EPA Unleashes SWAT Team on Gold Miners During Routine Inspection
September 9th, 2013
In recent years, lawmakers have been arming and militarizing domestic federal agencies at an alarming rate. Police tactics fit for the apprehension of violent killers are being used during routine regulatory checkups. Business owners are often treated as though they are guilty until proven innocent when it comes to regulatory compliance.
Alaska Dispatch is reporting that the Environmental Protection Agency recently unleashed an armed raid on gold miners near Chicken, Alaska, a remote town with around 17 residents. Agents from a multi-jurisdictional task force came to check the mine’s compliance with the Clean Water Act. However, rather than sending a plainclothes inspector with a clipboard, the EPA dispatched stormtroopers with body armor and firearms, terrifying the miners, who might have initially confused the routine checkup for a robbery, put on by crooks posing as police officers.
The EPA Is Insensitive to the Serious Security Concerns of Gold Mines
Gold miners are known to possess a highly valuable type of commodity. As such, gold mines face uniquely serious security concerns. Much like banks, robbers sometimes target them with elaborate schemes. As such, it is quite reasonable for gold miners to think that an armed group of people dressed in body armor might be robbers, rather than police, especially considering the fact that EPA officials used to send out plainclothes inspectors, armed only with paperwork, during routine checkups on water quality.
CR Hammond, one of the gold miners cited in the above-linked article, said, “Imagine coming up to your diggings, only to see agents swarming over it like ants, wearing full body armor, with jackets that say POLICE emblazoned on them, and all packing side arms. How would you have felt? You would be wondering, ‘My God, what have I done now?’” The EPA’s overbearing show of force terrified the Alaskan miners.
The EPA’s Flimsy Excuse for Over-the-Top SWAT Tactics
Alaskan legislators contacted the EPA to determine their rationale for using such heavy-handed measures to perform a routine clean water checkup. Allegedly, the EPA sent out officers in paramilitary gear due to rumors of wild, unabated drug and human trafficking in the area. However, Alaskan law enforcement officials indicated that they were unaware of such rumors, which makes sense given the remote nature of the location, which has too small of a population to sustain any type of major black market activity. Obviously, there is no serious drug or human trafficking going on in Chicken, Alaska, considering the fact that there are only 17 permanent residents in the entire 150-mile area.
This situation points out the problem with the way the federal government deals with business regulations. Ideally, the courts would regulate business transactions by serving as a third-party arbitrator, ensuring that both parties honor the terms of their agreement. However, the federal government has flipped this on its head by creating a guilty-until-proven-innocent regulatory environment, in which un-elected bureaucrats create laws on behalf of the biggest corporations in a given industry, primarily to prevent competition by upstart small businesses.
Serious regulatory reform is needed. It’s time to disarm these bureaucrats before the situation slips too far out of control.
Silver Circle is showing now on Video on Demand platforms! Check it out on our watch online page and find out about local theater showings of the film and other special events on our -->event page -->.
