I was surprised to see a number of mine-resistant vehicles associated with very rural counties in Washington State. Not being completely sure whether a mine-resistant vehicle was a tank or not, I googled the term and came across this article:
“Here’s the thing,” Shellmyer says. “Washington, Iowa, has 8,000 people. We have an MRAP now. We have a SWAT team. We have [police] dogs, and we have a SWAT team transportation vehicle that’s not armored.
The city councilman began to think: “Goodness, this is overkill.”
If we're lucky, those massive armored vehicles will be parked behind the station, and left to deteriorate. They're so expensive to operate, small departments are loathe to actually use them. If we're unlucky, we get the events in Ferguson, MO.
I live in Puyallup, Washington and we've received (what I believe to be) an MRAP. (It looks like one, but I've yet to see it outside of the building so I haven't gotten a very good look at it.) It's housed in the police/fire station downtown.
But we have an MRAP. It might be Pierce County's MRAP, housed in our building, but even then compared to the rest of Washington state, Pierce County is pretty tame.
Operational costs will prevent most of the MRAPs from seeing any use. 6MPG is horrible, and fuel costs are a big budgetary item for most public safety departments.
IANAL, but I'm not actually sure datasets like these CAN be copyrighted. Copyright rewards "original creative expression", (Feist v. Rural Telephone Service) not just effort, and I know things like phone books and other databases aren't protected by copyright. Generally, compilation protection is limited to things like charts and graphs, were the author has actually shown creative input into how the data is presented or displayed.
EDIT: But just to be sure, I would recommend something is well understood and is aimed towards a general usage, such as a Creative Commons license of your choice http://creativecommons.org/choose/
If the dataset comes from the Gov't (e.g., Freedom of Info Act), one might argue that its public domain data. If its public domain, then slapping a license on it doesn't change anything.
If its not public domain, and you want people to use it fairly freely, Apache seems like a good license.
Disclaimer: i haven't thought about this very carefully before posting. Could be wrong.
One thing I do know is that @copiesofcopies is a former EFF guy that knows open source licensing. Ask him!
Roughly (I'm not a lawyer) data by itself is not copyright-able, but the organization and selection of data is, so most datasets do, in fact, have to come with a license to be usable.
Couple of random observations after looking at the data:
1) Looks like a contest where the winners are folks who are able to pull the biggest political strings in DC. It has nothing to do with forces needing anything. This was a free-for-all giveaway. It's all political.
2) In defense of DoD, once you build this crap, it's gotta go somewhere. Maybe some of these MRAPs could only be used for local parades. Local PDs do not need this junk, but the rest of the country doesn't need it either. Better dumping it on Deputy Joe than letting it rot. As long as Joe doesn't start getting delusions of terrorism.
3) A lot of the local rural counties where I live got M16s. I guess that seems useful. The M16 is a fine rifle, and if you could get every one of your cops a proven rifle it sure beats trying to get the poor local governments to pay for them. The cities are a different story: much better connected and with more resources (and ambition?) to screw as much out of the system as possible. The nearest city to me is getting all kinds of idiotic stuff. Do we really need 20 $4k night vision sniper scopes? Perhaps if the city were attacked by protesting vampires such a purchase would be useful. But I guess guys gotta play with their toys.
The distribution alone is not worth ranting about. The problem is what happens once all this junk is distributed. If you own a bear gun, you have a tendency to go out into the woods hunting bears. You also see evidence of bears where others do not. That's the real problem.
> Better dumping it on Deputy Joe than letting it rot.
This is a central assumption the DoD/Government has been making, that is turning out to be misguided if not flat-out wrong. The police in this country are not properly trained as to when to deploy this equipment, and when it's deployed, how to use it.
Just as spreading weapons of war to all parts of the middle east hasn't exactly lead to peace there, spreading weapons of war all across America will hardly lead to an orderly society. It seems like if you give men weapons, they itch to use them, or the power it gives them.
"Headquartered at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, the 920th Rescue Wing is the Air Force Reserve Command's premier combat search and rescue (CSAR) unit. The wing consists of over 1,500 Airmen, trained and equipped to locate and recover U.S. Armed Forces personnel during both peacetime and wartime military operations."
You don't think they 'actually spend $20k on a hammer, $30k on a toilet seat, do you'[1]? If this is not an error, I think we just found the best justification I've seen for making all budgets/purchases etc. in government publicly available via API, as this and the ones below are amazing finds.
The DOD gives this shit away (to our rural towns and cities) so they can consider it in use and order more from contractors, which gives more cash to the lobbyists and contractors. Rinse and repeat. It's very straightforward.
On MRAP front the military is getting rid of them for a good reason. They ordered the initial batch very quickly and ended up several different platforms [0]. None of them fit the bill perfectly and having several variants made logistics and vehicle operations difficult. They then did a real procurement program and ended up purchasing several thousand M-ATVs. The surplus MRAPs went into this law enforcement give away system [1].
It's lucky crime rates have dropped so low. You wouldn't want this kind of hardware lying around if there was any chance the wrong king of person could get their hands on it.
It would make a great movie or game premise though.
It's called saints row. (Although more of a comical than a dystopian twist, but the latter is certainly hinted at.) One of their primary plotlines is taking down an overmilitarized police force with their own gear.
There's 84 total grenade launchers in the data set, if you are curious. Florida took twice as many as CA (36 to 18) and the rest of the states with them are under 10. Why Florida needs so many is another question...
Also interestingly, Montgomery got all 9 of AL's grenade launchers, more than Sacramento or LA took.
edit: actually, this data is wrong because I only used the first page, didn't even see the other 3....
Rise of the warrior cop was very interesting read. With the gear comes the cop attitude. If you want that kind of toys in you state, you shouldn't be allowed to have them.
One county on the map has ~16k population and 640 military surplus assault rifles. If they're equipped with 30 round magazines, they can shoot everyone in the county without reloading once.
Sorted from most greedy to least, wow, look at Florida:
State Amount
FL $252,801,365.49
AL $117,321,970.75
TX $93,960,116.66
CA $92,199,594.55
TN $88,036,810.05
GA $74,258,127.54
IL $63,856,929.46
SC $49,446,894.25
MI $43,557,552.29
IN $43,153,872.84
OH $41,066,993.83
KY $38,672,666.63
PR $37,712,132.94
AZ $37,173,754.35
OK $26,113,459.50
NM $25,077,905.94
NY $24,920,353.44
VA $24,257,646.82
NJ $24,075,459.47
WA $23,543,976.61
AR $21,806,380.46
DC $21,741,478.09
LA $20,327,539.50
CO $17,701,285.74
MO $17,481,149.80
NC $17,296,016.90
DE $12,483,178.35
ME $12,048,389.87
MA $11,878,711.88
WI $10,122,693.61
WV $8,970,650.95
MT $8,943,135.43
NH $8,806,115.87
MN $8,580,400.72
CT $7,920,540.33
IA $7,493,026.26
ID $7,491,468.74
MD $7,049,130.61
OR $6,891,336.22
PA $5,942,289.17
NV $5,836,317.88
GU $5,466,524.59
NE $5,430,787.55
RI $4,812,144.16
WY $4,575,149.39
KS $4,009,658.36
ND $3,871,164.59
UT $2,264,747.07
MS $1,791,294.53
SD $1,771,105.98
VT $1,609,630.11
AK $706,554.76
HI $521,054.41
VI $228,504.00
NPR covered this military surplus program. The most frightening fact was the typical local law enforcement agencies must agree to "use it or lose it" with the acceptance of the gear. This sets up a perverse incentive and encourages local PD to misuse military hardware or forfeit it back to the federal government.
How long before state police start pointing these back upward? I mean, in some areas it is basically handing military gear to secessionists, which does not seem all that bright. I certainly wouldn't like to be the federal official charged with the job of asking for any of them back.
Might just be the parts I looked at, but some of the data is bad. e.g. Repeated orders, orders with 0 cost, but then the cost is calculated into another line, etc.
Also why does the Florida Police (or anyone) need a 800k Mine Resistant Vehicle??
Note that Washington, DC seems to have received 17 military cargo planes despite not having an airport (also shows up on nytimes.com piece). Is it possible that this is a mistake?
I presume this is an obvious leap, but in Ferguson the BBC reporter just commented on the tensions between the Black population and "the security forces".
I used to scoff at the "militarisation of the police" stories on HN. I assume this is the same mental leap everyone else is having?
Disappointed but I guess not surprised to see the small number of helicopters, armored vehicles and assault rifles provided to southern border states. Federal government appears happy to distribute heavy weapons anywhere except where they are needed most as evidenced by actual incidents.
As a resident of Arizona, I can tell you that however inefficient and/or incompetent you think the federal government's border agencies are, most of the state and county agencies in this state are far worse. I'd prefer some of them have nothing more deadly than a water pistol (especially the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office - headed by the country's most corrupt un-indicted law enforcement official). Local law enforcement officials are generally competent and savvy enough to want nothing to do with the kind of work you seem to imply they should be doing.
The equipment is distributed in response to requests from police departments. (source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-polic...) I'm afraid you'll have to blame the locals, not the feds, for being soft on those sinister Mexicans.
[+] [-] amcnett|11 years ago|reply
http://news.yahoo.com/as-wars-wind-down--small-town-cops-inh...
Choice quote from the article:
“Here’s the thing,” Shellmyer says. “Washington, Iowa, has 8,000 people. We have an MRAP now. We have a SWAT team. We have [police] dogs, and we have a SWAT team transportation vehicle that’s not armored.
The city councilman began to think: “Goodness, this is overkill.”
[+] [-] dublinben|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barsonme|11 years ago|reply
Puyallup is a "city" of just under 40,000. Our crime isn't even too horrible (http://www.piercecountycrimedata.org/NeighborhoodCrime/index...)
But we have an MRAP. It might be Pierce County's MRAP, housed in our building, but even then compared to the rest of Washington state, Pierce County is pretty tame.
Although, we do rank #9 in the U.S. for meth labs. So there's that. http://www.kplu.org/post/pierce-county-among-top-10-us-numbe...
[+] [-] hughdbrown|11 years ago|reply
Can someone explain the math to me? It sounds like each vehicle costs $2 million.
[+] [-] greedo|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thewopr|11 years ago|reply
I ask only because I'm planning on doing something similar.
[+] [-] nightpool|11 years ago|reply
EDIT: But just to be sure, I would recommend something is well understood and is aimed towards a general usage, such as a Creative Commons license of your choice http://creativecommons.org/choose/
[+] [-] teachingaway|11 years ago|reply
If its not public domain, and you want people to use it fairly freely, Apache seems like a good license.
Disclaimer: i haven't thought about this very carefully before posting. Could be wrong.
One thing I do know is that @copiesofcopies is a former EFF guy that knows open source licensing. Ask him!
[+] [-] rpedela|11 years ago|reply
http://opendefinition.org/licenses/
[+] [-] pavpanchekha|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|11 years ago|reply
1) Looks like a contest where the winners are folks who are able to pull the biggest political strings in DC. It has nothing to do with forces needing anything. This was a free-for-all giveaway. It's all political.
2) In defense of DoD, once you build this crap, it's gotta go somewhere. Maybe some of these MRAPs could only be used for local parades. Local PDs do not need this junk, but the rest of the country doesn't need it either. Better dumping it on Deputy Joe than letting it rot. As long as Joe doesn't start getting delusions of terrorism.
3) A lot of the local rural counties where I live got M16s. I guess that seems useful. The M16 is a fine rifle, and if you could get every one of your cops a proven rifle it sure beats trying to get the poor local governments to pay for them. The cities are a different story: much better connected and with more resources (and ambition?) to screw as much out of the system as possible. The nearest city to me is getting all kinds of idiotic stuff. Do we really need 20 $4k night vision sniper scopes? Perhaps if the city were attacked by protesting vampires such a purchase would be useful. But I guess guys gotta play with their toys.
The distribution alone is not worth ranting about. The problem is what happens once all this junk is distributed. If you own a bear gun, you have a tendency to go out into the woods hunting bears. You also see evidence of bears where others do not. That's the real problem.
[+] [-] ejfox|11 years ago|reply
This is a central assumption the DoD/Government has been making, that is turning out to be misguided if not flat-out wrong. The police in this country are not properly trained as to when to deploy this equipment, and when it's deployed, how to use it.
Just as spreading weapons of war to all parts of the middle east hasn't exactly lead to peace there, spreading weapons of war all across America will hardly lead to an orderly society. It seems like if you give men weapons, they itch to use them, or the power it gives them.
[+] [-] stormcloud|11 years ago|reply
Someone tell me this is misreported? There is no way a county of ~500k people could need 61 helicopters, rght?
[+] [-] draker|11 years ago|reply
"Headquartered at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, the 920th Rescue Wing is the Air Force Reserve Command's premier combat search and rescue (CSAR) unit. The wing consists of over 1,500 Airmen, trained and equipped to locate and recover U.S. Armed Forces personnel during both peacetime and wartime military operations."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/920th_Rescue_Wing
[+] [-] guimarin|11 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116629/quotes?item=qt1534129
[+] [-] grecy|11 years ago|reply
Need has nothing to do with it.
[+] [-] mludlum|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amcnett|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaredstenquist|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Game_Ender|11 years ago|reply
0 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAP#MRAP_deployment
1 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRAP#Post-war_reductions
[+] [-] wisty|11 years ago|reply
It would make a great movie or game premise though.
[+] [-] existencebox|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] comrh|11 years ago|reply
AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12
AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12
AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12
AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12
AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12
AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12
AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12
AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12
AL,MONTGOMERY,1010-00-691-1382,"LAUNCHER,GRENADE",1,Each,720,2006-04-12
[+] [-] crazypyro|11 years ago|reply
Also interestingly, Montgomery got all 9 of AL's grenade launchers, more than Sacramento or LA took.
edit: actually, this data is wrong because I only used the first page, didn't even see the other 3....
[+] [-] venomsnake|11 years ago|reply
Rise of the warrior cop was very interesting read. With the gear comes the cop attitude. If you want that kind of toys in you state, you shouldn't be allowed to have them.
[+] [-] ceejayoz|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ceejayoz|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrexroad|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] staunch|11 years ago|reply
To help clarify things: the city of LA has 10,000 police officers and 1,000,000+ armed citizens.
[+] [-] partacus|11 years ago|reply
State Amount FL $252,801,365.49 AL $117,321,970.75 TX $93,960,116.66 CA $92,199,594.55 TN $88,036,810.05 GA $74,258,127.54 IL $63,856,929.46 SC $49,446,894.25 MI $43,557,552.29 IN $43,153,872.84 OH $41,066,993.83 KY $38,672,666.63 PR $37,712,132.94 AZ $37,173,754.35 OK $26,113,459.50 NM $25,077,905.94 NY $24,920,353.44 VA $24,257,646.82 NJ $24,075,459.47 WA $23,543,976.61 AR $21,806,380.46 DC $21,741,478.09 LA $20,327,539.50 CO $17,701,285.74 MO $17,481,149.80 NC $17,296,016.90 DE $12,483,178.35 ME $12,048,389.87 MA $11,878,711.88 WI $10,122,693.61 WV $8,970,650.95 MT $8,943,135.43 NH $8,806,115.87 MN $8,580,400.72 CT $7,920,540.33 IA $7,493,026.26 ID $7,491,468.74 MD $7,049,130.61 OR $6,891,336.22 PA $5,942,289.17 NV $5,836,317.88 GU $5,466,524.59 NE $5,430,787.55 RI $4,812,144.16 WY $4,575,149.39 KS $4,009,658.36 ND $3,871,164.59 UT $2,264,747.07 MS $1,791,294.53 SD $1,771,105.98 VT $1,609,630.11 AK $706,554.76 HI $521,054.41 VI $228,504.00
[+] [-] sr-ix|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmourati|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zrail|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lotsofmangos|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frisbee14|11 years ago|reply
(throwaway account)
[+] [-] crazypyro|11 years ago|reply
Also why does the Florida Police (or anyone) need a 800k Mine Resistant Vehicle??
[+] [-] cwal37|11 years ago|reply
The data they got was bad in general. Their original article[2] also discusses the lack of information out there.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/20/upshot/data-on-transfer-of...
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-polic...
[+] [-] cmsmith|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ISL|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notjustanymike|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lifeisstillgood|11 years ago|reply
I used to scoff at the "militarisation of the police" stories on HN. I assume this is the same mental leap everyone else is having?
[+] [-] rrggrr|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] idlewords|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whyaduck|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PhasmaFelis|11 years ago|reply