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Comment by mtgx | Hacker News Reader

What I want to know is who gives them this much money, and why?. I thought the US economy was still in pretty poor shape, and they pretend to argue for months of stuff like $80 billion sequester, when they're probably giving more than that per year to police departments to buy military equipment like this and be trained by the DHS and the Israeli military.

Again - why? Why is the police becoming para-military? Do they fear another major protest and want to respond in force? What's the motivation behind all this.

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"What I want to know is who gives them this much money, and why?"

Nobody gives the police this money. The police take the money from people they arrest. It is called asset forfeiture, it is legal, and it is widely used by police departments to pay for all that expensive military equipment they use.

"Why is the police becoming para-military?"

To gain more power over the population, to arrest more people, and to funnel more money to the well-connected corporations that benefit from this sort of tyranny.

Unless that's enough to fully fund the police it's easy enough to divert funds based on that extra income.

> Why is the police becoming para-military?

Becoming? In the 1990s, when I was in college, state and local police recruitment information overtly described the organizations as paramilitary. Armed police forces are inherently paramilitary organizations, and always have been.

They're getting another influx of military equipment and personnel with combat experience (and expectations shaped by that experience) because the US military is gearing down after a over decade of greater-than-usual war.

A lot of things like Humvee's and APC's come from retired or surplus military equipment. Your sheriff's department isn't buying those things with your tax money.

The Army does, and then gives it to the sheriff's department when they're done with them.

There was a lot of DHS money that went out to local jurisdictions to buy paramilitary equipment after 9-11. A lot of that was probably lobbied for by manufacturers and distributors of said equipment.

You really can't figure it out? www.infowars.com

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