The EPA at work

From Alaska Dispatch:

Gold miners near Chicken cry foul over 'heavy-handed' EPA raids
When agents with the Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force surged out of the wilderness around the remote community of Chicken wearing body armor and jackets emblazoned with POLICE in big, bold letters, local placer miners didn�t quite know what to think.

Did it really take eight armed men and a squad-size display of paramilitary force to check for dirty water? Some of the miners, who run small businesses, say they felt intimidated.

Others wonder if the actions of the agents put everyone at risk. When your family business involves collecting gold far from nowhere, unusual behavior can be taken as a sign someone might be trying to stage a robbery. How is a remote placer miner to know the people in the jackets saying POLICE really are police?

Miners suggest it might have been better all around if officials had just shown up at the door -- as they used to do -- and said they wanted to check the water.

I love that little bit at the end: -- as they used to do --. This is another example of the ongoing militarization of our police forces and this needs to be reigned in. Of course, the EPA had nothing to say:

The EPA has refused to publicly explain why it used armed officers as part of what it called a �multi-jurisdictional� investigation of possible Clean Water Act violations in the area.

A conference call was held last week to address the investigation. On the line were members of the Alaska Congressional delegation, their staff, state officers, and the EPA. According to one Senate staffer, the federal agency said it decided to send in the task force armed and wearing body armor because of information it received from the Alaska State Troopers about �rampant drug and human trafficking going on in the area.�

The town has 17 year-round residents and is 140 miles away from any other sizable town or city. A wretched hive of scum and villainy...