1033 DA – GDI Scholars 2019

1NC
Link and internal link – the AFF’s surplus of arms will be redirected to police
programs
Reese, Mint Press News Lead Staff Writer, 14 (Frederick Reese, 10-14-2014, MintPress
News, "Racism And Unchecked Police Violence: An American Epidemic",
https://www.mintpressnews.com/racism-unchecked-police-violence-american-epidemic/197618/, 7-8-
2019, JT)
This has given rise to the current situation, in which these resources are increasingly being used outside of
their intended purposes. As reported by the American Civil Liberties Union, nearly 80 percent of all
SWAT calls are made for non-violent purposes, such as serving drug-related warrants. This availability of
war tactics — coupled with a high level level of non-accountability among local law enforcement
agencies — has created a perfect storm that allows a wide array of abuses to proliferate.
“It’s not unreasonable to think that the police have utilized this equipment and tactics in order to enforce
community norms and to act on their implicit biases and racism,” said Brooks, of the Southern Poverty
Law Center. “We shouldn’t be surprised that this equipment is being used in these destructive means, as
this equipment is not designed for civil use. This situation with the police reflects other issues in which
the nation has refused to take a direct stance, such as gun control.

It’s a linear impact – these programs represent steps taken by the US government to
destroy radical Black movements and violently continue with securitizing and
colonizing rhetoric
Freeman, University of DC History B.A. and Policy Analyst for the Institute for
Policy Studies, 18 (Netfa Freeman, 10-22-2018, Pembazuka News, "Dual US war on Black people",
https://www.pambazuka.org/pan-africanism/dual-us-war-black-people, 7-7-2019, JT)
This month marks the 10th anniversary of the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), created on 1
October 2008. AFRICOM is the re-colonisation of Africa by the US and constitutes the new scramble for
Africa equivalent to when, in the 1800s, the colonial powers fought over which of them would dominate
which parts of the resource-rich continent.
Pre-dating AFRICOM by ten years is its domestic counterpart, the “National Defense Authorisation Act
of 1997” signed into law by Bill Clinton and more commonly known as the 1033 Programme. The 1033
Programme facilitates the transfer of excess US Department of Defense supplies and equipment to state
and local law enforcement agencies, which are invariably used against Black and Brown communities in
the US. The Programme has allowed police departments to acquire vehicles (land, air, and sea), weapons,
computer equipment, fingerprint equipment, night vision equipment, radios and televisions, first aid
equipment, tents and sleeping bags, photographic equipment and more.
There is no more glaring proof that the US has been waging war against both Black people within its
borders and those in Africa than a cursory examination of the responses by the US national security state
to Black movements for decolonisation and self-determination inside the US and on the continent. A
parallel history in form and essence unfolds when comparing what took place from the 1950s to the 70s in
the US Black Power, Civil Rights movements with the independence, anti-colonial movement in Africa.
Documented evidence vividly illustrates that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s infamous
Counterintelligence Programme, also known as COINTELPRO, orchestrated operations to “infiltrate,
intimidate, imprison, and assassinate” the leaders of Black movements for social justice in the US.
In Africa, the US executed identical and chronologically aligned repression through the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) against the independent African governments and liberation movements
sweeping the continent. No matter where in the world African people are, our organising for social justice
is treated as a threat to the political, economic, and cultural interest of the US ruling class that actually
constitutes the essence of Americanism. Democratically elected leaders of the new African states were
subjected to coup d’états and incessant assassination attempts including that of Kwame Nkrumahin
Ghana, the successful assassinationof Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, and today we can add the 2011
brutal murder of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.
The need to feed a growing and insatiable military-industrial complex and to guarantee that no radical
Black movements emerge within US borders or on the African continent has given rise to increased and
better-coordinated militarisation both in Africa through AFRICOM and Black communities in the US
through the 1033 Programme.
 Uniqueness – AT: Obama Ban
Trump eliminated Obama era ban on 1033 in 2017.
Grassfire, 17 [7/28/17, “RETURN OF THE ‘1033 PROGRAM’: TRUMP REVERSES OBAMA’S
BAN”, http://www.njjn.org/uploads/digital-library/grassfire-com.pdf, 7/6/19, PD]
Monday, President Trump reversed Barack Obama’s post Ferguson-era ban on the controversial ‘1033’
military surplus program which allows the Defense Department to provide local law enforcement
agencies with ‘surplus’ military grade weapons and equipment.
The program was thrust into the media spotlight and became the center of contentious debate among
Americans following an eerily militant response by law enforcement to violent protests in Missouri after
the officer involved shooting death of Michael Brown.
Announcing the reversal of Obama’s ban on the program, Attorney General Jeff Sessions told the
Fraternal Order of Police during a Nashville speech that Trump’s executive order on the matter will:
“Ensure that [police] can get the lifesaving gear that you need to do your job and send a strong message
that we will not allow criminal activity, violence, and lawlessness to become the new normal.”
 Link – Police Brutality
Link – The 1033 Program’s incentive-based funding create motive for law
enforcement to report and act on additional crimes in order to increase arms supply
Reese, Mint Press News Lead Staff Writer, 14 (Frederick Reese, 10-14-2014, MintPress
News, "Racism And Unchecked Police Violence: An American Epidemic",
https://www.mintpressnews.com/racism-unchecked-police-violence-american-epidemic/197618/, 7-8-
2019, JT)
This represents a change in attitude in Washington. Ferguson, like many other communities, received
military equipment — including two Humvees — through the 1033 Program. The 1033 Program —
originally created by the 1990 NDAA as the Defense Logistic Agency’s 1208 Program — sought to
provide law enforcement military hardware slated to be retired from active military use, such as MRAP
vehicles and Humvees. According to the program’s website, since 1997 it has distributed $5.1 billion in
military hardware to more than 8,000 law enforcement agencies, including more than 20 school districts.
This program was supplemented by federal funding to local law enforcement agencies, such as the
Bureau of Justice Assistance’s Edward Byrne Memorial Grant and anti-terrorism grants from the
Department of Homeland Security. More than $34 billion has been allocated via these types of federal
channels since 2001. These grants help to compensate for local budget and equipment shortfalls by
allocating monies to help develop and improve policing efforts and strategies. However, the funding
formula for these grants rewards states and territories with large numbers of part 1 violent crimes, leading
many to speculate that the Bureau of Justice Assistance grants are creating a motive for police
departments to seek criminal convictions.
 Link – 1033
Link and internal link - the 1033 program allows any surplus military equipment to
be transferred to local police forces - leads to increasingly militarized policing of
primarily black and immigrant communities.
Golan-Vilella, Friends Committee on National Legislation Program Assistant for
Domestic Policy, No Date [Marina, “1033 Program & Police Militarization”, FCNL,
https://www.fcnl.org/documents/566, 7/6/2019, PD]
The 1033 program enables the Department of Defense to transfer surplus military equipment to federal,
state, local, and tribal law enforcement—even school systems or homeless assistance providers.
Militarization has permeated our society. The Pentagon has transferred $6 billion in equipment since the
program’s creation in 1991, when transfers were originally designated for counter-drug activities and the
vast majority went to border states. The 1997 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) created the
1033 program as we know it today. A reported 79,288 assault rifles, 205 grenade launchers, and 11,959
bayonets transferred through the 1033 program between 2006 and 2014.
The 1033 program is one piece of a larger trend towards militarized policing in the United States. The
Department of Homeland Security gave over $34 billion in grants to police forces since September 11th,
2001. Police can use these funds to purchase drones and Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles
(MRAPs). Police tactics have also trended towards militarism along with the equipment and spending.
For example, SWAT teams were originally developed for emergency responses but have increasingly
become a tool for home searches for drugs. Today 89% of police departments have a SWAT team, a huge
increase since the 1960s.
Breaking Communities
Militarized policing particularly affects black and immigrant communities. In a 2011 and 2012 analysis
of SWAT deployments to execute search warrants, 54% of people impacted were black or Latino. This
analysis was aptly titled “War Comes Home.” The police response to nonviolent protests in Ferguson,
Missouri after Officer George Wilson killed Michael Brown was just one snapshot of the military
appearance and caliber of weaponry that further alienates communities of color, instead of providing
safety. Images from the unrest might lead one to think it was a warzone not a suburb. Beyond police
departments, immigration enforcement and school discipline authorities are also eligible for weapons
transfers. The 1033 program has supplied Department of Homeland Security agencies on the southern
border with military equipment since its early stages. School districts from Georgia to Utah have also
acquired automatic rifles under the 1033 program.
Poor Oversight
Especially over the last 10 years, mismanagement has plagued the 1033 program. Military grade weapons
have been sent with little or no accountability to local communities. Reports of missing equipment and
inappropriate transfers prompted a moratorium on the program from May 2012 through October 2013.
Missing weapons and a failure to comply with guidelines also led to the suspension of three entire states
and 146 individual law enforcement agencies from the 1033 program by 2014.
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report from July 2017 reveals an ongoing lack of
accountability. The GAO created a mock police department, using the address of a vacant parking lot, and
received approximately $1.2 million in controlled military items. The materials received, including
simulated rifles and pipe bombs, were able to be modified into lethal weapons with commercially
available products. Recipients routinely did not even have to show identification to receive the materials.
 Link – Surplus Arms
Pentagon often leases excess weapons to foreign countries.
Federation of American Scientists, No Date. [“Ways and Means”,
https://fas.org/asmp/library/handbook/WaysandMeans.html, 7/12/19, PD]
The end of the cold war left the United States with-literally-a surplus army (and navy and air force) of
weapons. While the Pentagon usually sells excess arms to foreign governments (through FMS) or gives
them away (see below), in recent years it has loaned large quantities of equipment to foreign militaries.
The Arms Export Control Act authorizes the Pentagon to lend weapons out, as long as the Defense
Department guarantees that the articles are not required for use by U.S. military or civilian agencies for
the duration of the lease. Typical reasons for leasing are to provide a weapon for testing purposes; to
allow the Pentagon to respond to an "urgent" foreign requirement while still retaining ownership of the
equipment as a hedge against possible future needs; or to provide equipment on the cheap when the
recipient cannot afford to purchase the weapons outright. The customer pays a rental charge which equals
the depreciation of the equipment during the lease.
Government-negotiated leases are sealed with a contract (called an LOA), the same as government-
negotiated sales. The LOA covers costs incurred in upgrading or conditioning the equipment, delivery,
training and restoration or replacement if the weapon is damaged. Leases run for a fixed period, capped at
five years, but they can be renewed. The US government maintains title for the leased weaponry, and the
Defense Department may terminate a lease and require the immediate return of the equipment at any time.
The Pentagon must notify Congress of any weapons lease that will run for more than a year, as well as
any lease surpassing the $14 million threshold established for notification of FMS and DCS.
The widespread use of leasing also leads to undercounting U.S. arms exports, since dollar-based
determinations of the arms trade count only the rent, as opposed to the value of the weapon being
transferred. In recent years, the value of weaponry being leased to countries around the world has
doubled-from $300 million in 1994 to nearly $700 million in 1996. Since most leases run for several
years, it is reasonable to assume that the United States currently has well over one billion dollars worth of
lethal equipment on loan to foreign militaries.

The DoD has the authority the transfer surplus weapons to civilian police forces
Federation of American Scientists, No Date.
[“Ways and Means”, https://fas.org/asmp/library/handbook/WaysandMeans.html, 7/12/19, PD]
The end of the cold war left the United States with-literally-a surplus army (and navy and air force) of
weapons. While the Pentagon usually sells excess arms to foreign governments (through FMS) or gives
them away (see below), in recent years it has loaned large quantities of equipment to foreign militaries.
The Arms Export Control Act authorizes the Pentagon to lend weapons out, as long as the Defense
Department guarantees that the articles are not required for use by U.S. military or civilian agencies for
the duration of the lease. Typical reasons for leasing are to provide a weapon for testing purposes; to
allow the Pentagon to respond to an "urgent" foreign requirement while still retaining ownership of the
equipment as a hedge against possible future needs; or to provide equipment on the cheap when the
recipient cannot afford to purchase the weapons outright. The customer pays a rental charge which equals
the depreciation of the equipment during the lease.

The Pentagon and President have the authority to give away surplus arms.
Federation of American Scientists, No Date. [“Ways and Means”,
https://fas.org/asmp/library/handbook/WaysandMeans.html, 7/12/19, PD]
The Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) of 1961 is the law of the land on the provision of economic and
military assistance to foreign governments. This act establishes that the executive branch and Congress
may give funds (either as a grant or as a loan) to foreign governments to purchase newly-manufactured
US arms. Generally, the United States provides this type of financing only to close, long-standing military
allies, or to governments fighting the production and trafficking of drugs intended for the US market. The
authority for the Pentagon and the President to give away-or sell on the cheap-stocks of surplus arms is
also found in this law. The FAA includes language barring military aid or arms sales to any country that
shows a "gross and consistent" pattern of human rights abuse. Finally, the law bars arms transfers and aid
to some specific countries, like Pakistan, for its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Congress has sought in the
past few years to rewrite the FAA in light of the end of the cold war, but thus far it has failed to achieve
consensus on any substantive revisions.

EDA allows surplus arms to be heavily discounted or given away for free to foreign
powers – even human rights violators and unstable states.
Federation of American Scientists, No Date. [“Ways and Means”,
https://fas.org/asmp/library/handbook/WaysandMeans.html, 7/12/19, PD]
The Pentagon has been running a giant garage sale throughout the 1990s to unload its large overstock of
dated, but still lethal, weapons and spare parts. Not wanting to pay the costs of storing or destroying the
surplus, the Department of Defense dispenses most of it for free or at deep reduction through the excess
defense articles (EDA) program. The Foreign Assistance Act defines EDA as surplus equipment owned
by the US government, but not originally procured for anticipated sale or assistance programs.
Militaries interested in obtaining free EDA must go through a process similar to that for purchasing new
weapons under the FMS program. Through the US embassy's security assistance office, the foreign
government or organization submits a letter of request to the Pentagon. The application is referred to the
Army, Navy, Air Force or Defense Logistics Agency, depending on the type of equipment desired, and
the services' sales offices determine if EDA will satisfy the request. By law, the Department of Defense
must avoid undercutting U.S. arms companies seeking to sell newly- manufactured equipment. If
transfers of surplus weapons are deemed appropriate, the DSAA must give Congress 30 days to consider
the export of major items before going forward. Gifts or sales of surplus ships are treated differently; for
naval vessels less than 20 years old, Congress must pass a law (usually drafted by the Navy) approving
the export sale or grant. These laws usually pass without controversy.
Since 1990, the Pentagon has offered approximately $8 billion of excess military equipment to foreign
militaries, including nearly 4,000 heavy tanks, over 500 bombers and more than 300,000 pistols, rifles
and machine guns. Free shipments of surplus arms are regularly omitted from official statistics on the
overall value of U.S. arms exports. Even when surplus arms are included, the value ascribed to them is
often heavily discounted, thereby further undercounting total levels of US arms transfers. One
government investigation found that EDA sold through the FMS program are routinely priced at 5-50
percent of their original acquisition cost.
In 1996 the executive branch authorized over $525.8 million of grant EDA transfers. Due to a law passed
by Congress during the same year, beginning in 1997 the government will be limited to giving away no
more than $350 million of surplus arms annually. This cap is counted in terms of the current value
ascribed to the equipment, which-as stated-is often unrealistically low.
Originally, only the poorer members of the NATO alliance were cleared to receive EDA, but following
the 1991 Gulf war, many Middle Eastern and North African states were added; the "Partnership for
Peace" program made most Central and Eastern European governments eligible for free surplus arms; and
South American and Caribbean countries were authorized for free weaponry as part of counter-narcotics
efforts.
Among the leading recipients of free weapons through this program in 1996 were Mexico, Colombia,
Peru, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Bahrain and Turkey-all countries where serious political repression and/or
human rights violations were reported.
 Internal Link – Crushes Movements
Link and i/L - 1033 program transfers any excess military supplies into state and
local law enforcement agencies, where they are used in a process of militarized
policing in black communities – squashes black movements.
Freeman, Director of the Institute for Policy Studies Social Action & Leadership
School for Activists, 18 [Nefta, 10/22/18, “Dual War and Repression: Domestic and Foreign Policy
on Black People”, https://theinternationalcommittee.org/dual-war-and-repression-domestic-and-foreign-
policy-on-black-people/, 7/6/19, PD]
Parallel tracks of US government policy against the Black working class in the US and on the African
continent expose much more than incidental similarity but a concerted fatal conspiracy.
For the US, African people globally have no economic value short of being unwitting consumers whose
labor-use has expired, and whose resistance to social injustice must be repressed at all costs. This conflict
of interests reveals a natural contradiction between North American versus African or Black identities.
African-American on many levels is an oxymoron.
This month marks the 10th anniversary of U.S. Africa Command – AFRICOM, created on October 1,
2008. AFRICOM is the re-colonization of Africa by the U.S. and constitutes the new scramble for Africa
equivalent to when, in the 1800s, the colonial powers fought over which of them would dominate which
parts of the resource-rich continent.
Pre-dating AFRICOM by ten years is its domestic counterpart, the “National Defense Authorization Act
of 1997” signed into law by Bill Clinton and more commonly known as the 1033 Program. The 1033
Program facilitates the transfer of excess U.S. Department of Defense supplies and equipment to state and
local law enforcement agencies, which are invariably used against Black and Brown communities in the
US. The Program has allowed police departments to acquire vehicles (land, air, and sea), weapons,
computer equipment, fingerprint equipment, night vision equipment, radios and televisions, first aid
equipment, tents and sleeping bags, photographic equipment and more.
There is no more glaring proof that the US has been waging war against both Black people within its
borders and those in Africa than a cursory examination of the responses by the US National security state
to Black movements for decolonization and self-determination inside the US and on the continent. A
parallel history in form and essence unfolds when comparing what took place from the 1950s to the 70s in
the US Black Power, Civil Rights movements with the independence, anti-colonial movement in Africa.
Documented evidence vividly illustrates that the FBI’s infamous Counterintelligence Program, also
known as COINTELPRO, orchestrated operations to “infiltrate, intimidate, imprison, and assassinate” the
leaders of Black movements for social justice in the US.
In Africa, the US executed identical and chronologically aligned repression through the CIA against the
independent African governments and liberation movements sweeping the continent. No matter where in
the world African people are, our organizing for social justice is treated as a threat to the political,
economic, and cultural interest of the US ruling class that actually constitutes the essence of
Americanism. Democratically elected leaders of the new African states were subjected to coup d’états and
incessant assassination attempts including that of Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, the successful assassination
of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, and today we can add the 2011 brutal murder of Muammar Gaddafi in
Libya.
The need to feed a growing and insatiable military-industrial complex and to guarantee that no radical
Black movements emerge within US borders or on the African continent has given rise to increased and
better-coordinated militarization both in Africa through AFRICOM and Black communities in the US
through the 1033 program.
US state agents continue tantamount treatment, like spying on Black Lives Matter activists, monitoring
their social media and creating the bogus FBI designation Black Identity Extremists to malign them as
responsible for violence against police. All the while tolerating organized, criminal infiltration of law
enforcement by violent white supremacists.
AFRICOM is the U.S. response to economic competition with China and its increased influence on the
continent. AFRICOM is also to prevent the emergence of any independent African influence or force. It is
NOT to fight drug trafficking or terrorism as stated in their promotional materials. The U.S. Military
presence is a destabilizing presence demonstrated by events like the 2012 overthrow of a democratically
elected government in Mali by an AFRICOM trained Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo and the 2015 coup in
Burkina Faso led by AFRICOM trained Colonel-Major Gilbert Diendere.
During this month the Black Alliance for Peace has been rolling out its campaign US Out of Africa: Shut
Down AFRICOM urging all peace and justice loving people to sign the campaign’s petition directed to
the House Armed Services Committee and the Congressional Black Caucus.
In his last year of office, instead of doing what he could to abolish the 1033 program, Barack Obama put
minor restrictions on it which the Trump administration immediately reversed within its first year. The
Bush administration, progenitor of AFRICOM,, was rebuked across the African continent when
attempting to establish the headquarters for AFRICOM on the continent, forcing the new command to
work out of Europe.
 Internal Link – No Oversight
Lack of oversight on the 1033 program means weapons fall into the wrong hands
Bennett, ACLU Washington Legislative Office Senior Legislative Counsel, JD from
University of North Carolina School of Law, 17
[Kanya, 7-26-17, ACLU, “Even Fake Law Enforcement Agencies Can Get Weapons of War for
‘Policing’,” https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/even-fake-law-enforcement-agencies-can-
get-weapons-war-policing, accessed 7-8-19, JL]
It appears all law enforcement — even a “fictitious federal agency” — can get federally supplied
weapons of war, with quite literally, no questions asked.
We learned this a few days ago when the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a troubling
assessment of the Department of Defense 1033 program. The 1033 program gives federal, state, and local
law enforcement surplus military weapons and equipment for use in routine policing. The 1033 program
is the poster-child of federal programs responsible for the militarization of U.S. police.
GAO indicated that the Defense Department does not verify the identification of individuals picking up
military weapons through 1033. And GAO found that the Pentagon does not verify the quantity of
military weapons transferred through 1033. GAO said Defense “lacks reasonable assurance that it has the
ability to prevent, detect, and respond to potential fraud and minimize associated security risks.”
And just how did GAO reach this conclusion? GAO posed as a fake federal law enforcement agency and
secured military weapons through 1033. They sought $1.2 million worth of rifles, pipe bomb equipment,
and night vision googles. And they got them. “It was like getting stuff off of eBay,” according to GAO
staff.
The ACLU criticized the 1033 program in its 2014 report, “War Comes Home: The Excessive
Militarization of American Policing.” And in Ferguson, Missouri, in the aftermath of the fatal police
shooting of Michael Brown, the world got to see for itself just what is wrong with militarized policing.
Those protesting Brown’s death were met with armored vehicles, shotguns, rifles, tear gas, and rubber
bullets. Veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars expressed horror that they, while on active duty
overseas, were less heavily armed and combative than the local police in Ferguson.
Then President Barack Obama was troubled too. He issued Executive Order 13688 in January 2015 to put
necessary oversight and protocols in place around law enforcement use of military weapons doled out by
the federal government. Certain weapons, like bayonets and tanks, would become prohibited, and other
equipment, like Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs) and drones, would be subject to
tighter controls that included training supervision, evaluation, and auditing. To do this, E.O. 13688
created an interagency working group that included the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland
Security — the primary federal providers of military weapons and equipment to law enforcement.
At a minimum, the working group was supposed to ensure that the agencies giving out these military-
grade weapons were talking to one another. But at a September 2014 congressional hearing on federal
militarization programs, officials from Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security admitted that they had
never met before. This meant that the Pentagon could provide an MRAP to a police department subjected
to Department of Justice complaints of police misconduct.
But what this GAO report reveals is that Defense may not only be out of touch with Justice, but
with the very law enforcement agencies that it’s lending military weapons to. Just what has the
Department of Defense and the interagency working group been doing for the last two years? The
oversight and protocols – were those fake too?
Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up, which is frightening since President Trump doesn’t believe the
program needs any oversight at all.
During the campaign, Trump promised to repeal Executive Order 13688. Not to be outdone, the House
voted earlier this month to prioritize the 1033 program for border enforcement. So instead of trying to fix
1033 as GAO indicates is necessary, it’s likely the White House and Congress will allow this program to
go further off the rails.
 Impact – Militarization
Militarized police units view policing as combat. They use aggressive policing tactics
in predominantly poor neighborhoods.
Kraska, EKU professor in the School of Justice Studies, AND Kappeler, Dean of the
School of Justice Studies, ’97 [Pete and Victor, 1997, “Militarizing American Police: The Rise and
Normalization of Paramilitary Units”, https://lsa.umich.edu/content/dam/sid-assets/SID
%20Docs/_Militarizing%20America%20Police._.pdf, 7/7/19, PD]
Our research found a sharp rise in the number of police paramilitary units, a rapid expansion in their
activities, the normalization of paramilitary units into mainstream police work, and a close ideological
and material connection between PPUs and the U.S. armed forces. These findings provide compelling
evidence of a national trend toward the militarization of U.S. civilian police forces and, in turn, the
militarization of corresponding social problems handled by the police. The data also reveal a continuing
upward trend in proactive paramilitary policing activities. Before attempting to make sense of these
phenomena in a broader context, it is important to review some policy-specific dangers associated with
the rise and normalization of paramilitary policing.
First, the militarism inherent in PPUs escalates to new heights the cynical view that the most expedient
route to solving social problems is through military-style force, weaponry, and technology. Second, the
heightened ethos of militarism in these "elite" police units is potentially infectious for the police
institution; many police departments have created specialized PPUs for patrol, narcotics, and gang
"suppression." According to some commanders, PPUs are also the testing ground for incorporating
tactical equipment, such as percussion grenades, into mainstream policing. Third, despite the belief
among tactical officers that PPUs enhance officer and citizen safety, numerous incidents and common
sense raise questions about the dangerousness of these units to officers and citizens. Contemporary PPUs
do not just react to pre-existing emergencies that might require highly trained teams of police officers.
Instead, most PPUs proactively seek out and even manufacture highly dangerous situations. Finally,
paramilitary policing is not just an urban "inner-city" phenomenon. These units target what the police
define as high crime or disorderly areas, which most often are poor neighborhoods, whatever the
city's size.
A comfortable and certainly not illogical interpretation of this research is that contemporary policing is
experiencing two parallel developments: a well-publicized movement toward community accountability,
responsiveness, and problem-solving, and another backstage development toward militarization. This
research, therefore, might be set aside as only uncovering a dark side of contemporary policing. The
extent to which PPUs have been normalized into mainstream policing indicates otherwise. A police
commander's description of his PPUs role in community policing accentuates this observation:
We conduct a lot of saturation patrol. We do "terry stops" and "aggressive" field interviews. These tactics
are successful as long as the pressure stays on relentlessly. The key to our success is that we're an elite
crime fighting team that's not bogged down in the regular bureaucracy. We focus on "quality of life"
issues like illegal parking, loud music, bums, neighbor troubles. We have the freedom to stay in a hot
area and clean it up — particularly gangs. Our tactical enforcement team works nicely with our
department's emphasis on community policing [emphasis added].
This commander views community policing and militarized policing as linked symbiotically. Indeed, 63
percent of the respondents in this survey agreed that PPUs "play an important role in community policing
strategies." Contemporary police reformers have asked the police to join together in problem-solving
teams, to design ways to take control of the streets, to take ownership of neighborhoods, to actively and
visibly create a climate of order, and to improve communities' quality of life (Bayley 1994; Goldstein
1990; Hoover 1996; Sherman 1995; Trojanowicz and Bucqueroux 1990; Wilson 1983, 1995; Worden
1996). Note how the PPU commander quoted above interpreted and implemented such "progressive"
recommendations. Another self-proclaimed community policing chief provides a similar, although more
blunt interpretation:
It's going to come to the point that the only people that are going to be able to deal with these problems
are highly trained tactical teams with proper equipment to go into a neighborhood and clear the
neighborhood and hold it; allowing community policing and problem oriented policing officers to come
in and start turning the neighborhood around.
Both interpretations of community and problem-oriented policing are consistent with a historically
embedded police ideology and practice. Indeed, police departments throughout the United States are
reverting, with the support of reform-minded police academicians, to highly aggressive tactics, many
centering on precisely the paramilitary approach documented in this research (Cordner 1996; Hoover
1996; Hoover and Caeti 1994; Lacayo 1996; Sherman 1992, 1994, 1995; Sviridoff and Hillsman 1996;
Worden 1996; Worden et.al 1994).12 Three elements, then, are ideologically and pragmatically
intertwined in an emerging form of policing: 1) the "war on crime and drugs" metaphor; 2) community
and problem-oriented policing ideology; and, 3) the escalation and normalization of PPU activities.
Interestingly, the theoretical mortar troweled retroactively between these three elements is "routine
activities theory" or what Sherman et al. (1989) calls a "criminology of place." Since the 1950s law
enforcement has engaged in "pin-map" policing — conducting "saturation patrol" in those geographical
spots with the most crime, or pins. Only recently, however, have we seen the academic and theoretical
credentialization of this pin-map approach, along with a more sophisticated scientific discourse promoting
the notion that the police need to "target aggregate populations," and social problems and spaces defined
as criminogenic "hot-spots." Considering the recent wave of U.S. Department of Justice research monies
targeted for police crime reduction programs and the political penchant for "get tough" measures, it
should not be surprising that some of the police action emanating from this "theoretical orientation"
includes paramilitary drug raids and patrol tactics. Significantly, the resurrection of these efforts are often
governmentally sponsored and touted in police academic circles as "scientific experiments" and
"problem-solving" tactics (Hoover 1996; MacKenzie and Uchida 1994; Sherman and Erez 1995). Again,
it takes little acumen to recognize how the metaphor of "war" — with its emphasis on occupation,
suppression through force, and restoration of territory — coincides naturally with the "new science" of the
police targeting and taking control, indeed ownership, of politically defined social spaces, aggregate
populations, and social problems with military-style teams and tactics. On a broader level, this research
demonstrates the necessity of widening our theoretical gaze to include the police institution's larger role,
nationally and internationally, in wielding and maintaining state power, particularly as these processes
relate to militarization. The converging trends of the militarization of police and police-ization of the
military in the post Cold War era renders Enloe's (1980:8) admonishment to social, political, and police
analysts even more compelling: "the military and police in any state have to be considered in a common
framework. Police and military analysts too often follow separate lines of inquiry; this blinds them to the
mutually dependent relationship the police and military have in reality in any state." The streamlining of
these two use-of-force entities raises questions about the taken-for-granted separation between the
military and police as a tenet of U.S. democratic governance. C. Wright Mills (1970:246) expressed
concern for what he called the newly emerging means of violence — referring to the military-industrial
complex. The trends identified here, in conjunction with the escalation of the "crime control industry"
(Christie 1994), may portend an inwardly focused and more subtle "emerging means of violence": a form
of paramilitarized violence found in a rapidly expanding criminal justice-industrial complex, with both
ideological and material connections to the military-industrial complex.

Militarized police units disproportionally affect black and immigrant communities

Mummolo, Princeton University Politics and Public Affairs Assistant Professor, 18
[Jonathan, 8-20-18, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America,
“Militarization fails to enhance police safety or reduce crime but may harm police reputation,”
https://www.pnas.org/content/115/37/9181, accessed 7-12-19, JL]
Aggressive policing strategies have historically been disproportionately applied to citizens of color
in ways that serve to preserve race- and class-based social hierarchies (3). The normalization of
militarized policing in the United States (15, 16) has raised concerns that a new, heavy-handed policing
strategy is being used in similar ways and is eroding public opinion toward law enforcement, but law
enforcement administrators defend the tactics claiming they can deter violent crime and protect police.
This study marshals an array of data sources and analytical techniques to systematically evaluate these
claims.
Consistent with anecdotal evidence (11), militarized police units are more often deployed in areas with
high concentrations of African Americans, even after adjusting for local crime rates and other community
traits. But I find no firm evidence that SWAT teams lower an agency’s violent crime rate or the rates at
which officers are killed or assaulted. Using survey experiments, I show that citizens react negatively to
the appearance of militarized police units in news reports and become less willing to fund police agencies
and less supportive of having police patrols in their own neighborhoods.
Given the concentration of deployments in communities of color, where trust in law enforcement and
government at large is already depressed (14, 38), the routine use of militarized police tactics by local
agencies threatens to increase the historic tensions between marginalized groups and the state with no
detectable public safety benefit. While SWAT teams arguably remain a necessary tool for violent
emergency situations, restricting their use to those rare events may improve perceptions of police with
little or no safety loss.

Police departments that receive weapons from the 1033 program are more likely to
use deadly force
Bates, Cato’s Project Criminal Justice policy analyst, B.A. in Political Science from
the University of Miami, where he walked onto the Miami Hurricanes football team,
M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies, J.D. from the University of Michigan, 17
[Adam, 8-29-17, Cato Institute, “Militarization Makes Police More Violent,”
https://www.cato.org/blog/militarization-makes-police-more-violent, accessed 7-13-19, JL]
When Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced yesterday the Trump Administration’s repeal an
Obama-era rule limiting the distribution of certain military equipment (such as tracked vehicles,
camouflage uniforms, high-powered rifles, bayonets, and grenade launchers), he dismissed concerns
about police militarization as “superficial.” The evidence suggests otherwise: militarization makes police
more violent.
Earlier this year, a study conducted by researchers from Harvard, Stanford, Cincinnati, and Gardner-
Webb concluded that the Pentagon’s 1033 weapons transfer program made participating departments
more likely to engage in deadly violence. After receiving 1033 gear, departments were more likely to kill
civilians as well as dogs. The researchers included the number of dog killings by police (which, according
to the Department of Justice, number around 10,000 a year) in order to control for possible variations in
human behavior during the period of the study.
The study found:
1033 receipts are associated with both an increase in the number of observed police killings in a given
year as well as the change in the number of police killings from year to year, controlling for a battery of
possible confounding variables including county wealth, racial makeup, civilian drug use, and violent
crime.
[D]ue to concerns of endogeneity, we re–estimate our regressions using an alternative dependent variable
independent of the process by which LEAs request and receive military goods: the number of dogs killed
by LEAs. We find 1033 receipts are associated with an increase in the number of civilian dogs killed by
police. Combined, our analyses provide support for the argument that 1033 receipts lead to more LEA
violence.
The researchers pointed to four areas of militarization that drive the increase in violence:
[W]e argue that increasing LEA access to military equipment will lead to higher levels of aggregate LEA
violence. The effect occurs because the equipment leads to a culture of militarization over four
dimensions: material; cultural; organizational; and operational. As militarization seeps into their cultures,
LEAs rely more on violence to solve problems.
It turns out that having a hammer really does make everything look more like a nail.
But what if that increased violence is justified by increased police readiness to deal with emergency
situations?
When asked to justify the push for militarization, many law enforcement agencies are quick to point to
terrorist attacks and mass murders as a justification for the equipment. Indeed we can imagine situations
in which the police might legitimately need grenade launchers or .50 caliber rifles (though the thousands
of bayonets local cops have taken from the federal government may be tougher to explain).
But such events are exceedingly rare, while history proves that the police deployment of militarized
weapons and tactics will not be. Police routinely cite rare hypothetical emergencies to justify tactics and
policies that end up becoming far more routine and abusive.
SWAT teams were originally designed to handle hostage situations and active shooters. Today they often
function as hyper-violent warrant servers, as the number of SWAT raids has ballooned from hundreds per
year to tens of thousands and responding to hostage situations has given way to serving search and drug
warrants.
Police defend civil asset forfeiture with appeals to “taking the profit out” of terrorist organizations and
drug cartels, but black market drug profits remains strong as thousands of regular Americans have their
property taken without charge or trial.
Law enforcement agencies purchase military-grade surveillance devices such as Stingray cell phone
trackers with terrorism grant money, and justify the outrageous secrecy that shrouds them on national
security grounds, but they’re virtually never used for terrorism investigations, instead being deployed
thousands of times for routine law enforcement investigations as an end-around the warrant requirement.
In other words, military weapons and tactics are inevitably used far more often in everyday policework
than in the rare situations that supposedly justify them.
Contrary to Attorney General Sessions’ dismissal, the damage done by these government policies is
not “superficial.” It’s not superficial when a SWAT team throws a flash grenade in a baby’s crib
and disfigures the infant’s face, or when a family’s life is ruined by militarized police looking for
tea leaves, or when protesters find themselves staring down the barrels of sniper rifles and accosted
by masked, camo-wearing, rifle-toting police units.
Combined with President Trump’s recent pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio (who is no stranger to overly
violent militarized raids and was convicted for repeatedly violating people’s rights in defiance of a court
order), this move sends a strong message that police restraint and accountability are taking a back
seat in this administration.

The 1033 program encourages harmful relations between law enforcement and the
public
Vitale, Brooklyn College Policing sociology professor, and Social Justice Project
coordinator, and author of The End of Policing, 17
[Alex S., 8-29-17, Fortune, “Trump Is Trying to Militarize the Police. It Won’t Make Us Any Safer.,”
https://fortune.com/2017/08/29/trump-military-police-equipment-1033-program-obama/, accessed 7-7-19,
JL]
President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced this week that they will be
suspending a handful of restrictions put in place by the Obama administration on transfers of equipment
from the military to local police. While this decision is a setback for efforts to improve police community
relations, its effects are primarily symbolic.
The federal 1033 Program allows local police departments to request excess equipment from the Defense
Department. Everything from microwaves to helicopters is included on the extensive shopping lists
distributed to police. Since its creation in 1997, the program has distributed over $5 billion worth of
hardware to over 8,000 police departments.
Following the militarized policing of protests in Ferguson, Mo. in 2014, police accountability activists
and civil liberties advocates on the right and left raised serious concerns about the appropriateness of
much of this hardware for civilian police forces. In addition to the bad optics, critics pointed out that this
program, combined with the Department of Homeland Security’s “terrorism grants” worth another $35
billion, have contributed to a militarization of domestic policing and the rise of a warrior mentality.
Over the last generation there has been an explosion in the prevalence and mission of SWAT teams and
other paramilitary police units. Radley Balko, in his book The Rise of the Warrior Cop, shows how these
units generally lack appropriate enforcement activities, so have creeped into new areas such as serving
low-level drug warrants and intimidating protesters.
This kind of policing and the extensive training that goes with it tends to treat every police encounter as
potentially deadly and instills an “us versus them” ethos within police ranks. That, combined with a
robust “war on drugs,” “war on crime,” and “war on terror” has created a growing gulf between citizens
and the police that is especially true in communities of color.
The Obama administration recognized how this warrior mindset is contributing to poor police community
relations and argued that it should be replaced with a guardian mindset that more closely mirrors a “to
serve and protect” approach that many feel has been abandoned in recent years.
In response, the Obama administration placed some restrictions on the hardware that can be transferred.
Tracked vehicles, bayonets, and grenade launchers would no longer be allowed. Mine-resistant vehicles,
sniper rifles, and military transport planes, however, remained available with few questions asked. In fact
the Government Accounting Office, as part of an audit, recently obtained $1.2 million worth of military
grade equipment from the Defense Department under assumed names and made up police departments.
The Obama-era reforms were so thin, in fact, that they have done little to turn back the tide of police
militarization. Departments continue to obtain billions of dollars of military equipment to be used
primarily for paramilitary police units. Some departments have even voluntarily sworn off the newly
reauthorized equipment. The Los Angeles Police Department announced this week that it has no interest
in obtaining camouflaged uniforms or .50 caliber ammunition that was prohibited by the Obama reforms,
since they have no legitimate law enforcement purpose and undermine public trust in the police.
So why then are Trump and Sessions championing these changes as a boon to public safety? Because it is
part of the political theater of punishment and control. Sessions’s ramping up of the war on drugs, and
Trump’s pardon of Sheriff Joe Arpaio are not about enhancing public safety; they are appeals to a politics
of anger and resentment that is tied to a belief that the only way to solve public safety problems is through
“getting tough.” Trump and Sessions are encouraging their supporters, including many police officers, to
embrace a politics of branding immigrants, people of color, and people who commit crime as beyond the
pale and deserving of the harshest of sanctions. It is this mindset that is the real threat to public safety.
Former police officer and now law professor Seth Stoughton  tweeted Monday that this change “isn’t
about getting [officers] tools they didn’t have & couldn’t get.” He continued, “Instead, it’s [about]
promoting a toxic approach to policing, one that reduces trust & effectiveness and endangers officers &
civilians alike.”
It’s time to take a much bigger step to end police militarization than the changes implemented by the
Obama administration. The 1033 and Terrorism Grants programs should be abandoned or completely
rethought. Given the catastrophe in Houston this week, it’s clear that what local officials really need from
the federal government to enhance public safety are high-water vehicles and swift water rescue boats, not
tanks and bayonets.
 Impact – AT: Militarization Good – Safety
Militarized policing doesn’t increase safety – just alienates public, specifically in
minority communities.
Jacobs, Pacific Standard senior staff writer, 18 [Tom, 8/20/18, “The Militarization of Police
Does Not Reduce Crime”, https://psmag.com/social-justice/militarization-of-police-does-not-reduce-
crime, 7/7/19, PD]
The militarization of America's police has been hotly debated in recent years. Critics argue that
effectively turning cops into soldiers risks alienating them from the communities they supposedly serve.
New research provides evidence supporting such warnings. It finds the use of SWAT teams—perhaps the
most common and visible form of militarized policing—neither reduces crime nor enhances public safety.
It reports this aggressive approach to law enforcement is disproportionately used in minority
communities. And finally, it finds portraying officers in military gear decreases public support for the
police.
"Curtailing militarized police may be in the interest of both police and citizens," concludes Jonathan
Mummolo, an assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University. His study is
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Mummolo measured the impact of militarization using a variety of methods. Among his data sources
were "a nationwide panel measuring the presence of active SWAT teams," and a list of every SWAT team
deployment in the state of Maryland over a five-year period (8,200 in all).
"SWAT teams," he notes, "often received advanced combat training," and their formation "represents a
heightened commitment to the use of militarized equipment and tactics."
He found "the vast majority of SWAT deployments occur in connection with non-emergency scenarios,
predominately to serve search warrants." What's more, these teams "are more often deployed in areas with
high concentrations of African-Americans, even after adjusting for local crime rates."
Perhaps most importantly, he reports "there is no evidence that acquiring a SWAT team lowers crime, or
promotes officer safety." All in all, he adds, "the benefits of increased deployments appear to be either
small or nonexistent."
But there are costs involved, as the second part of the study shows. Mummolo conducted two studies of
Americans' attitudes toward the police: one online, featuring 1,566 people, and another conducted by
Survey Sampling International, featuring 4,465 people.
Participants read a fictitious news article in which a police chief argues his department deserves a larger
budget. The report was paired with a one of four photos featuring a group of policemen "standing guard
during a local protest."
The images depicted various degrees of militarization, ranging from one in which five officers stand in
traditional uniforms to another featuring cops in riot gear posing with an armored vehicle. Participants
were then asked about their support for police spending and their confidence in the force.
The results: Seeing the armored-vehicle photo "caused support for police funding in the United States to
fall by roughly four points in the (online) survey, and two points in the SSI survey," Mummolo reports.
"Support for funding the department in the news article also fell."
Strikingly, among people taking the latter survey, viewing that image also led to "a 3.2 point drop in
respondents' desire for more police patrols in their own neighborhoods."
It seems few people are enthused about having a pseudo-army patrolling their streets. And they assume a
police force that can afford that kind of equipment doesn't need additional taxpayer dollars.
Overall, "the routine use of militarized police tactics by local agencies threatens to increase the
historic tensions between marginalized groups and the state, with no detectable public safety
benefit," Mummolo concludes. "While SWAT teams arguably remain a necessary tool for violent
emergency situations, restricting their use to those rare events may improve perceptions of police with
little or no safety loss."
Attorney General Jeff Sessions might want to rethink his support for a plan in which surplus military gear
is passed on to police forces. This research suggests the benefits are negligible at best, while the costs are
quite real.
 Impact – AT: Militarization Key to Counter-terrorism
Impact NUQ and No Solvency – domestic terrorism has seen a recent spike and law
enforcement can’t solve because of First Amendment protections
Perez, CNN Justice Correspondent, 19(Evan Perez, 6-28-2019, CNN, "FBI has seen significant
rise in white supremacist domestic terrorism in recent months",
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/23/politics/fbi-white-supremacist-domestic-terror/index.html, 7-16-2019,
JT)
The FBI has seen a significant rise in the number of white supremacist domestic terrorism cases in recent
months, a senior FBI counterterrorism official said Thursday.
The official said the FBI has been grappling with the rise of domestic threats while international terror
threats have remained constant with the fall of the ISIS caliphate in Syria.
The domestic terror cases generally include suspects involved in violence related to anti-government
views, racial or religious bias, environmental extremism and abortion-related views.
The FBI wouldn't provide specific numbers to quantify the increase of in the number of white supremacist
domestic terrorism cases. Unlike international terrorism investigations, domestic terrorism cases pose
thornier issues for the FBI because of First Amendment protections. The US doesn't have a domestic
terrorism law and no government agency designates domestic groups as being terrorist organizations.
That means many cases the FBI calls domestic terror-related end up with a variety of charges for
violations of laws related to guns or even other state charges.
In 2017, there were about 150 arrests on charges the FBI classifies as domestic terror, and about 120 in
2018. The official said the FBI is on course to match or exceed those numbers this fiscal year.
Overall, the FBI has about 5,000 terrorism-related investigations open, including 850 related to domestic
terrorism, according to the official. About 1,000 are related to ISIS or other affiliated groups, and another
1,000 are for homegrown violent extremism.

Militarization does not help counterterror efforts - the weapons are used for
everyday patrol instead
Rizer, U.S. Department of Justice trial attorney and former Washington State police
officer, and Hartman, lawyer and Georgetown University government doctoral
candidate, 11
[Arthur and Joseph, 11-7-11, The Atlantic, “How the War on Terror Has Militarized the Police,”
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/11/how-the-war-on-terror-has-militarized-the-
police/248047/, accessed 7-12-19, JL]
In an effort to remedy their relative inadequacy in dealing with terrorism on U.S. soil, police forces
throughout the country have purchased military equipment, adopted military training, and sought to
inculcate a "soldier's mentality" among their ranks. Though the reasons for this increasing militarization
of American police forces seem obvious, the dangerous side effects are somewhat less apparent.
Undoubtedly, American police departments have substantially increased their use of military-grade
equipment and weaponry to perform their counterterrorism duties, adopting everything from body armor
to, in some cases, attack helicopters. The logic behind this is understandable. If superior, military-grade
equipment helps the police catch more criminals and avert, or at least reduce, the threat of a domestic
terror attack, then we ought deem it an instance of positive sharing of technology — right? Not
necessarily. Indeed, experts in the legal community have raised serious concerns that allowing civilian
law enforcement to use military technology runs the risk of blurring the distinction between soldiers and
peace officers.
This is especially true in cases where, much to the chagrin of civil liberty advocates, police departments
have employed their newly acquired military weaponry not only to combat terrorism but also for
everyday patrolling. Before 9/11, the usual heavy weaponry available to a small-town police officer
consisted of a standard pump-action shot gun, perhaps a high power rifle, and possibly a surplus M-16,
which would usually have been kept in the trunk of the supervising officer's vehicle. Now, police officers
routinely walk the beat armed with assault rifles and garbed in black full-battle uniforms. When one of us,
Arthur Rizer, returned from active duty in Iraq, he saw a police officer at the Minneapolis airport armed
with a M4 carbine assault rifle — the very same rifle Arthur carried during his combat tour in Fallujah.
 Impact – Crime
The 1033 program decreases public safety and exacerbates crime by reducing trust
in law enforcement
Franklin, Executive Director, Law Enforcement Action Partnership, 17
[Neill, 9-1-17, ACLU, “Retired Police Major: Police Militarization Endangers Public Safety,”
https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police-practices/retired-police-major-police-
militarization, accessed 7-8-19, JL]
This week, the Trump administration revoked President Obama’s Executive Order 13688, which limited
the scope of a federal program that allows state and local police departments to obtain military equipment
free of charge – and without oversight or training in how to use it. After spending 34 years as a police
officer, I’m convinced that the 1033 Program has been one of the single greatest contributors to the public
losing trust in law enforcement.
Scrapping Executive Order 13688 means police departments will again have unfettered access to high
caliber guns, grenade launchers, and armored vehicles, among other forms of military equipment. During
a time when criminal justice and police reform have bipartisan support, this decision shows a clear
misunderstanding both of what Americans want and, more perilously, of what’s truly effective at
improving public safety.
Scenes from Ferguson, Missouri, helped create better awareness of the 1033 Program throughout the
country. The public demanded to know why police who were sent to keep the peace during a protest were
indistinguishable from soldiers at war. This is not the peace officer I was trained to be when I joined the
force.
Beyond causing terror in individuals and families whose homes are raided with police armed with
military weapons, the use of such equipment for regular police work damages police-community
relations. Militarization has eroded public trust in police, the effectiveness of law enforcement overall,
and ultimately, public safety.
Officers need to engage in crime prevention and crime fighting activities that work. They do not need to
participate in programs that waste resources and create dangerous situations for both law enforcement and
the public. In the SWAT raids studied by the ACLU for its 2013 report, War Comes Home, 79 percent of
SWAT deployments were issued to execute search warrants, mostly for drugs. Somewhere between 36
and 65 percent of those drug searches resulted in no discovery of illegal contraband. Even if everything
goes smoothly and nobody gets injured or killed during a raid, it’s still an enormous waste of time and
extremely dangerous for both officers and civilians.
An all-too-common SWAT scenario is one where SWAT’s involvement escalates a nonviolent situation
into a deadly one. Imagine that you are awoken at dawn by the sound of men shouting and battering down
your door. You can’t hear what the voices are saying, but you realize your home is being invaded. Your
instinct tells you to grab your lawfully owned gun and face the intruders. You race downstairs and make it
to the front door only to find the intruders are police – and they think you have drugs. The police are
scared of an armed man running toward them, and you’re barely awake. You’re confused. And then shots
are fired. Nobody remembers who pull ed the trigger first.
With each of these incidents, public trust in the police erodes. Research shows people who don’t trust
police are less likely to report a crime, and I can tell you from experience it makes them much less likely
to cooperate in investigations. Without the community to help us, police work — the hard work of solving
rapes and homicides and kidnappings — becomes nearly impossible. This means our “crime reduction”
strategy of deploying SWAT teams is paradoxically creating an environment in which it’s harder for
police to solve crimes and protect people.
AFF
 2AC – No Uniqueness – Trump

Trump already loosened 1033 restrictions - weapon increase happens anyway

Lopez, Vox senior correspondent, 17
[German, 8-28-17, Vox, “Trump’s plan to give police easier access to military weapons, explained,”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/28/16214600/trump-police-military-sessions, accessed
7-13-19, JL]
The Trump administration is taking steps to ensure more police officers can equip themselves with
camouflage uniforms, bayonets, and even grenade launchers.
On Monday, President Donald Trump issued an executive order reversing rules by former President
Barack Obama that restricted police departments’ ability to obtain surplus military weapons. The Obama-
era restrictions curtailed programs, such as the 1033 program, that effectively let police obtain excess
military gear from federal agencies for free or through federal dollars.
Obama’s 2015 rules were a response to protests in Ferguson, Missouri, over the police shooting
of Michael Brown, in which cops used military-grade equipment to counter the protests — a move that
many critics at the time considered excessive, given that the demonstrations were mostly peaceful.
The Trump administration has argued that military equipment is necessary for police to do their jobs in a
safe manner. “I am here to announce that President Trump is issuing an executive order that will make it
easier to protect yourselves and your communities,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at a conference
by the National Fraternal Order of Police on Monday.

Weapons distribution from the 1033 program is already increasing due to Trump
Johnson, US Representative for Georgia's fourth congressional district, House
Armed Services and Judiciary Committees member, 17
[Hank, 8-31-17, The Guardian, “President Trump is giving police forces weapons of war. This is
dangerous,” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/31/president-trump-giving-police-
weapons-of-war-executive-order, accessed 7-13-19, JL]
The president has signed an executive order that will reopen the floodgates of military-grade
weaponry entering American streets
Congressman Hank Johnson is the US Representative for Georgia’s fourth congressional district and a
member of the House Armed Services and Judiciary Committees
“A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.” –
James Madison, Constitutional Convention (1787).
Our Founders opposed using a standing army to patrol our streets, and for good reason. While most of
America is rightfully focused on the destructive path left in the wake of tropical storm Harvey this week,
Donald Trump lifted the ban on certain military-grade weapons and equipment available from the
Pentagon to our local police forces across the nation.
Trump’s unwise and ill-considered executive order reopening the floodgates of free surplus military-
grade weaponry (as reported on CNN) from war zones across the world straight onto the streets of
American cities, towns and university campuses, is the fulfillment of a campaign promise to the law
enforcement lobby.
It is not just bad policy – it’s dangerous.
Before Barack Obama signed an executive order in 2015 limiting the transfer of certain types of military
equipment under the Pentagon’s 1033 Program, the Department of Defense transferred more than $5bn in
surplus military equipment directly to police agencies across the nation.
 2AC – No Link / Internal Link – 1033 and Arms Not Key
No link & 1033 not key – the DHS accounts for $34 billion of police militarization
and 1033 arms come from US presence in wars – not sales
Doherty, University of Southern California Gould School of Law Southern
California Interdisciplinary Law Journal Staff Writer, 16 (Joseph, 4-8-18, Southern
California Interdisciplinary Law Journal, “US VS. THEM: THE MILITARIZATION OF AMERICAN
LAW ENFORCEMENT AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECT ON POLICE OFFICERS &
CIVILIANS”, Vol. 24, Pg. 439, JT)
In response to the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in
Washington, D.C., the federal government created the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”).261
This new office set up a massive source of funding for civilian police departments across the nation to
build up their arsenals and for small towns to start-up more SWAT teams for the purpose of fighting
terror.262 Since its creation, DHS has been providing “anti-terrorist” grants to civilian police departments
in smaller towns for the purchase of military-grade armored vehicles, tanks, surveillance drones, machine
guns, grenade launchers, armor, camouflage “battle-dress” uniforms, ammunition, and aircraft.263 In
2011, the Center for Investigative Reporting (“CIR”) conducted a report on the DHS grants and found
that since its inception, the DHS has provided civilian law enforcement with grants of $34 billion. 264
Whereas the Department of Defense provides civilian police departments with “surplus” military
equipment left over from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan directly through 440 Southern California
Interdisciplinary Law Journal [Vol. 25:415 the 1033 program, DHS grants provide funds to purchase
more military equipment through private weapons manufacturers such as Lenco, Lockheed Martin, and
Blackhawk Industries. 265 In addition to selling weapons, these manufacturers also sponsor training
events for SWAT teams, like Urban Shield, a major arms expo held in California in 2013.266 These
manufacturers, who had previously only served the Pentagon, have shifted their focus to civilian police
departments, hoping to profit from the homeland security market. 267 The argument made by civilian
police departments is that the military equipment provided by the 1033 program and DHS grants are
necessary “‘just in case’” of a terrorist threat.268 But in the absence of actual terrorist attacks, 269 the
military equipment and weapons are used by SWAT teams in routine situations, such as low-level drug
raids, the execution of search warrants, or to repress civilian protests such as the World Trade
Organization protests in Seattle, Washington in 1999, the wave of Occupy Wall Street protests across
America in 2011, and the 2014 protests sparked by the killing of unarmed African-Americans by white
police officers in Ferguson, Missouri and Staten Island, New York.270 The result of the militarization of
civilian police departments throughout the nation, as demonstrated at these events, has effectively turned
civilian police officers who are sworn to protect and serve civilian communities, into a standing army
against them.271

The 1033 program isn’t key to police militarization

Ackerman, Guardian national security editor, Pulitzer Prize winner, 14
[Spencer, 8-20-14, The Guardian, “US police given billions from Homeland Security for 'tactical'
equipment,” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/20/police-billions-homeland-security-
military-equipment, accessed 7-12-19, JL]
Billions of federal dollars have been spent since September 11 on purchasing modern and often military-
grade equipment for state and local police. But there is little that limits the use of that hardware to
counter-terrorism purposes, and oversight of the spending is difficult, according to federal sources and
documents reviewed by the Guardian.
In the wake of the Ferguson protests, much attention has gone to the Department of Defense’s
program to supply surplus military equipment to police. But that program is eclipsed in size and
scope by grant money from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which enables purchases
of similar “tactical” equipment.
Under existing federal requirements, police departments and state law enforcement agencies do not need
to spend much of that money on preventing terrorism or preparing for disaster relief.
The Department of Homeland Security would not say whether it plans to review any of its grant programs
in light of the controversy surrounding the deployment of military-style gear on the streets of Ferguson.
One of its main congressional overseers told the Guardian he plans to “continue” scrutiny of the grants,
while praising them as necessary.
During the current fiscal year, DHS plans to award $1.6bn in grant money for state, local and tribal
agencies, mostly to aid them with counterterrorism, border security and disaster preparedness, it
announced last month. By contrast, the Defense Department’s “1033” program to transfer surplus
military gear gave out less than $500m worth of equipment in fiscal 2013.
Two grant programs in particular, awarded through the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(Fema), provide the lion’s share of the DHS money: the State Homeland Security Program and the
Urban Areas Security Initiative.
The former program provides federal dollars to states, while the latter funds cities and metro areas
directly. The State Homeland Security Program will disburse over $401m this year for “planning,
organization, equipment, training and exercise needs” relevant to preventing and responding to “acts of
terrorism and other catastrophic events”.
 2AC—No Link – Decomission
No link—the 1033 program gets weapons from decommissioned US weapons—not
from arms exports
Davenport, RAND Senior Policy Researcher, et al., 18 [Aaron C. Davenport, Senior Policy
Researcher, Jonathan William Welburn, Associate Operations Researcher, Andrew Lauland, Senior
International/Defense Researcher, Annelise Pietenpol, contributing author, Marc Robbins, contributing
author, Erin Rebhan, Lead Communications Analyst, Patricia Boren, contributing author, K. Jack Riley,
Vice President, RAND National Security Research Division, 2018, RAND, "An Evaluation of the
Department of Defense's Excess Property Program: Law Enforcement Agency Equipment Acquisition
Policies, Findings, and Options," https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2464.html, accessed 7-
16-2019, //EJA] Note: LESO is another term for the 1033 program
K. Jack RileyDoD Excess Property Transfer and Disposal Time Line The transfer process starts
when one of the military services or components determines that a piece of equipment is no longer
necessary. Whenever this happens (on a revolving basis), the equipment is entered into the DoD
supply system and assigned a demilitarization code. DLA validates the code when the property is
turned in. The codes indicate whether the property is available for reuse with or without restriction,
such as removal of any sensitive technology, classified components, or trade security control.1 Once
processed by DLA Disposition Services, the equipment is redistributed for (1) reuse inside DoD, (2)
transfer to organizations through special programs (e.g., LESO), (3) transfer to other federal agencies,
(4) donation to state and local agencies or other organizations other than LEAs, or (5) sale or destruction
if it remains unclaimed. Figure 2.1 provides a time line of the disposal process. LESO is one of the
“special programs” mentioned on the left side of the time line.
 2AC—Link Indict
They have it wrong—excess DoD weapons go to FMS—not the other way around
Grasso, Specialist in Defense Acquisition, 14
[Valerie Bailey Grasso, 9-5-2014, Congressional Research Service, “Defense Surplus Equipment
Disposal, Including the Law Enforcement 1033 Program,” https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS20549.pdf,
accessed 7-16-2019, //EJA]
The Reutilization/Transfer/Donation Program establishes a process for inventory considered no
longer needed by the Department of Defense (DOD) to be redistributed among various groups.3
Property disposal means redistributing, transferring, donating, selling, demilitarizing, destroying,
or other “end of life cycle” activities. Disposal is the final stage before the property leaves DOD’s
control.4 In some cases, the act of demilitarization—destroying the item’s military offensive and
defensive capability—accomplishes the intent of disposal.
Property is considered excess when one particular federal agency determines it is not needed for its
particular use, while property is considered surplus when it is no longer needed by the federal
government. Most property turned in to DLA Disposition Services by the military services is offered
for use in other DOD activities and to other federal agencies.
Property considered surplus can be reused, transferred, donated, or sold; potential recipients may
include law enforcement agencies, school systems, medical institutions, civic and community
organizations, libraries, homeless assistance providers, state and local government agencies, and the
public. During FY2008, about 56,000 military organizations and components turned in over 3.5
million items to DLA Disposition Services.5 About half of all surplus items are designated for the
foreign military sales program , and about half are made available to other government agencies,
eligible donees, or sold to the public.6
 1AR – Link Indict
No Link – equipment transferred through the 1033 program is all from existing
defense stocks – not sales surplus
Else, Congressional Research Service National Defense Specialist, 14 (Daniel H. Else, 8-
28-14, Congressional Research Service, “The “1033 Program,” Department of Defense Support to Law
Enforcement”, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R43701.pdf, 7-16-19, JT)
The following year, in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 1990 and 1991, Congress
created a pathway for DOD to directly transfer to federal and state agencies equipment (so-called
“personal property”) that was excess to the needs of the department and suitable for use in counter-drug
activities.8 Under Section 1208, the Secretary of Defense could transfer defense equipment, including
small arms and ammunition, from existing defense stocks without cost to the receiving agency. In
transferring such property, the Secretary of Defense was required to consult with the Attorney General
and the Director of National Drug Control Policy (the federal government’s so-called “drug czar”).9 The
act included a sunset provision that would have terminated this authority on September 30, 1992. This
termination date was extended to September 30, 1997 by the enactment of Section 1044 of the National
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1993.10

No Link and 1033 not key – 1033 equipment comes from former military gear, and
only 5% of equipment transferred are weapons
Turner, WBOC Video Journalist, 14
(Mikea Turner, 8-9-2014, WBOC, "Militarization of Police", https://content.wboc.com/military-surplus/,
7-16-2019, JT)
For more than a decade, the Law Enforcement Support Office, which facilitates the 1033 Program under
the National Defense Authorization Act, has cleared the way for police agencies to apply for equipment
that has been turned in by military units or held as part of reserve stocks until no longer needed.

According to the LESO, the 1033 Program has transferred more than $5.1 billion worth of property to
federal and state agencies. In 2013, $4.5 million in equipment was sent off to law enforcement agencies
that gained approval from the LESO.
Items used by the U.S. military range from clothing and office supplies to weapons and tactical vehicles.
Only 5 percent of military surplus constitutes weaponry and less than 1 percent are tactical vehicles,
according to the LESO.
The FBI has seen a significant rise in the number of white supremacist domestic terrorism cases in recent
months, a senior FBI counterterrorism official said Thursday.
 2AC—No Internal Link – Not Weapons
No internal link—the program is mostly used to trade general objejcts—not
weapons—and weapons face extra oversight
Davenport, RAND Senior Policy Researcher, et al., 18 [Aaron C. Davenport, Senior Policy
Researcher, Jonathan William Welburn, Associate Operations Researcher, Andrew Lauland, Senior
International/Defense Researcher, Annelise Pietenpol, contributing author, Marc Robbins, contributing
author, Erin Rebhan, Lead Communications Analyst, Patricia Boren, contributing author, K. Jack Riley,
Vice President, RAND National Security Research Division, 2018, RAND, "An Evaluation of the
Department of Defense's Excess Property Program: Law Enforcement Agency Equipment Acquisition
Policies, Findings, and Options," https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2464.html, accessed 7-
16-2019, //EJA] Note: LESO is another term for the 1033 program
Much of the equipment transferred by LESO is not controversial. Items such as office furniture,
trailers, emergency generators and lighting, computers, and first aid and personal protective
equipment help augment law enforcement activities, generally without creating the impression of
contributing to the militarization of the police. Program participants use the military excess
property to augment their resources and help meet their special equipment requirements for less
routine activities, such as mass casualty response, natural and manmade disaster assistance, and large
security events or civil disobedience incidents. However, LESO has long recognized the potential for
transfer of military equipment to be viewed differently. For more than a decade, therefore, LESO has
designated transfers of certain military equipment—such as firearms, night vision goggles, and
most wheeled and tracked vehicles—as controlled. Controlled equipment has been subjected to
additional rules, including the need to make it available for periodic inspections and the
requirement to return it to LESO when no longer needed by the LEA. Additionally, controlled
equipment ownership is retained by DoD and never permanently transferred to LEAs.
 1AR—AT—Ferguson
No weapons from the program were used in Ferguson
Davenport, RAND Senior Policy Researcher, et al., 18 [Aaron C. Davenport, Senior Policy
Researcher, Jonathan William Welburn, Associate Operations Researcher, Andrew Lauland, Senior
International/Defense Researcher, Annelise Pietenpol, contributing author, Marc Robbins, contributing
author, Erin Rebhan, Lead Communications Analyst, Patricia Boren, contributing author, K. Jack Riley,
Vice President, RAND National Security Research Division, 2018, RAND, "An Evaluation of the
Department of Defense's Excess Property Program: Law Enforcement Agency Equipment Acquisition
Policies, Findings, and Options," https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2464.html, accessed 7-
16-2019, //EJA] Note: LESO is another term for the 1033 program
The 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer and the
subsequent police response to protests and riots led to scrutiny of LESO program transfers.
Although no LESO program equipment was involved in the events at Ferguson , the presence of
armored personnel carriers focused public attention on the use of military equipment by the police
and the relationship between transferred equipment, communities, and law enforcement. Some pointed to
police possession and use of military equipment as proof of the militarization of police and suggested
that the LESO program was a contributing factor. Proponents of the program, however, argued that
reuse of DoD equipment was good stewardship of taxpayer dollars and that it contributed to officer
and community safety.
 Militarization Good – Counter-Terrorism – 2AC
The 1033 program is necessary for counterterror
Kerik, former NYPD Commissioner, 17
[Bernard B., 9-8-17, TIME, “Ex–NYPD Commissioner: Why President Trump Is Right to Let Local
Police Buy Military Equipment,” https://time.com/4933453/trump-police-military-equipment/, accessed
7-11-19, JL]
Before the order was even released, much hand-wringing over the Trump White House’s reversal of the
previous Administration’s restrictions on the 1033 program began in earnest. The program is designed to
transfer obsolete military equipment from the Department of Defense to federal, state and local law
enforcement. In reality, the limitations did very little and included such things as bayonets and tracked
armored vehicles — items not particularly high on the wish list of a law enforcement agency.
Opposing the militarization of civilian law enforcement is well established across all political spectrums.
But it is not universal. Policing is a very local issue, and is best left as such. Resources are often scarce,
and decisions on policing are often made based on those financial realities. In instances where the needs
of public safety exceed the ability of the local jurisdiction to appropriate, federal assistance is a valued
and appreciated resource.
The federal government is not using the 1033 program to force law enforcement agencies to take military-
grade weapons and equipment. They are not showing up at the doorstep of your local sheriff’s office and
dropping off tanks and assault rifles unsolicited. All of the equipment transfers are at the request of the
local agency. And it is here that the accountability for the storage, display and use of the equipment
belongs. If there is a singular place to look to for responsibility when it comes to police militarization, it
absolutely is at the local level.
As far as federal programs go, 1033 is one of the least intrusive. Participation is completely voluntary.
Much of the equipment is germane to the role of local law enforcement, and it relieves the financial
burden of acquisition on resource-limited agencies to a certain extent by using taxpayer-funded
equipment in a repurposed role once it is no longer of value to the military. Federal distribution oversight
problems are extremely concerning, but are only tangential to the local policing issue.
Transparency in and oversight of the acquisition of military equipment belongs at the level of the
jurisdiction employing it. Whether at the state, county or local municipality, the voters can hold elected
officials accountable for the policing done in their respective jurisdictions, and those elected officials
need to be a part of the policing process. Militarization should not be considered some spontaneous
mutation of the police agency, but a process that has been allowed, encouraged or ignored by the
governing bodies in those jurisdictions.
Very few jurisdictions could independently afford the cost of some of the equipment the 1033 program
provides them with, such as MRAPs. These Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles are armored troop
carriers with a distinct military appearance, and are both awesome and intimidating. They are used to
protect our troops from roadside explosions and small arms fire in combat situations. Responding to
terrorist events in San Bernardino and the Pulse nightclub in Orlando provide two such examples where
they were needed and used as intended. When this equipment is truly needed, there is nothing else that
will suffice.
However, such incidents are rare, and the deployment of such equipment should reflect such infrequency.
There are good reasons to be concerned with the militarization of our civilian police forces. Militarization
blurs the lines between warfighters and civilian police, shifting the perception the public has of its police
officers and the perception our police officers have of their communities. Policing a free society is
different from a military patrol of hostile territory. If the police are seen as combatants, or the community
is seen as an enemy, we will have lost much of what makes America unique. But there are also good
reasons for our civilian police to have access to such equipment in true emergencies. A complete lack in
such capabilities would place localities in need of actual military assistance in times of true crisis, a
phenomenon generally repulsive to Americans.
Access to military equipment, as afforded by the 1033 program, need not be a catalyst toward the
militarization of our police in and of itself. Misuse of military equipment — whether during protests or
parades — is the responsibility of the law enforcement agency using it, not those who supplied it. Proper
oversight, community involvement in policy decisions and disciplined storage, display and use of the
equipment are essential in maintaining the precious balance of the police as both members of our
communities and an arm of our governments. Their honorable desire to protect their communities from
any danger that may present itself should be encouraged, but must be tempered with the realization that
they are public servants in the remaining time that makes up the vast majority of their job.

Incidents of domestic terror contribute to the growth of global white supremacist

groups - prevention by law enforcement is key to check
Watts, Foreign Policy Research Institute Distinguished Research Fellow, George
Washington University Center for Cyber and Homeland Security Senior Fellow,
former FBI Special Agent on a Joint Terrorism Task Force, 19
[Clint, 5-1-19, Foreign Policy Research Institute, “America Has A White Nationalist Terrorism Problem.
What Should We Do?” https://www.fpri.org/article/2019/05/america-has-a-white-nationalist-terrorism-
problem-what-should-we-do/, accessed 7-16-19, JL]
Lacking a central core leadership, white supremacists emerge from grass roots, online organizing. Each
attack inspires another one leading to a global network of online supporters spreading the ideology and
offering technical and tactical assistance when possible to further additional attacks. Whereas jihadists
needed money, training, weapons, and access to targets, white supremacists have easy access to African-
American, Jewish, Muslim, LGBT, and other minority group targets; enough money to self-finance
attacks; and plenty of weapons at their disposal. Continued successful attacks and online networking, if
not addressed holistically by Western law enforcement, will likely lead to further in-person networking at
rallies, movement to compounds domestically, or even regional or international white supremacist
enclaves that could lead to the formation of named, global white supremacist groups. If left unabated,
the pattern of jihadists (Top-down, Directed-Networked-Inspired) will reverse itself for white nationalist
terrorists as they grow in strength (Bottom-up, Inspired-Networked-Directed). A good current example of
this right-wing terrorist formation is Atomwaffen—a Neo-Nazi group linked to multiple murders in the
U.S.
The West should now worry equally about the global networking, state sponsorship, and facilitation of
right-wing extremists. Russia’s state-sponsored disinformation system amplifies racial divides in
America, boosts anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment globally, and helps act as connective tissue
linking like-minded white nationalist movements across the West. In Sweden, two of three bombers from
the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement received military training in Russia before returning home to
attack left-wing activists and a refugee home in Gothenburg. The Balkans and in particular Serbia, home
to a long history of ethnic strife, surface regularly in white nationalist terrorism discussions, appear
routinely in extremist circles, and may become an attractive hub for like-minded extremists seeking a new
home abroad over time. A reminder, the Christchurch mosque attacker, Brenton Tarrant, was not from
New Zealand, but Australia.