Massachusetts SWAT teams claim they’re private corporations, immune from open records laws

[donnay]

Massachusetts SWAT teams claim they’re private corporations, immune from open records laws

By Radley Balko

As part of the American Civil Liberties Union’s recent report on police militarization, the Massachusetts chapter of the organization sent open records requests to SWAT teams across that state. It received an interesting response.

As it turns out, a number of SWAT teams in the Bay State are operated by what are called law enforcement councils, or LECs. These LECs are funded by several police agencies in a given geographic area and overseen by an executive board, which is usually made up of police chiefs from member police departments. In 2012, for example, the Tewksbury Police Department paid about $4,600 in annual membership dues to the North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council, or NEMLEC. (See page 36 of linked PDF.) That LEC has about 50 member agencies. In addition to operating a regional SWAT team, the LECs also facilitate technology and information sharing and oversee other specialized units, such as crime scene investigators and computer crime specialists.

Continued... (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/06/26/massachusetts-swat-teams-claim-theyre-private-corporations-immune-from-open-records-laws/)

[orenbus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgmJWEjtI-4


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLfghLQE3F4


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63LKYX1z80s


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njNxTeLHvq8

[tommyrp12]

SWAT Team Admits On Website That It Was Formed To Fight Civil Rights Protesters (http://thefreethoughtproject.com/swat-team-admits-website-formed-fight-civil-rights-protesters/)




Wilmington, Massachusetts – The North Eastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council or (NEMLEC), was recently forced to take its website offline after a startling revelation was discovered on its “mission statement” page. The council is in charge of the region’s SWAT teams, and is currently the target of an ACLU lawsuit, which is hoping to force the agency to release their records to the public.

When local reporters were researching the agency after the initial ACLU report this June, they discovered a disturbing section of the publicly posted mission statement, which claimed that the agency was formed in the 1960’s, primarily to fight against civil rights and anti-war protesters. Now, with the ACLU’s lawsuit against them drawing closer, the agency has taken down its entire website, and filed a motion for the lawsuit to be dismissed.

The agency is claiming that they do not have to divulge their records because they are a private organization, however, they receive public funding and are comprised of public police forces.

“NEMLEC can’t have it both ways,” said Kade Crockford, director of technology for the Massachusetts ACLU’s Liberty Project. “They can’t on the one hand raid homes to serve warrants and arrest people — performing public duties with public funds — and then turn around and say their activities should be shielded from public scrutiny because they’re private organizations. One of those things has to be illegal.”

Before taking the website down, it contained a number of interesting passages, showing that SWAT teams were developed to be used against protesters and people in poor communities, especially during times of civil unrest.

“The disorder associated with suburban sprawl as people migrated from larger cities, the development of the interstate highway system, the civil rights movement and the growing resistance to the Vietnam War threatened to overwhelm the serenity of the quaint, idyllic New England towns north and west of Boston,” one passage on the website read.





Now the website is just one single page with a graphic that says “UNDER CONSTRUCTION.”

Just as the website was taken down, the agency filed a motion for the lawsuit to be dismissed, The Gloucester Times reported this week. In response, the ACLU filed a motion to advance the lawsuit and deny the agency’s recent appeal.

While this is particularly startling news, it shouldn’t have been too unpredictable. The police in America have long pretended to be an ostensible force for peace, while in reality they’ve been nothing more than henchmen for the elite, blindly carrying out the immoral decree handed down from the oligarchs on high.