Andrew Grossman has more on the case against Gibson Guitars:

Gibson’s crime, according to an affidavit supporting the search warrant, was the illegal importation of Indian-grown ebony veneers, intended for use as fret boards. A hardwood prized for its appearance and durability, ebony is sustainably raised by certified growers, and Indian law doesn’t bar its harvesting or export. What Indian law does require is that ebony veneers be finished within the country, by local labor, to a thickness of less than 6 millimeters. Gibson’s wood, it happens, was a bit thicker — nearly a full centimeter.

On that basis, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agents invaded Gibson’s facilities, bringing its operations to a standstill.

(*A commenter correctly points out that this was a raid by armed federal agents, but not a SWAT team.)

The Daily Beast and the Center for Investigative Journalism have put out a new report on police militarization, focusing primarily on police departments stockpiling battle gear in the decade since 9/11. There’s some great reporting here, particularly on the absurd Homeland Security outlays to states and police departments across the country. There’s also a cool interactive map. (I love that the feds gave Oklahoma $2 million for port security.)

And while it’s great to see this issue get more coverage, I do have a couple quibbles. First and foremost, there’s no mention at all of the drug war’s role in all of this. The report does give a few examples of botched drug raids carried out by tactical teams sporting military gear (the Jose Guerena and Cheye Calvo raids in particular). But other than briefly noting that those raids were part of drug investigations, the report never revisits the drug war.

It seems odd to leave the drug war out entirely. It’s true that homeland security spending has accelerated the move toward militarization. But things were already moving pretty quickly in that direction. And that’s because of the drug war. The militarization trend began a good 20 years before September 11, when the Reagan administration ramped up the war on drugs both with rhetoric and with specific policies. By 9/11, SWAT teams had already saturated the country, and the number of annual paramilitary raids had soared (from 3,000 in the early 1980s to about 40,000 by the early 2001). And also by 9/11, millions of pieces of military equipment had already been transferred from the Pentagon to local police departments across the country by way of the Defense Department’s surplus giveaway program.

A few more stats, courtesy of criminologist Peter Kraska:

• In the early 1980s, the average city deployed a SWAT team once per month. By 1995, it was seven times per month.
• In the mid-1980s, less than half of U.S. cities with 50,000 or more people had a SWAT team. By 1997, more than 90 percent had one.
• Between 1985 and 1996, the number of towns between 25,000 and 50,000 people with a SWAT team increased by 157 percent.

The other reason why the drug war is a critical component of this issue is actually contained in The Daily Beast piece, though you have to look for it. DHS gives out these grants, and local police departments justify all this gear, as part of the war on terror. But as the piece indicates, it’s rather unlikely that Fargo will ever face the sort of Mumbai-style terror attack defenders of these policies say shows why all the battle gear is necessary.

But of course now you have all this stuff. You might as well use it. And so it gets used for far more mundane police operations. Chief among these is the service of drug warrants. (See Calvo.) Using all that cool gear on drug raids is further incentivized by federal anti-drug grants and the possibility of asset forfeiture lucre, whereas keeping the gear idle until there’s an actual terrorist attack or school shooting can get expensive.  (Most of this stuff needs to be maintained.) Let’s also not forget that since 9/11, the federal government has gone to great pains to tie drug use and drug distribution to terrorism. Such is why the feds will take a SWAT team to raid a medical marijuana clinic without much pushback. The clinic poses no threat, to the agents or anyone else. You could send a couple bureaucrats with clipboards to shut these down (or you could not shut them down at all!). It’s insane overkill. But we’ve so come to associate SWAT teams with drug raids, the disproportionate use of force barely registers with most of the public. Which is why we’re now seeing SWAT teams used to raid neighborhood poker games, suspected cockfighters, even for regulatory inspections.

The article also quotes and leave unchecked statements from law enforcement officials about criminals armed with war-like weapons, citing school shootings like Virginia Tech, and everyone’s favorite “the criminals have us outgunned” anecdote, the 1997 North Hollywood shootout. I’ve already addressed these arguments in the past (two examples here and here). And in 2007, I asked former LAPD narcotics detective David Doddridge about all of these heavily armed drug dealers:

RB: Police groups say that drug dealers are armed to the teeth. Heavily-armed, military-style SWAT teams are necessary to counter this high-powered weaponry.

Doddridge: I’ve heard that. And it’s just not true. In 21 years at LAPD, I never once saw any assault weapons on a drug raid. Drug dealers prefer handguns, which are easier to conceal. Occasionally you’ll find a shotgun. But having a bunch of high-powered weaponry around is just too much trouble for them. It’s too much for them to worry about.

I’m sure the sentiment isn’t unanimous, but an awful lot of cops I’ve talked to agree.

You could certainly argue that potential terrorists and school shooters are much more likely to be heavily armed. Which is why those are exactly the sorts of situations where SWAT teams are appropriate. But that doesn’t mean such once in a lifetime events justify handing out tanks and APVs to Fargo and Fon du Lac. Prolonged, Mumbai/Beslan/Columbine style attacks are  (a) extremely rare, and (b) not how this equipment is used in the vast, vast majority of police agencies across the country. (The SWAT team did show up at Columbine, but they didn’t go in. They determined the scene inside the school was too dangerous.)

Since I’ve spent the bulk of this post poking at the report, I’ll just conclude by emphasizing that this is still really excellent stuff. Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz have added a wealth of important information to this issue. The grant distribution information in particular is really great, and something I’ve been trying to pry out of DHS for about a year. So an envious tip of my journalistic cap to them on that. Learning to navigate over, around, under, and through the FOIA gatekeepers can be a hell of a challenge.

• Jacob Sullum on the “isolationist” smear: “The implicit assumption that violence is the only way to interact with the world reflects the oddly circumscribed nature of foreign policy debates in mainstream American politics.”
• Some clear thinking on Citizens United.
• The most vile thing you’ll read today. That fifth paragraph is just stunning.
• Cop accidentally shoots another cop while trying to kill a dog during a drug raid.
• Gingrich’s unwitting endorsement.
• Former federal prosecutor endorses jury nullification in a New York Times op-ed.
• Obama’s drone war shrouded in secrecy.

• Puppycide. During a raid. That turned up nothing. And the dog was chained. Bonus points: The pup was shot in front of a three-year-old.
• A partial list of Kim Jong Il’s titles. Also, “State textbooks claim Jong-Il does not produce urine or feces.”
• More to the point: Remembering Kim Jong Il’s victims.
• Ron Smith, the libertarian radio host at WBAL in Baltimore, has died. Ron was always one of my favorite interviews. Never a demagogue. And he always gave his guests time to make a point, with some nuance and context, even.
• Anne Applebaum on Vaclav Havel.
• Headline of the day, unfortunate wording edition.
• In case Minnesota decides to invade.
• More on the NTSB and cell phone bans, from Walter Olson, and from the National Motorists Association.

• This won’t end well.
• Norway is out of butter.
• Police union alleges commanders are misspending forfeiture money.
• Ron Paul could pull an upset in Iowa. I predict that if he does, whoever comes in second will be declared the winner.
• Militarization watch: “Texas now has its own Navy!”
• 15-year-old shot by cop posing as pizza delivery guy.
• Want to be a tour guide in New Orleans? You’ll first need to pass a drug test, provide a fingerprint, pass a criminal background check, and take a history exam.
• Columbia, Missouri police chief Ken Burton does the right thing by firing a cop caught slamming a prisoner into the wall. Naturally the police union is calling for Burton’s head.

• Another example of how when police know a suspect is actually armed and dangerous, they find other ways to apprehend them than to send in the SWAT team while the suspect is sleeping.
• America’s is losing its faith in government. If this brings some skepticism about giving government ever-more power (though it likely won’t), it’s a good thing. But it also means government is failing at its most basic and fundamental obligations.
• Mark Hemingway on how the fact-checking trend in journalism has evolved into a way for journalists to simply validate their own opinions.
• The Supreme Court may be on its way to authorizing medical patents. Tim Lee explains why this is something to worry about.
• Alabama: Where it’s illegal to brew your own beer, but it’s perfectly fine to drink while you’re serving on the jury in a death penalty case.
• The latest in the Michael Mermel saga: An Illinois court has reversed the conviction of Juan Rivera, the subject of the New York Times piece that led to prosecutor Mermel’s resignation.

• Here’s a preview of the new Best Sex Writing of 2011 anthology. I have an article in the collection. I’m so good at it, they asked me to write about it. (Okay, so maybe that’s not why my piece was included.)
• Another minor is attacked by a police dog. Of course, since officer safety wasn’t threatened, the dog didn’t get the puppycide treatment.
• More indications that drones are become a part of domestic law enforcement.
• Scientists find a black hole the size of 21 billion suns.
• Oddly compelling photo series of suitcases left at an old New York psychiatric hospital. More explanation here.
• NIH paid a communications firm $1 million in stimulus money to promote how well NIH is spending stimulus money.
• From the archives of Newt Gingrich mendacity.
• Also, hipster Newt Gingrich.
• Aerial photos of the democracy protests in Russia.
• The International Development Ryan Gosling Tumblr.

This one will cost Minnesota taxpayers $1 million.

The Minneapolis City Council approved a $1 million settlement Friday after a botched drug raid in 2010 in which an officer threw a “flash-bang” grenade into a south Minneapolis apartment burning the flesh off a woman’s leg.

The payout to Rickia Russell, who suffered permanent injuries, was the third largest payout for alleged Minneapolis police misconduct on record.

Flash grenades are intended to distract and intimidate, not to injure people, but during the raid the device rolled under the legs of Russell, who was seated on a sofa, and exploded. The police were looking that day for a drug dealer, narcotics and a firearm, but found nothing.

Russell, now 31, suffered third- and fourth-degree burns that caused a deep indentation on the back of one leg, requiring skin grafts from her scalp. She is still undergoing physical therapy.

“What happened in this case was an accident,” Minneapolis city attorney Susan Segal said in a statement. “It’s very unfortunate that Ms. Russell suffered serious injuries, however, accidents like this are rare.”

Yet incidents of fires, injuries and even deaths caused by the devices have led to costly settlements and policy changes in cities nationwide, including Minneapolis, where a 1989 fire started by a police grenade killed two people.

My take on flash grenades here. No, they aren’t harmless. It’s probably inaccurate to even call them “non-lethal.”  They’re designed and intended to inflict injury on people who have yet to even be charged with a crime, much less convicted.

• House members want DHS to protect illegal immigrants from rape in detention centers. Can’t wait to see GOP primary candidate will be the first to condemn this, call for more raping of illegal immigrants.
• Headline of the day.
• School principal gets firsthand lesson in zero tolerance.
• Boise St., San Diego St., Houston added to the Big East conference. Geography surrenders.
• U.S. is arming the Egyptian military crackdown.
• Check out the last sentence in this article. 
• ” . . . the wrong sort of people . . . “
• People and the Fish They Look Like
• CBS News: Documents show ATF pressured reluctant gun merchants to sell into Fast and Furious, then used the sales to call for more gun control.

The Current Events Inquiry blog points out that the Pentagon’s 1033 program—the program by which the Defense Department transfers surplus military equipment to domestic police departments—hit an all-time high last year.

The quaterly newsletter, titled All Points Bulletin, is an official publication of the Law Enforcement Support Office (LESO), which is currently a part of the Defense Logistics Agency. A tag line used in the newsletter reads: “from warfighter to crimefighter.” In the recent October issue, LESO program manager Craig Barret brags that “[FY 2011] has been a historic year for the program. We reutilized more than $500M, that is million with an M, worth of property in FY 11. This passes the previous mark by several hundred million dollars.”…

Elsewhere in the same publication it is revealed that LESO issued 800 Humvees in FY2011, a 700% increase from FY2010. In the same time period 27 Armored Vehicles were distributed as well. One of the latest vehicles declared up-for-grabs is the South African manufactured REVA 4×4 Armored Personnel Carrier. LESO previously boasted that “its V-shaped hull offers protection against land mines and Improvised Explosive Devices (IED), and has space for at least 10 passengers.”

It’s easy to become inoculated to the outrage, here. So let’s reiterate: The U.S. government is boasting about how it has enabled equipment specifically designed to help U.S. troops kill foreign soldiers during war . . . to be used on American streets, against American citizens. Not only that, but the government is particularly proud of the fact that last year, significantly more military equipment was diverted for that purpose than ever before.

Also, more coverage of the militarization issue this week from The Daily, which also notes the record year for the 1033 program.

• Great piece by my HuffPost colleague John Rudolf about an Alabama woman trying to find out why and how her son died in police custody.
• Marist poll (PDF): In hypothetical general election matchup with Obama, Ron Paul is tied. All the other GOP candidates would lose.
• Mississippi Supreme Court admonishes DA Forrest Allgood. (PDF)
• DEA has laundered millions of dollars from Mexican drug cartels. Hey, why not! It’s our policy that made them rich in the first place. Not to mention that we’re also arming them.
• Mitt Romney’s staff spent $100,000 in public funds to wipe out all email from his tenure as governor of Massachusetts.
• I did an interview yesterday with Wall Street Journal Radio about police militarization. You can listen here. My interview starts at about the 22 minute mark.
• New threat: drunken gummi bears.
• The Durbin Swipe Fee Amendment: the latest consumer protection measure that isn’t protecting consumers.
• How Rand Paul prevented World War III.

I have a new piece at Huffington Post looking at how and why government and police officials are increasingly willing to use more force, more often.

Or put another way, why we let them get away with it.

• Never mind the affair, isn’t it sort of odd that a defense attorney would decide to run against an incumbent DA because the DA’s conviction rate is too low?
• The sad and cruel side of Kurt Vonnegut.
• The New York Times on police militarization.
• Dutch copyright management company facing corruption investigation for violating artist’s copyright in . . . wait for it . . . anti-piracy ads.
• Striking images from 2011.
• Woman claims psychiatrist used hypnotherapy to instill false memories of satanic worship, sexual abuse, and cannibalism. It wouldn’t be the first time.
• Another judge reams federal prosecutors for misconduct. The question is when prosecutors will start facing significant professional sanctions for this stuff.

I’m not sure what’s going on here, but it looks like something to keep an eye on.

Crooks & Liars suggests the raid was intimidation. But we are talking about the Prince George’s County, Maryland Police Department, here. I wouldn’t be too quick to rule out good old fashioned incompetence.

By the way, a reader points out that new Prince George’s County Police Chief Mark Magaw was formerly in charge of the narcotics division during the colossally botched raid on the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo. Magaw is also the one who leaked that the department had obtained a no-knock raid for Calvo’s home. They hadn’t. And still, he was promoted to police chief.

• “The American people want an adult, and no one has a stronger record of adultery than I do.”
• Arthur Brooks on fairness and the Occupy movement.
• Video shows UC-Davis students were clearly warned about use of force before pepper spray. I don’t think this justifies it. It’s hard to see what harm the students were causing by sitting on a sidewalk at a quad. But it does mitigate the casualness with which the cop appears to spray them.
• The Occupy crackdowns have at least forced more people to start paying attention to police militarization.
• FDA: U.S. facing severe Adderall shortage that is causing real harm to people who use the drug. DEA: Shut up.

All are included in my new piece for Huffington Post.

The broader theme is how drug war incentives encourage police departments to go all out while investigating consensual drug crimes and to brush off crimes with actual victims.

• Mr. T plays Santa with Nancy Reagan.
• OWS takes aim at Black Friday.
• Speaking of which, here’s the dumbest thing you’ll read about Black Friday.
• Federal judge tosses lawsuit brought by targets of that violent drug raid in Columbia, Missouri.
• William Anderson on prosecutorial misconduct.

In Jefferson, Iowa.

Matthew Spaulding says he and his family were terrorized at their own home by police who slammed his grandmother to the ground and shot his dogs– missing his head by less than an inch. “Told us to get on the ground. I got on the ground they put me in handcuffs,” Spaulding recalls, “Then they threw my dad to the ground and my dog Sadie was right here sniffing my head. She was next to me. They shot her. The blood got on my face and then she took off running behind me and they shot her like three more times.”

Tuesday morning, Greene County Sheriffs Deputies and Perry Police officers arrived at Spaulding’s Jefferson farmhouse to deliver a search warrant. The Spauldings say they were immediately ordered to the ground.. even Matthew Spauldings’ disabled father, Chris. “My son hit the ground I hit the ground but I didn’t make it too fast so (the officer) jumped on the middle of my back, shoved his knee in and held a gun to the back of my head and handcuffed me. After they shot my first dog my mom come out”…

The Spauldings say after the first dog was killed, a second dog running away from the shots — and away from police— was also shot. “They weren’t barking. They weren’t attacking nobody.” Matthew Spaulding says, “They didn’t even give us a chance to put them in the kennel. We have a big kennel outside our house we could have put them in but they wouldn’t give us a chance.”

Perry Police are not commenting. And they’re refusing to turn over any paperwork or reports about the incident saying it’s part of an ongoing investigation. But we were able to get copies of the search warrants. One warrant shows police were looking for any kind of legal or illegal drugs. The other shows police were looking for a stolen X-Box video game system. No drugs and no stolen games were found–and no one was arrested.

I can’t think of a scenario in which what you see in this video would be justified. Even if the students were ordered to move, there are other ways to move them. And the cop’s nonchalant body language is chilling. It’s egregious brutality, and he looks to be enjoying it.

Here’s the story.

• More feuding over “professional courtesy” between Miami police and Florida state troopers.
• Massachusetts to keep health care costs down with  . . . price controls.
• Coca-Cola gets a ban on plastic bottles at national parks overturned. And somehow . . . the Koch brothers and libertarianism are to blame.
• I’m not sure I understand the point of handing out annual awards for classic rock.
• A nation asks: Who, if not government, will count our goats?
• I don’t see how this could possibly go wrong.

• Study: Black youth less likely to do illicit drugs than all ethnic groups but Asians. And yet they’re arrested at a far, far higher rate.
• The Atlantic on police militarization.
• Correction of the day.
• Supreme Court will hear arguments today on whether police should have the power to track your car without a warrant.
• Here’s another violent incident from the Occupy D.C. protests over the weekend.
• Headline of the day.
• Surprise inspection of Mexican prison turns up 100 plasma TVs, 19 prostitutes.

• William Niskanen, RIP.
• Robbing the cradle.
• What could possibly go wrong?
• Winner of this week’s “Get Over Yourself” award.
• Runner-up.
• Bovine-cide.
• “Because this was a gathering of people invited to our farm for dinner, I had no idea that the Health Department would become involved.”
• Best “We the People” petition yet.
• Dog tucks himself in.

From Chicago.

A group of Chicago police officers armed with weapons and a warrant violated the Constitution and may face sanctions for barging into the wrong house and threatening to shoot a mother and her kids, a federal judge ruled.

On June 7, 2009, Officer Billy Gonzales applied for a warrant to search the first floor of 3811 West Diversey Ave., based on the tip that it was a Chicago crack house. The application was granted.

The next day, the police executed their search at 3815 West Diversey, the building next door to 3811. The officers approached the building through the alley in the rear and broke down the back door with a sledgehammer. Two officers stayed outside to watch the building entrance.

Startled by the noise, Nancy Simental walked upstairs from her basement apartment with her two children. She claimed to find police pointed their guns at her and saying, “Don’t move or I’ll shoot you.” When she asked the police to put their guns away because children were present, a policeman repeated that he would shoot Simental and another pointed a gun at the children.

Officers also walked in on first-floor resident Francisca Nava as she was in the bathroom and told her not to move. The court said officers also pointed guns at Guadalupe Simental and Cesar Leon.

Sometime after the police entered the building, one of the officers stationed outside informed the team leader that the address on the front door did not match the warrant. All the officers then exited the building, leaving furniture overturned and the residents’ belongings strewn across the floor…

Not only did defendants provide the court with innumerable improper and unsupported claims about Gonzales’s purported intentions regarding the warrant in question, defendants audaciously claimed that plaintiffs actually admitted that their home was the intended target of the warrant.”

“There is no evidence in this case that the warrant contained any errors,” he wrote. “Instead, the evidence shows that officers erred by searching the wrong house.”

Such a mistake might not be a constitutional violation if the officers made a reasonable effort to ensure they searched the correct building, the court explained.

But Hibbler said “the officers did not even make the effort to look at the prominently displayed address on the front of the house. The fact that they approached the house from the rear does not excuse the mistake.”

This one is from Richland County, South Carolina, home of Sheriff Leon Lott and his “Peacemaker” tank.

A Gibbs Road couple came home from work Thursday to find their home surrounded by Richland County sheriff’s deputies, their front door kicked in and their home ransacked.

Deputies were executing a search warrant at Wanda and Reginald Blanding’s home Thursday, after drug agents said a confidential informant “made a controlled purchase of crack cocaine from an unknown black male at the location,” according to the search warrant.

“He hit the door right here with it,” explained Wanda. “He still had the ram jack in his hand when I walked up.”

The informant told investigators the drug buy was made at 402 Gibbs Road. That’s where the sheriff’s drug unit staged its raid, looking into the one drug purchase the informant alleges happened there.

“They told me why they were here and I was like, ‘Okay, no one is supposed to be here. No one sells drugs out of this house,’” said Wanda.

Reginald is the only black male that lives at the home. He says when he arrived after the raid, deputies never searched him for drugs and never asked to look through his two cell phones even though the search warrant states that’s one of the things deputies were after.

Reginald says deputies told him they had his house under surveillance and know the drug buy went down.

The Blandings deny there ever was a drug buy at their home and think deputies got bad information from their informant.

Wanda says deputies emptied nearly every drawer in the home, searched through the attic and their daughter’s bedrooms.

Sheriff’s Capt. Chris Cowan says deputies made a purchase from the home and had every right to search it. “The drugs that we purchase were out of that home, we purchased from a family member of that home,” said Cowan. “We purchased the drugs out of that home.”

The only people who live there are the Blandings and their three high school-aged daughters.

When asked if enough due diligence was done in preparation for the raid, Cowan said the officers did everything they were supposed to do.

Meanwhile, the Blandings, who have been married for 20 years, say they both have clean records. Wanda has been a corrections employee for 21 years and Reginald has worked for Pepsi for just as long. Both say they have never gone near drugs and don’t allow them in their home.

“This is humiliation,” said Wanda. “I mean, come in, I can see the door, go through my room, clothes and everything all over the place. I mean, they went through every room in the house and just tore it up.”….

The sheriff’s office says an apology is just not happening, and they’ll continue investigating this case until they make an arrest.

Maybe the Blandings have some connection to Michael Phelps.

Over at The Daily Beast, Eli Lake looks at how defense contractors are shopping war on terror technology to local police departments.

It’s known as IBISS, the acronym for the Integrated Building Interior Surveillance System. Like its name suggests, it can see through the walls of buildings and sketch out images of what’s inside.

ntil this year, IBISS was a classified system, a piece of high-tech wizardry the military used to fight the war on terrorism. The contractor that made the system, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), couldn’t talk about it in public, but that’s changing. IBISS is one of the new products SAIC is hoping to sell to local police stations and fire departments as the defense contractor explores what is known in the industry as “adjacent markets.”

The only thing preventing more widespread implementation of this stuff at the moment are strained state and local budgets.

“In some ways this is the entire trend we’ve been seeing since 9/11. All kinds of capabilities that were developed with an eye to foreign countries are being turned inward upon the American people,” Stanley said. “We’ve seen this with everything from the NSA to spy satellites even to a lot of the technologies that are moving through what is called the green to blue pipeline, which is to say the military to the police.”

The trend goes back quite a bit farther than 9/11.