This Is How America Keeps the Peace

Somehow these guys don't look ready to serve and protect.

Today's WaPo tells a story -- that isn't at all random -- of what justice has become in the good ole USA. Yes, we understand the law very well:

Police agencies have used hundreds of millions of dollars taken from Americans under federal civil forfeiture law in recent years to buy guns, armored cars and electronic surveillance gear. They have also spent money on luxury vehicles, travel and a clown named Sparkles.

The details are contained in thousands of annual reports submitted by local and state agencies to the Justice Department’s Equitable Sharing Program, an initiative that allows local and state police to keep up to 80 percent of the assets they seize. The Washington Post obtained 43,000 of the reports dating from 2008 through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The documents offer a sweeping look at how police departments and drug task forces across the country are benefiting from laws that allow them to take cash and property without proving a crime has occurred. The law was meant to decimate drug organizations, but The Post found that it has been used as a routine source of funding for law enforcement at every level.

If you don't think this is fucked up, your sense of "law and order" is, well, fucked up. To read a story of how this over-militarization of our police isn't a force for good, click here. Also, think of the facts behind the phrases I put in bold in the article. Is this what you want out there? Why?