OK, Education Dept. raid is not a hallmark of liberty
Having defended the freedom-defending credentials of Maryland and the rest of the United States, I see this dispatch from the ABA Journal on a California raid by Education Department agents.
UPDATE: The Education Department seems to be contacting everybody who wrote or posted about this to deny Kenneth Wright's statement to local media that this was about an overdue student loan, saying that the department's inspector general only investigates criminal fraud, bribery, embezzlement and similar offenses. I'll comment and post the full statement tomorrow.
Kenneth Wright originally told News10/KXTV that a SWAT team broke down his door in a search for evidence of his estranged wife’s defaulted student loans. The Stockton man said he was in boxer shorts when officers broke down his door, hauled him out to his front lawn, put him in handcuffs and forced his three children to sit in a squad car for hours.The agents worked for the Education Department’s Office of Inspector General and were not a SWAT team. But a neighbor confirmed other details of the raid on Wright’s home. “They surrounded the house; it was like a task force or SWAT team," the neighbor told News10. "They all had guns. They dragged him out in his boxer shorts, threw him to the ground and handcuffed him."
The Education Department is one of more than two dozen federal agencies that were granted full police power to carry out raids under the Homeland Security Act, Reason.com reports. Other agencies with such powers include the Department of Labor, the Export-Import Bank of the United States and the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Comments
If it looks like a SWAT team, smells like a SWAT team, acts like a SWAT team, and uses violence like a SWAT team. Should be call it a TWAT team when going after a females past due student loans?
Posted by: Dr. Murphy | June 9, 2011 8:58 PM
The warrant (http://www.news10.net/news/pdf/Ed-dept-Wright-warrant-060711.pdf) shows that the judge deemed the search a standard one, to be done in the daylight hours only. Notably, the judge also crossed off "generic contraband" halfway down the list and limited the search to documents, electronic and/or paper, and computer hardware/software. The use of more than a dozen heavily armed agents was complete overkill. They apparently didn't even ask him to comply first -- they just busted down his door, terrorizing him and his children. But beyond the obviously outrageous facts, I have another question. Why the HELL does the Department of Education NEED a separate, dedicated, heavily armed unit of its own? I'm not a Republican, but things like this show how appallingly bloated our government is. We HAVE a Department of Justice, with agents who do this kind of thing all the time. A Department of Education should be focussed on EDUCATION -- not on building a fiefdom and duplicating services that are already plentiful elsewhere in the Administration, and wasting public funds. Beyond my outrage for Mr. Wright, I am outraged for myself and all my fellow citizens, that we are being USED to fund such obscene, excessive, cowboy tactics.
Posted by: Maya Libretti | June 9, 2011 11:03 PM