid map on its servers, and really supported my work on this issue, though they no longer have anyone working on it specifically. Tim Lynch still does great work in general civil liberties issues over there, though. As does Gene Healy.

Of the drug reform organizations, DRCNet has done a lot on the raid issue, and I understand they’re about to do more. The Drug Policy Alliance has done a little. NORML and MPP have only touched on the SWAT issue peripherally, at least to my knowledge. I think one of the most overlooked but important drug reform groups is the Media Awareness Project, which has established a really extensive library of news clippings related to the drug war. I consulted their raid archives fairly extensively in researching Overkill. It’s really handy to have so much information available in once place.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition was very supportive of Overkill, and I know their speakers frequently massage the SWAT issue into their public speeches. And when it comes to the credibility of the messenger, it doesn’t get much better than a bunch of former cops and prosecutors.

The Reason Foundation is the parent of reason magazine. So I’d of course encourage supporting them, who in turn support the magazine, which in turn supports me!

Of course, you could also–ahem–just support me directly. Amazon and Paypal make it very easy!

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 29th, 2007 at 12:01 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Police Militarization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.