Feds searched security systems at 18 WA police agencies, report finds
seattletimes.com
seattletimes.com
From the article:
> Flock Safety’s Chief Legal Officer Dan Haley said by email Tuesday that the center’s report was “full of inaccuracies and misconceptions” about the company’s technology, and that their customers’ data is never shared without their authorization.
> Auburn and Renton’s police departments disabled a “National Lookup” option, which allowed their data to be searched by external agencies.
In short, these agencies did give consent.
But also, why shouldn’t these cities help federal agencies enforce the law? It’s ridiculous that we’re even discussing the kind of obstructionism pushed by leaders in Washington state (or other blue cities/states) against the enforcement of immigration law. Illegal immigration is illegal, and those coming to the US illegally (or overstaying visas or whatever) are criminals. It’s the duty of all law enforcement agencies to help remove those who are here illegally.
What happens if local laws/norms/opinions conflict with federal ones? eg. marijuana, which is technically illegal at the federal level but legalized in many states.
Because they are a subdivision of a separate sovereignty, which has its own laws and priorities, and its own limited resources with which to pursue them, and which doesn't have either the unlimited borrowing authority or the practical freedom to borrow that comes from borrowing in a currency that it controls that the federal government has, so those constraints are much more sharp than they are for the federal government.
If the federal government wants its laws enforced, it should expend the resources to enforce them.
Law enforcement only has a duty to enforce the laws that are within their jurisdiction and scope to enforce.
A red-coded equivalent is the long-running antagonism between States in the Mountain West and the Federal government regarding land use e.g. the Sagebrush Rebellion[0]. In these cases, local law enforcement generally refuses to enforce the Federal law and in some cases actively interferes with enforcement by Federal officers by leveraging the unique role that sheriffs occupy in the US legal system.