The End Of Ownership, Military Edition: Even The US Military Can't Fix Its Own Equipment Without Right To Repair Laws

from the copyright-laws-and-the-military dept

We've written many times about the right to repair and how various companies have basically destroyed the concept of ownership by putting all sorts of post-purchase restrictions on what you can do with the products you supposedly "bought." This began with copyright, but has morphed into other areas as well, including abusive and illegal claims about "warranty void if removed." I still believe that excessive copyright law is to blame for all of this, as physical goods manufacturers looked at the post-sale restrictions enabled by copyright law and immediately began to think of ways to use that on physical items.

This lack of a "right to repair" is showing up in more and more places including, somewhat incredibly, the US military. The NY Times recently ran an op-ed from Capt. Elle Ekman, a logistics officer in the US Marine Corps., expressing her dismay at how the lack of right to repair laws is actually making it difficult to impossible for the US military to repair its own equipment. The whole thing is really stunning.

I first heard about the term from a fellow Marine interested in problems with monopoly power and technology. A few past experiences then snapped into focus. Besides the broken generator in South Korea, I remembered working at a maintenance unit in Okinawa, Japan, watching as engines were packed up and shipped back to contractors in the United States for repairs because “that’s what the contract says.” The process took months.

With every engine sent back, Marines lost the opportunity to practice the skills they might need one day on the battlefield, where contractor support is inordinately expensive, unreliable or nonexistent.

I also recalled how Marines have the ability to manufacture parts using water-jets, lathes and milling machines (as well as newer 3-D printers), but that these tools often sit idle in maintenance bays alongside broken-down military equipment. Although parts from the manufacturer aren’t available to repair the equipment, we aren’t allowed to make the parts ourselves “due to specifications.”

Ekman notes that this problem has gotten worse over time, not just because of companies trying to block the right to actually fix what you own, but because of the trend to push R&D out of the military into the commercial sector, and then for the military to purchase from that commercial sector. When the military built its own stuff, of course it could repair it. But now it relies on standard commercial contracts, which apparently are blocking the right to repair and leaving US service men and women with subpar equipment that could (and should) have been fixed much faster. And Ekman expects the problem to only worsen:

The effects of the right-to-repair paradigm will become only more significant and restrictive as older military vehicles and systems are replaced with equipment that is more complex and involving more electronics. Already complicated equipment designs lead to situations where the manufacturer is the only source for repairs.

Again, this is an issue that reaches far and wide, well beyond the claims of "piracy" or "knock-offs" that some people insist is at the heart of the right to repair movement. When the military has to worry about whether or not it can have the best equipment working properly because of a bullshit commercial contract, we have a real problem:

Fundamentally, service members just want to ensure that their gear is ready to meet mission requirements. While a broken generator or tactical vehicle may seem like small issues, the implications are much larger when a combat ship or a fighter jet needs to be fixed. What happens when those systems break somewhere with limited communications or transportation? Will the Department of Defense get stuck in the mud because of a warranty?

It's well past the time that the right to repair was established as a fundamental right. People who insist on supporting "property rights" are frequently on the wrong side of this argument, by claiming that the "contract right" supersedes the "right to repair." But that's ridiculous and truly an attack on actual property rights and ownership. If you own something, you should be able to take it apart, to modify it, and to fix it, without it violating any contracts or laws.

Filed Under: copyright, end of ownership, military, military equipment, ownership, right to repair

Police Department Says It Would Rather Have A Good Relationship With The Community Than Cheap Military Gear

from the correctly-ordered-priorities dept

Here's something worth reading: the Burlington, Vermont Police Department has announced it will no longer be participating in the Dept. of Defense's 1033 Program. This program is the well-intentioned effort to somehow make use of excess/old military inventory. Unfortunately, along with desks, computers, file cabinets and other office staples, the government also allows police departments to pick up mine-resistant vehicles, assault rifles, grenade launchers and other military gear -- often at a steep discount that's made even more inexpensive by Homeland Security grants.

The full press release by the says several things those within its jurisdiction need to hear, along with the rest of the nation's law enforcement agencies (via Information Liberation)

The Burlington Police Department announced today that the Department has severed its ties with the much-scrutinized “1033 Program,” a Department of Defense initiative that allows aging military equipment to be repurposed for domestic policing. Until this summer, the Burlington Police Department possessed two military-issued night vision devices, which were the extent of its holdings under the Department of Defense (DOD) program.

“The militarization of local police departments is a genuine concern in our nation,” said Burlington Chief of Police Brandon del Pozo. “There are times when military-style equipment is essential for public safety, but they are very rare. Between our partners in the Vermont State Police and the Vermont National Guard, as well as the other federal and local agencies the Burlington Police Department partners with, we have the resources to handle all but the most inconceivable public safety scenarios. Amassing a worst-case scenario arsenal of military equipment results in officers seeing everyday policework through a military lens. When I realized what a small role the military played in equipping our police, I concluded it was better to return the items and let our 1033 Program memorandum of understanding expire.”

The Burlington Police Department has no plans to acquire tactical or military items beyond the types of conventional policing equipment it already possesses.

Mayor Miro Weinberger offered his support of this decision: “Today’s announcement cements the Burlington Police Department’s long-standing practice of avoiding the use of military equipment, in contrast to many other police departments. Our focus instead is on the basics of good policing in the 21st century: foot patrols, strong relationships between the officers and the community, and the use of modern tools to increase public transparency and police effectiveness."

One thing should be clarified: the 1033 Program is by no means mandatory. "Severing ties" really means just deciding not to participate. The MOU may have expired but it could have run on forever without the PD feeling obligated to order anything from the 1033 catalog.

What's more important are the sentiments expressed by the Burlington police chief. He recognizes that acquiring military gear only leads to a military mindset that turns public servants into an invading force. Even better, del Pozo recognizes that using worst-case scenarios as justification for heavily-armored vehicles and military weaponry is a bullshit tactic. As we've seen time and time again, local law enforcement will claim anything and everything is a "potential terrorist target" just so they can acquire cheap MRAPs and M4A1 rifles. Del Pozo isn't going to take his force down a similar path.

The mayor's vocal support of this decision is a pleasant surprise as well. Mayor Weinberger won't be making himself any friends in other law enforcement agencies after calling them out for their (ab)use of the 1033 program. Hopefully, other agencies will see Burlington's very public opt-out as worthy of emulation. But considering the latest narratives to take hold (Ferguson Effect, War on Cops) both paint police officers as under siege, it's highly doubtful many will recognize the goodwill they could generate simply by treating residents as human beings, rather than enemy combatants.

Filed Under: 1033, burlington, community policing, military equipment, police, relationships, vermont

Veteran Police Officer Defends Law Enforcement's Use Of Military Vehicles Using Condescension And Baseless Claims

from the that'll-teach-the-stupid-public! dept

If you're like several law enforcement agencies here in the US, there's a good chance you've obtained a heavily-armored vehicle from the Dept. of Defense's 1033 program. Like much of the military equipment obtained through this program (often with the assistance of DHS grants), an MRAP doesn't so much address a need as it creates a problem: new law enforcement tools but nothing to use them for. So, rather than save it for terrorists or active shooters, MRAPS and other military gear are co-opted by SWAT teams or deployed against protesters.

Ignoring much of what has happened over the past several months, 15-year police veteran Steve Rabinovich has posted an article (which is actually more of an advertisement for two tactical training companies) discussing the proper care and feeding of your PD's MRAP.

Now, through the 1033 program, these officers and deputies are prepared to use the proper tools for what threats may come. We all understand that improper and ignorant application of these tools is not only a liability, its deliberate indifference. These trucks feel, drive, and act unlike anything most drivers and teams are used to — to simply put them to use without proper training is asking for people to get hurt or killed.

Rabinovich details this MRAP training, most of which involves handling the heavy, unwieldy vehicles, as well as the unique bonding experience that is advanced tactical training at a "flagship Nebraska facility."

One of the most unique things about this course was the positive attitude and genuine desire to learn which didn’t stop when the class was dismissed. Everything from class topics to shooting positions to medical equipment was discussed around the fire pit under the Nebraska moon.

Moving on. Rabinovich linked to another article from this one, perhaps recognizing that an article unironically attaching an exclamation point to the sentence, "Your agency got a 1033 MRAP!" might be viewed as "tone deaf," at best. In this one, Rabinovich offers three justifications for any law enforcement agency that feels a mine-resistant vehicle is a worthy addition to its fleet of vehicles.

1. Better-equipped and trained police are a better asset to protect and serve their communities.

2. In some quarters, violent anti-government groups and individuals are targeting cops as scapegoats.

3. There has been a steady increase in deadly and violent assaults on cops — as well as acts of domestic and international terrorism — many of which are reported in limited scope or not publicly known.

The "better-equipped" justification is tough to argue with. Arguably, a heavily-armored vehicle is protective but how does it "serve" the community? It's not as though endangered citizens get to shuttle in and out of crime scenes in bulletproof vehicles. The argument rests on the assumption that a more well-protected police force is a net win for the community. Maybe it is, but Rabinovich doesn't bother connecting those dots.

Better training is also an essential part of protecting and serving the community. But how does the acquisition of an MRAP better train police? Rabinovich doesn't explore this logical dead end any further, so it's left up to the audience to make its own assumptions.

"Violent anti-government groups" is a very recent talking point, one used to paint government accountability groups as "violent," using a very broad brush in hopes of destroying the credibility of Peaceful Streets or Cop Block. Rabinovich further cheapens this by portraying these groups as "scapegoating" police officers, but once again fails to clarifiy his choice of words. Nothing further is written that explains why these officers are being "scapegoated" and Rabinovich doesn't even bother to given any examples of this "targeting."

The last argument is just as awful as the first two but has the additional feature of being factually wrong. Police work isn't becoming increasingly dangerous, even with the supposed corresponding uptick in "domestic and international terrorism." Rabinovich must know this assertion won't hold up because he adds the ridiculous claim that attacks on cops are ignored by much of the media or never reported at all. The exact opposite is the truth. In addition, the number of officers killed or wounded by civilians is a stat tracked by nearly every law enforcement agency. Civilians killed or wounded by police officers are stats tracked by amateurs, despite the fact that the Dept. of Justice has ordered these numbers to be reported annually -- an order that has been mostly ignored for the last thirteen years.

Rabinovich offers these terrible justifications and follows it up with this:

If these are the trucks being given away, these are the truck being implemented into law enforcement service. If someone thinks their tax dollars are better served letting these assets rust away or be given to foreign armies, maybe their cash is greener than yours or mine.

If you're against police militarization then you must be for wasting tax dollars and arming foreigners. It's that simple. You could not be any less of an American.

But what Rabinovich thinks we shouldn't do with excess military equipment is exactly what we do with excess military equipment. We don't hand off tanks to police departments just because the only other options are the scrapyard or an overseas army. We shouldn't be doing this with other military gear either. Law enforcement agencies don't need mine-resistant vehicles, assault rifles and grenade launchers. Law enforcement has existed without all three for several decades, including years when being a cop was much more dangerous than it is now. These justifications are nothing more than the cheapest of rationlizations.

Filed Under: 1033, intimidation, militarization, military equipment, mraps, police, police militarization

ACLU Digs Deep Into The Law Enforcement War Machine

from the might-as-well-lock-the-door;-they're-just-going-to-break-it-down-anyway dept

“Advocates from every corner of the political compass have produced a mountain of disinformation about the ‘militarization’ of American law enforcement.”

- Doug Deaton, Lieutenant, Plano (TX) Police, writing for PoliceOne

• 32 bomb suits
• 704 units of night vision equipment
• 712 rifles
• 42 forced entry tools, like battering rams
• 830 units of surveillance and reconnaissance equipment
• 13,409 personal protective equipment (PPE) or uniforms
• 120 utility vehicles
• 64 armored vehicles
• 4 GPS devices
• 17 helicopters
• 21,211 other types of military equipment
  

- Equipment obtained by Arizona law enforcement agencies via Dept. of Defense 1033 grants

Zambia, Slovakia, Somalia, Ghana, Hungary, Estonia, Mozambique

- Some of the countries (out of a total of 17) whose militaries have fewer helicopters than Arizona law enforcement agencies (according to statistics gathered by the CIA and posted at GlobalFirePower.com)


The ACLU's extensive report on police militarization shows a nation at war with itself. The War on Terror -- a 13-year windmill joust that has generated an excess of military equipment -- has merged with the War on Drugs, an exercise in futility seven years removed from the half-century mark.

Actual military combat, utilizing enlisted soldiers, has given birth to the same equipment now routinely being deployed to fight the crime formerly policed by normal police officers. Cell tower spoofers, surveillance drones, Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected personnel carriers (MRAPs) -- all of these were developed for use by the military. And all of these have now found homes in local law enforcement armories.

The requisition forms are littered with terrorism-related terms, but the reality of the situation is much more banal. Low-level drug dealers are being dealt with like enemy combatants. Law enforcement agencies claim with straight faces that they're falling behind in the arms and technology race, all the while acquiring the best weaponry and technology tax dollars can buy.

These are then handed over to SWAT teams, special police forces developed to take on truly dangerous situations like riots, active shooters, hostage situations and barricaded suspects. They are outfitted in military gear and sent out to perform the everyday task of serving search warrants.


These teams prefer to do this mundane task with a maximum amount of chaos and violence. Warrants are delivered with no-knock raids, ostensibly to give the police department the upper hand on the presumed-to-be-dangerous occupants. In reality, this is the sort of thing that happens far too frequently.

[B]efore 3:00am on a night in May of 2014, a team of SWAT officers armed with assault rifles burst into the room where the family was sleeping. Some of the kids’ toys were in the front yard, but the Habersham County and Cornelia police officers claimed they had no way of knowing children might be present. One of the officers threw a flashbang grenade into the room. It landed in Baby Bou Bou’s crib.

It took several hours before Alecia and Bounkahm, the baby’s parents, were able to see their son. The 19-month-old had been taken to an intensive burn unit and placed into a medically induced coma. When the flashbang grenade exploded, it blew a hole in 19-month-old Bou Bou’s face and chest. The chest wound was so deep it exposed his ribs. The blast covered Bou Bou’s body in third degree burns.

Three weeks later, it's still unclear whether the child will survive. The SWAT predicated its warrant on a $50 drug purchase from someone who didn't even live at that residence. No drugs or guns were found. No arrests were made.

Note that the police defended their actions by claiming they had "no way of knowing" if children might be present. But that lack of crucial knowledge had zero effect on its tactics. Officers didn't throw a flashbang grenade into the house because they were sure there were no children present. Officers threw a flashbang grenade into the house because that's what SWAT teams do when they serve no-knock warrants. The question of children was never raised, at least not until their actions had placed a child in a medical coma and now needed to be defended. A safer assumption would be that nearly every house being raided has a child in it. Most houses do.

This is how law enforcement's new toys get used: to take down lowball drug dealers. A large majority of warrants served are drug-related. The ACLU has the stats.


The problem is more troubling than mere mission creep. The new armor and weapons are begging to be used. These acquisitions, often obtained over the protests of the populace under the agency's "protection" (or just as often, without their knowledge), need to be justified. The terrorism threat cited in requisition forms just isn't going to present itself. And so, law enforcement agencies deploy these against the next best thing: the neighborhood drug dealer boogeyman.


The whole report is, by turns, fascinating, brutal and deeply concerning. Some claim the militarization of the police is a misconception, an illusion generated by a handful of vocal journalists. But the ACLU has the numbers that say otherwise.

Law enforcement knows this is the truth. The government's misguided generosity has allowed local law enforcement to stockpile weapons and armor, but hasn't given it any limitations or guidance. And the stated reason -- terrorism -- simply isn't common enough to justify a one-sided arms "race," no matter how far the definition of "terrorist" is stretched. So, the weapons and armor are used to carry out search warrants, bringing unnecessary amounts of chaos and violence to something police used to handle with an authoritative knock and possibly a scuffle or two if things went south. Now, it's de rigueur. The tools can't be allowed to gather dust and the War on Drugs can't risk any more casualties -- at least not on the part of the enforcers.

Filed Under: law enforcement, military equipment, war

Law Enforcement Agencies Continue To Obtain Military Equipment, Claiming The United States Is A 'War Zone'

from the bringing-citizens-the-war-they-never-wanted dept

That law enforcement agencies across the US are swiftly converting themselves into military outfits is hardly a surprise at this point. The problem is that nothing seems to be slowing them down, not even the dismayed reactions of citizens supposedly under their care.

The government's desire to offload its unused military hardware at deeply discounted rates has turned a few outliers into the new normal. Towns as with populations well under the 10,000 mark have secured Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, supposedly in order to keep up with a non-existent arms race between the good guys and the bad guys.

The MRAPs are only the most visible symptom of law enforcement's desire to dress for battle. Along with the vehicles (which normally run from $250,000-$750,000 but are routinely paid for by DHS grants awarded to requests that mention the word "terrorism" or "drugs" in a sufficiently terrified manner), agencies are also picking up military-grade weapons like grenade launchers and automatic weapons. The low prices and large grants make this an opportunity few agencies are able to resist.

The problems with this sort of ad hoc "mobilization" are numerous. The dangers of outfitting police with military gear can best be signaled with a combination of "if all you have is a hammer..." and Chekhov's Gun. If you give police military gear, they're going to want to use it. The very occasional shootout with heavily-armed criminals simply won't satisfy the urge to deploy the new acquisitions. The slightly-more-occasional no-knock warrant served in the dead of night to known drug offenders won't sufficiently scratch the itch. Consequently, this:

Police SWAT teams are now deployed tens of thousands of times each year, increasingly for routine jobs. Masked, heavily armed police officers in Louisiana raided a nightclub in 2006 as part of a liquor inspection. In Florida in 2010, officers in SWAT gear and with guns drawn carried out raids on barbershops that mostly led only to charges of “barbering without a license.”

All the training and all the equipment obtained over the years to… crack down on unlicensed barbering. (Or check water quality/"rescue" a baby deer from an animal shelter.) Square that with this statement by David Lutz, chief of the Edinburgh (IN) police department:

Lutz fully supports using the MRAP. "Oh, yeah, anything for the safety of officers," he said. "SWAT is after the worst of the worst. It's what they do."

Crime, including domestic terrorism -- the fear most commonly cited in equipment requests -- has never been lower. But the nearly universal response has been to escalate. With no data on their sides, defenders of these acquisitions are forced to rely on speculation and worst-case hypotheticals to defend bringing an MRAP into communities where violent crimes like homicide are nearly nonexistent.

“I don’t like it. I wish it were the way it was when I was a kid,” [Neenah, WI police chief Kevin Wilkinson] said. But he said the possibility of violence, however remote, required taking precautions.

Remote possibilities are the stated "goal." The reality is raided barbershops.

Others see it as nothing more than the natural progress of law enforcement, so entirely normal that what citizens perceive as a shift towards a police state is actually something so innocuous it can be taken to local schools to impress the kids.

Capt. Chris Cowan, a department spokesman, said the vehicle “allows the department to stay in step with the criminals who are arming themselves more heavily every day.” He said police officers had taken it to schools and community events, where it was a conversation starter.

Again, the facts simply don't bear out this statement. Criminals aren't arming themselves more heavily every day. Crime stats don't bear that out. In other nations, this is happening, but the United States is not ground-zero for a drug war -- or even a real war, for that matter. But yet more and more law enforcement agencies are pretending Neenah, WI and Pulaski County, IN (pop. 13,124) are the new Kabul, Afghanistan. [Warning: AUTOPLAY]

"The United States of America has become a war zone," he said. "There's violence in the workplace, there's violence in schools and there's violence in the streets. You are seeing police departments going to a semi-military format because of the threats we have to counteract. If driving a military vehicle is going to protect officers, then that's what I'm going to do." (Pulaski County Sheriff Michael Gayer)

The unintentionally irony of this claim (which also happens to be both completely ridiculous and profoundly disturbing) is that these "new war zones" will apparently be populated by US citizens returning from the "old" war zones. This is what's awaiting our nation's military veterans: their old equipment being deployed against them, because if they killed overseas, they'll probably just keep on killing when they get home.

In the Indianapolis suburbs, officers said they needed a mine-resistant vehicle to protect against a possible attack by veterans returning from war.

“You have a lot of people who are coming out of the military that have the ability and knowledge to build I.E.D.’s and to defeat law enforcement techniques,” Sgt. Dan Downing of the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department told the local Fox affiliate, referring to improvised explosive devices, or homemade bombs. Sergeant Downing did not return a message seeking comment.

Law enforcement agencies seem to want a war. And if the public fails to give them one, they'll apparently manufacture one themselves by sending heavily-armed men to enforce hairdresser regulations and use MRAPs to break up knife fights. On the bright side, this issue is receiving more and more attention, but so far, the ability of law enforcement agencies to obtain military gear far outpaces efforts directed at tempering this activity.

Filed Under: military equipment, mrap, police, surplus military equipment, swat teams, war zone