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Comment by nathanb | Hacker News Reader

What can we do about this?

Like many of the commenters here, this article fills me with outrage. Even given the possibility/probability (as mentioned by iambateman) that the target of the SWAT team was guilty of meth pushing, armed, and dangerous.

What can an individual do to effect change? The executive branch seem to be nigh-invulnerable these days. Checks and balances don't work when it's the enforcement arm who need to be kept in check.

Is there something productive I and others can do rather than sitting here powerless in anger?

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Legalize all drugs, and fill each one with literature about how damaging it is to you (similar to what some countries do on cigarette packs). If you can get heroin at CVS, you wouldn't need to go to your local drug dealer and help finance his shady/violent activities. I know it sounds crazy but we already knowingly sell stuff that can kill you (cigarettes, alcohol). The gangs/drug dealers would simply not survive if drugs were sold legally and conveniently.

They will sit on unused SWAT teams and use them to collect unpaid parking fees and arrest suspected loiterers from yesterday. I'm exaggerating only slightly. The point is, if judges are signing no-knock raids from non-violent suspects possibly owning small amount of marijuana, they will be signing them for other petty crimes too.

End of war of drugs would just re-channel the same tactic against other targets.

And who gets to foot the bill for all of these new addicts?

The cigarette companies have been used for years for killing people. Imagine he amount of people using for ods.

Tort reform would also be need for this to ever work.

Some countries have experimented with state supply of heroin to addicts - it's actually a really cheap policy and seems to work well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin-assisted_treatment

Obviously, the taxpayer is footing the bill for this, but total spending reduces (through the reduction in drug related crime).

This is already being done in Portugal. I don't think the new addicts you're imagining would materialize. If you want to do meth, it isn't hard. Legalizing it doesn't make it that much easier. You get addicted to meth because it complements your personality, not because you have access to it.

First, I don't think we'd see a surge of new addiction like you expect. Second, we are already footing the bill for drug addiction, plus the violence it causes, plus the extra policing, plus legal costs, plus incarceration costs. Even with a surge in addiction, we'd still come out far ahead of the current situation.

http://www.theawl.com/2012/04/vancouver-supervised-drug-inje...

And yet cigarette use is in decline.

That solves nothing whatsoever. People aren't selling drugs because they believe everyone should have access to them.

They sell drugs because it makes money. Legalize drugs and they'll make money some other illegal and dangerous way.

That's ridiculous. They sell drugs because it is the Easiest way they know. Without drugs, they'd need to find some other, less easy way. Supply+Demand teaches that those other opportunities would be less available

They could go into other illegal fields, or they could move somewhere where their illegal drug expertise is useful, or they could become farmers or teachers or simply retire.

There are other countries and other states in the USA that have legalized certain drugs, have they had a comparative rise in other illegal and dangerous activity like you have claimed?

Or are you just hypothesizing one possible outcome that has no evidence or bearing on reality, "whatsoever".

1. Understand the structure of the system. SWAT teams and local police are a local problem, not a national one. Cases like this will happen all around the country, but there really isn't anything you can do about it. It is up to the local population to elect their police chiefs (or... elect mayors / governors who choose good police chiefs).

2. The "Executive Branch" of Obama honestly has nothing to do with this. Understanding where you place your efforts is important. You can try and make this a national issue, but it isn't one.

3. Recognize that state departments and local police are going to do things you don't like, especially when you're far away and hold no control over them.

The US has a federal system. Its the power we've given to local officials to run localities the way they like. Now, if we are to make this a national issue, we'll have to pass something in Congress as a nation... something that seems very unlikely given the gridlock on the national law system at the moment.

I am, in fact, aware of the difference between local, state, and federal government. Much like the US federal government, state governments are also divided into multiple branches, with law enforcement part of the executive branch. Municipal governments tend to be a little less well-defined, but still nominally respect a separation of powers.

The author did not specify, but the news article linked below suggests that the "SWAT team" was composed of a mixture of town and county officers. I'm not sure what the jurisdictional situation is, but if it were me I would try to contact the mayor of Cornelia first and, if that did not address my concerns, the governor of Georgia.

But maybe there's a better way. For instance (as has been discussed elsewhere in these comments) if no-knock warrants were declared unconstitutional, or if there was a well-defined process for redress of unjustified force complaints, perhaps the situation would improve for everyone.

It is important to remember the separation. What is true at the national scale is rarely the case in a municipality. The legislative branch of my State for instance is clearly the powerhouse, and I feel like my fellow citizens didn't realize the obvious Gerrymandering that just destroyed the only Republican district of the state. (It came up for referendum but... no one seemed to notice the importance of the vote).

For the case of Georga / Cornelia... I really don't know. And unfortunately, its simply "their State, their problem".

On the national scale, I'd assume that the FBI can be pulled in to prosecute Georgia / Cornelia.

http://www.fbi.gov/minneapolis/press-releases/2014/former-po...

Remember: the FBI is the "watchers who watch the watchers". They can sue, prosecute, and arrest local police officers, and their national judicial system is entirely independent of a local municipality's judicial system. (Its unlikely that a local cop can play buddy-buddy with a national judge)

I would bet that there's a good case for "excessive force" here.

Long term? Make these sorts of stories public, demand change, write to your representatives, write to the media. Takes about 40 to 80 years.

Short term? 1/2 meter thick concrete walls and doors, barred windows. Though that might set off alarms for the police, so a better solution would be a bunker space under your house where you sleep and spend your time indoors. Of course also have a bedroom above ground so you can claim you slept in your bunker because you were working late on a project that day and they just caught. When they knock, put on riot gear. I mean, your welder suit.

Or maybe it would be safest to get sent to prison for life, at least there the most danger you have to look out for is getting stabbed by someone doing it for fun, rather than blown up by a guy doing it for the good of society.

The the police will get tanks and shell their way into your bunker. The police is engaged in an arms race. But they are the only ones who are in the race.

First, stop to speak about 'war' on insert-bad-thing-here.

With that terminology comes the behavior. And this behavior is 'self-improving'. The Police already has access to that gear of the military, which is left over from the real wars. That gear is more likely being used along with war tactics. Self protection and the appliance of gear and tactics became more important than to protect the civilians and even to protect the criminals from them self.

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