The Obama administration and its “Task Force on 21st Century Policing” are under fire after unveiling an unconstitutional plot to impose federal “standards” on state and local police forces, which critics say is in effect an underhanded plan to further nationalize and federalize law enforcement. Widely lambasted as “Common Core” for police, the Obama plan outlines dozens of controversial “recommendations” to be foisted on state and local law-enforcement agencies using federal tax dollars as bribes — the same unconstitutional process used to impose the hugely unpopular national “Common Core” standards on states and schools nationwide. Opponents say it is part of a dangerous long-term plan that must be opposed.
The controversial Obama administration demands for national standards for police come a few months after United Nations boss Ban Ki Moon called for American police to obey “international standards.” The efforts to further nationalize and federalize law enforcement — a state and local responsibility under America’s constitutional system — are also in line with Obama’s campaign rhetoric about building a “civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the U.S. military. Of course, as Congress revealed in an official report, the Communist effort to nationalize American police forces goes back decades.
The Justice Department agency that would be responsible for bribing and bludgeoning police agencies into submission to Obama’s “national standards” is also among the outfits that have been abused to militarize law enforcement all across America. As The New American reported last year amid the George Soros-funded chaos in Ferguson, Obama attacked the militarization of law enforcement — even though his administration has played a crucial role in militarizing police departments nationwide. The federal government, of course, has no constitutional authority to meddle in state and local law enforcement to begin with.
After meeting with his “task force” on “21st century policing,” created via executive order, Obama celebrated the scheme to bring law enforcement further under the control of his administration. He also argued that it must be done quickly. “I’m going to be asking Eric Holder and the Justice Department and his successor to go through all of these recommendations so that we can start implementing them,” Obama explained. “I know one area that’s going to be of great interest is whether we can expand the [DOJ Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS)] program that in the past has been very effective, continues to be effective, but is largely underfunded.”
To Obama, of course, virtually every unconstitutional bloated federal agency and program is “underfunded.” However, in reality, the Constitution he swore to uphold does not authorize a “COPS” program or anything like it, so any funding at all is too much funding based on the obective standard laid out in the Supreme Law of the Land. As the interim report was being released on March 2, though, Obama glossed over those issues, saying the plot offered a “great opportunity” to “really transform how we think about community law enforcement relations.” “We need to seize that opportunity,” Obama added, echoing the “never let a crisis go to waste” rhetoric of other statists. “This is something that I’m going to stay very focused on in the months to come.”
According to the interim report by Obama’s task force, two DOJ tentacles, the COPS scheme and the Office of Justice Programs, “should provide technical assistance and incentive funding to jurisdictions with small police agencies that take steps toward shared services, in return for receiving federal funds.” Why the federal government cares whether small police departments share services was not entirely clear, though critics see a transparent effort to further strip local communities of their right to self-government and local accountability. The Office of Justice Programs recently came under fire for providing taxpayer-funded grants to a “community group” in New York that participated in the production of a rap video literally promoting the murder of police officers.
The stepped-up federalization of law-enforcement scheming also involves bribing state and local law enforcement with U.S. tax dollars to feed even more information on citizens to Washington, D.C., bureaucracies already infamous for abusing sensitive and private information. “There is a lack of uniformity in data collection throughout law enforcement, and only patchwork methods of near real time information exists,” the controversial report complained. “These problems are especially critical in light of the threats from terrorism and cybercrime.” The Justice Department came under major criticism in 2012 after it was exposed training state and local police to link mainstream political activism with terrorism — including just the display of political bumper stickers!
Critics say Obama’s plan ought to be ringing alarm bells. “Americans everywhere should be very concerned about federal oversight of local police agencies,” explained former detective Jim Fitzgerald, the national field director for The John Birch Society, the parent organization of this magazine. The constitutionalist group, which has chapters in all 50 states, has been running a campaign for decades called “Support Your Local Police and Keep them Independent.” The effort is meant to, among other goals, protect local communities from having their police departments turned into tentacles of an all-powerful federal government.
“These steps to exercise and take control over police departments should raise a red flag among police officials and give deep concern to anyone who understands the history of national police forces,” continued Fitzgerald. “Have we so soon forgotten the Gestapo or the KGB, both national police agencies, that terrorized the citizens of Germany and Russia and led to the imprisonment and deaths of tens thousands of innocent men and women? Has there ever been a national police force that benefited the citizens who live under it? Never!”
Of course, as readers of The New American know well, the Department of Justice has long been criticized for its efforts to hijack control of local law enforcement from citizens and communities. The current head of the DOJ, Attorney General Eric Holder, remains in criminal contempt of Congress for trying to cover up his “Fast and Furious” arming of Mexican drug cartels — a plot that official documents showed was being exploited to advance more attacks on the gun rights of Americans. Several of the Obama administration’s “Fast and Furious” guns have turned up at crime scenes in which U.S. law-enforcement officers were murdered.
In 2013, meanwhile, the Justice Department was exposed working with an extremist anti-Christian group, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which inspired a deranged homosexual activist to attempt a mass-murder terrorist attack on a pro-family organization. The year before that, the DOJ was exposed demonizing Americans as potential terrorists for their political views in controversial “training programs” for state and local police. The abuses are almost endless, with more than two thirds of Americans saying the federal government is “out of control” and a threat to liberty.
The history behind efforts to nationalize police forces should also spark alarm over Obama’s plan. It is worth recalling that Communist efforts to nationalize local police forces across the United States date back to at least the 1960s. Toward that end, communist agitators, along with their front groups and useful idiots, have long created problems or exploited existing ones to drum up hatred and violence against police. In recent anti-police marches, communist-made signs and slogans were visible everywhere. But it is hardly a new development.
In an official 1961 report entitled “A Communist Plot Against the Free World Police,” the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. Congress explained how communist agents across the West were working to nationalize and federalize police forces — with a special focus on the United States. The explosive study documents, among other elements of the strategy, the forming of mobs to attack police. Obama’s own radical background and associations with communist terrorists — including launching his political career in the home of Castro-backed terrorist leader Bill Ayers — should provide further cause for concern. His racialist anti-police comments, blurted out every time a suitable incident emerges to be exploited, should also offer warnings of the true agenda.
In the end, the Constitution does not authorize Obama’s “national standards” for police, or the taxpayer-funded bribes being used to spread them nationwide. That means the scheme is unconstitutional on its face. Even if it were constitutional, though, history shows that it would be a terrible and dangerous idea. Police departments should be responsible to the communities that fund them and that they are supposed to serve — not Obama, Holder, or the UN and its “international standards.” To allow further federalization of America’s police agencies is a sure recipe for disaster.
Photo of President Barack Obama: AP Images
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU. He can be reached at
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