Reviewed: Democrats’ latest legislative effort on police militarization

Speaking Security Newsletter | Advisory Note for Organizers and Candidates, n°47 | 26 September 2020

Situation

A group of Democrats wrote a letter to the leadership of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee to include language intended to reduce police militarization in the final version of the Fiscal Year 2021 NDAA.

^Source

Restrictions on military equipment are based on an amendment included in the Senate version of the NDAA (Sec. 1054), which the authors of the letter seem to think will “ensure” substantial progress.

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Content

Here’s the section from the Senate version of the NDAA that they’d like to see passed in the final (‘conference’) version of the FY2021 NDAA to reconcile police militarization. Highlighted are the prospective prohibited items.

^Source

This is a weaker version of Obama’s 2015 Executive Order

The amendment was written/introduced by a Republican, so no surprise here. Compare the prohibited items above with the prohibited items that fell under Obama’s (now revoked) 2015 Executive Order:

^Source

Even if the proposed legislation reintroduced Obama-era restrictions on the 1033 program, it would still be radically insufficient — borderline irrelevant — in confronting police militarization:

^Source

Conclusion

This shit isn’t going to work. So both federally and locally, we’ve still got to push for meaningful policy responses to police militarization.

Thanks for your time,

Stephen (@stephensemler; stephen@securityreform.org)

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