Talk-Polywell.org

We've said, "we're 'conservative, we're tough on crime." That's baloney. It's costing us billions and billions of dollars.

Think of California. California is spending more money on prisons than it spends on schools. There's something wrong about that equation.

We need to scrub the federal code and the state codes and take away these criminal penalties.

Putting people in jail at huge expense to the population is insanity.

Folks, we've gotta do something about this. We've just got to change the laws. We cannot allow this to continue. It is sapping our vitality.

What is it we're doing that is different? What we're doing is turning a bunch of liberals loose writing laws -- there's this punitive spirit, the always want to punish people.

It's time for change!

More and more prisons, more and more crime. It's just shocking, especially this business about drug offenses. It's time we stop locking up people for possession of marijuana. We just can't do it anymore...You don't lock 'em up for booze unless they kill somebody on the highway.

Inside the Navy wrote:Fraser: SOUTHCOM Can't Stop Two-Thirds Of Known Traffickers, Needs
More Maritime, ISR Assets
By Jordana Mishory, March 7, 2012

U.S. Southern Command and its partners lack the maritime assets needed to stop two-thirds of the traffickers they track, the command's top general said today. To achieve its mission of helping to halt transnational organized crime, SOUTHCOM's commander Gen. Douglas Fraser said he could use more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets, as well as more maritime capability that can be used to intercept illicit traffickers traveling through Caribbean and eastern Pacific waters.

Fraser said that ISR requirements top his integrated priority list. "I'm a combatant commander, I could always use more ISR," he said.
"We intercept about 33 percent of what we know is out there, and that's just a limitation on the number of assets," Fraser said during a breakfast with reporters today. He noted more traffickers are getting through.

SOUTHCOM gets information on when a vessel leaves a particular port and what specific vessels to look for, he said. The command has maritime patrol aircraft that can find and follow these ships, but it's a struggle to have vessels available and positioned correctly to intercept the boats. SOUTHCOM and its partners also struggle with catching up with aircraft when they land because there are a number of different airfields in each country, and the traffickers are able to quickly unload their wares in about 15 minutes. "You have to be very, very capable and have assets in the right place, right time to counter that," he said.

Specifically, SOUTHCOM needs ISR with a fully penetrating capability to spot forces hidden in dense jungle canopies, such as in Colombia and Peru, he noted. "This is really an R&D effort right now, it's an effort that we really haven't gotten to a what I would say a capable foliage penetrating capability yet fielded," he said, noting that vessels that can be fully submerged under water are being built in the jungles of South America.

Fraser also said his command is looking at a non-traditional ISR approach. "That non-traditional approach is, there is a lot of information throughout the region right now [about] a lot of different
things that are happening," he said. "And I'm convinced that when there is illicit activity happening, there is someone who knows what that illicit activity is and is talking about it in some manner. If we can start gaining awareness and access to that information, we could start putting it together."

Fraser also noted that he has been in talks with the Air Force about using MC-12 light support aircraft as they return from Afghanistan. Regarding the shortage of maritime capability, Fraser said SOUTHCOM is helping to build partner capacity, providing some interceptor vessels such as Boston Whalers with small maritime radars to enable the ships to communicate and get directions to where they need to be to intercept a vessel. He said they're also looking at taking all the assets international navies have available and putting them toward this effort.

In addition, the State and Defense departments are working on capturing "go fast" boats and converting them into interceptor vessels that chase down traffickers.

Part of this gap in the number of ships being provided is due to the fact the Navy is retiring several frigates that have traditionally been used in the interceptor role and the replacement Littoral Combat Ship is not yet fielded. "We're working with the Navy to see what other types of vessels and capabilities that's coming back from Iraq might be available," Fraser said.

Fraser noted the problem is a dynamic one, as traffickers adjust their tactics. For example, these traffickers have started distributing loads onto many vessels to require even more interceptors to stop them, he said.

choff wrote:This is hilarious, so long as the DEA gives the green light to CIA contracted drug smugglers then the war on drugs is a total fraud. They could easily interdict everything coming in with a fraction of what they use right now.

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them. - Frederick Douglass

MSimon wrote: 2. Start enforcing it equally in white neighborhoods - which will end it