DHS Reportedly buying 2,700 Light Armored Tanks for Use in USA

It’s difficult not to become a conspiracy theorist when you read news reports about the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is buying thousands of military style (fully automatic) assault weapons and billions of rounds of ammunition.  Now there are multi-reports that DHS is purchasing 2,700 light armored tanks to be deployed in the United States.

Is America turning into a Liberal Fascist police state?

Modern Survival Blog reported:

The Department of Homeland Security (through the U.S. Army Forces Command) recently retrofitted 2,717 of these ‘Mine Resistant Protected’ vehicles for service on the streets of the United States.

Although I’ve seen and read several online blurbs about this vehicle of late, I decided to dig slightly deeper and discover more about the vehicle itself.

The new DHS sanctioned ‘Street Sweeper’ (my own slang due to the gun ports) is built by Navistar Defense (NavistarDefense.com), a division within the Navistar organization. Under the Navistar umbrella are several other companies including International Trucks, IC Bus (they make school buses), Monaco RV (recreational vehicles), WorkHorse (they make chassis), MaxxForce (diesel engines), and Navistar Financial (the money arm of the company).

DHS even released a video on their newly purchased MRAPs.
Via Pat Dollard:

“If you think shrinking government and getting it less involved in your life is a hallmark of tyranny it is only because you are either grotesquely ignorant or because you subscribe to a statist ideology that believes the expansion of the state is the expansion of liberty.”
― Jonah Goldberg

Fast and Furious Lawsuit Filed by Parents of Murdered HSI Agent

A lawsuit charging government conspiracy and cover-up was filed last week in the United States District Court Southern District of Texas Brownsville Division by the parents of murdered ICE Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Jamie Zapata and Special Agent Victor Avila, Jr.

The lawsuit was filed against the government, straw purchasers, individual government officials, gun dealers and others deemed to share in responsibility per the complaint.

The complaint charges the United States government breached its duties “by failing to abide by policies regarding arms export regulations; safe travel; proper oversight of employees; issuing defective vehicles; gunwalking; failing to disclose known dangers involving gunwalking; and Defendant’s continued violations.

“Defendant’s violation of these statutes and federal firearm laws and regulations constitute negligence per se,” the complaint continues. “Defendant, having knowledge of the dangers posed by the violation of the statutes, proceeded with the violation of public safety statutes and federal laws and regulations in conscious disregard for the lives and safety of their agents, including Agents Zapata and Avila.

Included in the list of answers the plaintiffs are seeking is the key question that has so far evaded investigators in determining a definitive answer for: “Who authorized the gunwalking? Where is/are he/she/they now?

The Obama administration has not been objectively covered by the main stream media.  The lame stream media is using the First Amendment to promote a liberal fascist agenda, making both the broadcast and print media a progressive propaganda machine for the the the Democrat Party.

Perhaps this lawsuit will force the defendants to share the truth about Fast and Furious and the cover up. 

“Withholding information is the essence of tyranny. Control of the flow of information is the tool of the dictatorship.” ― Bruce Coville

Everyone in U.S. Under Virtual Surveillance by NSA

As a former special agent with the the Departments of State and Treasury and Homeland Security, my ears perk up when I hear someone talk about domestic spying by the National Security Agency (NSA). The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and virtually all other federal law enforcement and investigative agencies have unlimited access to NSA information .  I will not disclose classified information that may have come to my attention during my career but I will say this report does not suprise me. 

NSA Whistleblower William Binney was recently interviewed by Russia Today.  I have been paying close attention to Binney’s story.

Binney came to national attention earlier this year when he started telling the story of how NSA surveillance works to anyone who would listen. He is a crypto-mathematician and a codebreaker (described as one of the best in NSA history) and  his explanation of the spying program appeared in the New York Times in August 2012 . Binney spoke about “Stellar Wind” a top-secret domestic spying program developed by the NSA and its implications for civilian security and privacy.

After the recent General Petraeus scandal, the NSA has come under the spotlight as it pertains to domestic spying and the privacy of US citizens and their digital dealings.  Everyone should be aware that anything sent over the Internet can be intercepted. Everything send in the clear is largely unprotected; but the scale of surveillance of any individual citizen has always been something of a technical conundrum.

It’s unlikely that any one person (not already targeted) could have all their data ransacked by even an overfunded government agency because of the sheer volume but with the falling prices on big storage technology and the advent of Big Data fears of the NSA’s spying powers are less science fiction and more business fact. Massive storage of petabytes and the analytics necessary to process it are not uncommon today.

“He is [President Obama] supporting the building of the Buffdale (Utah) facility which is over 2 million dollars they’re spending on storage alone of data,” says Binney when asked about how the current administration may have changed the NSA’s mission. “Which means they’re collecting a lot more now and they need more storage for it. That facility, by my calculations, that I submitted in a sworn affidavit to the court for the EFF lawsuit against the NSA would hold on the order of would hold on the order of 5,000 exabytes or 5 zettabytes of data…and that’s not talking about what they might have in the future.”

Binney is alleging a great deal of surveillance that extends to billions of communications.

Even now, with Anonymous rattling around like the rats in the walls of the Internet, the youth of many countries are turning to the use of anonymizing services and VPN services to hide their cyber-activities from prying eyes. Although for the most part this cultural shift is due to ISPs throttling and essentially spying on their own customers as part of anti-copying regimes—we’ve seen the sudden up-thrust of more VPN use after the UK blocked The Pirate Bay, but using more security to hide communication would also tend to help shield against government surveillance to an extent as well.

Not long after the Petraeus scandal hit the airwaves,  it sparked a debate about domestic government spying and much of the media circled back to Google’s most recent semiannual Transparency Report. In that, Google revealed that they’d received over 20,000 requests from governments around the world and complied with almost 90% of them. This doesn’t even cover covert surveillance of the type that Binney speaks about in his interview.

Much of this behavior, and the radical transparency of Internet communications may lead to a paradigm shift among the wired-and-wise to migrate to more secure communication, use more cryptography in their daily communications, and watch what they say online. Of course, the opposite is also true: as the Internet integrates more fully into our daily lives, it’s easy to be more cavalier about what we say online, what information we boast across the wires, and recklessly abandon in dusty 3rd party storage silos.

Of course, a person targeted for surveillance by a large agency wouldn’t be able to hide their activity even if they encrypted everything online—spies capably sussed out communications long before the arrival of the Internet.

Binney believes that he’s definitely a “target” and takes a bit of humor in his being in the NSA’s spotlight:

“So I keep telling them everything I think of them in my e-mail, so when they read it they know everything I think of them,” he says.

Binney - The FBI has access to the data collected, which is basically the emails of virtually everybody in the country. And the FBI has access to it. All the congressional members are on the surveillance too, no one is excluded. They are all included. So, yes, this can happen to anyone. If they become a target for whatever reason - they are targeted by the government, the government can go in, or the FBI, or other agencies of the government, they can go into their database, pull all that data collected on them over the years, and we analyze it all. So, we have to actively analyze everything they’ve done for the last 10 years at least.

If you are using an iPad, iPhone or other device without FLASH, view interview here

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall issue, but upon probably cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” -4th Amendment

We Have Just Begun to Fight

Yesterday we had the pleasure of having lunch with many U.S. Customs Office of Investigations friends and former co-workers.  We had the best turnout ever at this annual event.  I am pleased to report that there are still some federal employees who take their oath to support and defend the Constitution seriously.

It’s been over 25 years since many of us at yesterday’s gathering first met. Most of us transferred from many different agencies to “mother” Customs in 1987. We were all happy to see former Dallas Special Agent in Charge Wayne Frandsend yesterday.   Wayne was one of the few agents who spend his entire career with Customs, suviving the DEA purge in 1973.  He’s a patriot who retired to his home state of Utah.  Recently Wayne set Bill O’Reilly straight on the Second Amendment in an email, which O’Reilly read on the air.

Congratulations to three more of my former colleagues who will be retiring at the end of the month.  Working as a Customs special agent was the second bet job I ever had.  Retirement is by far the best!

This has been a very active week due to Bob Costas introducing the gun ban agenda which will be a primary theme in Obama’s second term . Of course, his lecture at half time on Sunday Night Football was sanctioned at the highest levels of the White House, just like Operation Gun Runner (aka Fast and Furious).  Gun Control will be the Obamacare of the second term.  NBC is the primary propaganda outlet for the current White House, though CBS, ABC, CNN and others are constantly battling to replace them as the voice of liberal fascism in America.

Bonzer Wolf Today™ added a significant number of first time readers and Twitter followers this week.  Both our First and Second Amendment civil rights are under attack from the Progressive Party, formerly known as the Democratic Party.  The liberal fascists think the fight is over.  It’s just getting started.  We are behind in the battle.  But this is a war that we simply can not and will not lose. 

Here is one of the many emails I received this week:

I have about half a dozen core issues I am concerned about as a constitutional conservative, and gun control is at the top of my list. I know I am preaching to the choir.

I know all the historical perspectives. From the key part of the 2nd Amendment “….The right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” to the Militia Acts of the 1890`s that redefined what a Militia (National Guard) is, to the NFA 1934 banning “Machine Guns” to the GCA 1968 which banned Mail Order sales of Firearms. Never Mind the Brady Bill, and Assault Weapons Ban.

We have let the progressive left define the argument over the last 30 years. From code phrases (dog-whistle) like “reasonable” and “common sense” gun control .We know these phrases are the hallmark of the Gun-Ban Lobby, An assault weapon is  now defined as any semi-automatic rifle that has a magazine of more than 10 rounds and “looks like” a true fully automatic assault weapon. If it has a Hi-Cap Mag, Pistol Grip and a flash-hider/muzzle brake it is an assault weapon.  

Some of the moderate left argues that they don’t want to keep people from so-called “legitimate” ownership of firearms for such purposes as hunting, target pracice, and self protection in their own homes. The founding fathers made no mention of hunting, or target practice. Hunting was indeed a way of life and substinence for the majority of Americans in 1787. They needed no constitutional protection to own firearms to live and eat. We constitutionalists argue that the “…right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms.” was based on the right to resist an oppressive government, than it was for hunting, which was a fact of life for the majority of Americans in 1787. Target practice only involved learning how to shoot at the time. Home protection was a given.

The far left progressive gun-ban lobby uses these false arguments to further their goal to abolish civilian gun possession. They use like minded “useful idiots” in the left dominated Main Stream Media to use any tragedy to exploit this nonsense to the already indoctrinated unwashed masses. Our public school teachers, having already been trained by far left professors, have been teaching this far left anti American, anti Constitutional propaganda to our children for 30 years.

I couldn’t have said it better.  This is the core issue that we must deal with if we are to remain a free people.  Make no doubt about it.  They are coming for our guns and our freedom. 

”To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them…” ~Richard Henry Lee

Sig Sauer P239 SAS .357sig Conversion

If you read the forums, you won’t find too many .357 sig fan boys.  You may even be lead to believe that the .357 sig is a passing fad.  H&K quit making a .357 sig model.  I believe the primary reason the .357 sig is the least popular self defense round is the cost of the ammo.  Its the most expensive, hardest to find and most difficult to hand load of the most common handgun rounds (.380 through .45).

Many gun owners don’t realize what a great defensive round the 357 sig is. The ammo is expensive, which is why I think the larger agencies have stayed with .40 caliber. Federal Air Marshals, the Secret Service and Texas DPS carry this round in their standard issue pistols because it spreads out considerably more than the 40 S&W when penetrating a target.

We purchased the P239 before I retired from DHS HSI. It was not approved for carry back then but last year DHS, decided to purchase Sig P229 DAK pistols as their standard service weapon.

We purchased a .357 sig barrel from Sig Sauer and dropped it in our P239SAS.  I’ve shot the SIG SAUER P239 in .357 sig with only 200 rounds so far. The SIG SAUER P239 (henceforth called the P239) is a single-stack, semi-auto pistol with classic SIG SAUER features, including a hard coated anodized aluminum frame and a stainless steel slide. It comes in the DAK, SRT, or DA/SA trigger. My model is a DAK trigger version, originally sold as a .40 S&W model.

This gun has performed without a hitch having fired over 1,000 rounds of .40 S&W before converting to .357 sig.  The P239 is a smaller and slimmer version of the P229 and the SAS model comes out of the Sig Custom Shop.  SIG SAUER uses quality components like hardened roll pins and full-length slide rails. The barrel and chamber of the P239 (and the P229) are markedly reinforced compared to most compact handguns.  This suits the .357 sig round, which is loaded considerably hotter than the .40 caliber round.

The DAK trigger is a smooth double action trigger that gives the user the same pull all the time if the shooter allows the full reset.  There is no decocking lever on DAK models. After the pistol fires and the trigger is released forward, the trigger has an intermediate reset point that is approximately halfway to the trigger at rest position. The trigger pull from this intermediate reset point is 38 N (8.5 lb). If the trigger is released all the way forward, this will engage the primary trigger reset and have a trigger pull of 29 N (6.5 lb). To engage the intermediate reset, the trigger must be held to the rear while the slide is cycled, either manually or by the recoil of a round being fired.

The .357 SIG cartridge was designed to mimic the .357 magnum in an auto pistol. It is a bottleneck cartridge, which means the bullet has a narrower diameter than the base of the cartridge. In this case, the bullet diameter approximates a 9 mm bullet and the base of the cartridge approximates a 40 caliber cartridge.

The .357 magnum had a reputation of excellent performance in ballistic gelatin tests, especially after barrier. That is, one fires through tempered glass into ballistic gelatin to test one aspect of bullet performance. There are several factors including the weight retention of the recovered bullet, the amount of expansion and what it actually does inside the gelatin.

FBI tests resulted in the .357 SIG cartridges generally duplicating or exceeding the 357 magnum performance, except in heavier bullet weights. It appears that the nominal bullet weight for the 357 SIG was about 124 grains, simply because the 124 grain combinations were more accurate and tore up the gelatin.  The 357 SIG gave after-barrier performance, which could only be described as remarkable.

SIG SAUER has a reputation for design ergonomics in their handguns, which are more expensive than most of the other major manufacturers.  The P239 should fit a variety of shooters comfortably, especially the grip angle, which tends to absorb the recoil of this cartridge. The inherent design advantages of the 357 sig cartridge are perfect for this handgun. I am able to shoot a superior cartridge that feels like a +P 9mm in a handgun package small enough for comfortable concealed carry.  The carry weight (7+1) of my P239SAS is just over 2 lbs.

Another reason to carry this gun in .357 sig caliber is its accuracy.  Using duty rounds, I consistently hitting 4’ steel plates at 50 yards during my first test.  The only handgun that I consistently shoot more accurately than my P239 is my single action S&W 1911SC series E .45 ACP pistol. 

Here’s a good video on the Sig P239 SAS from my YouTube buddy Tom at Weapons Education

“The great object is that every man be armed.” and “Everyone who is able may have a gun.”
Patrick Henry

Update on Tuesday, October 2, 2012 at 2:35PM by Bonzer Wolf

By the way my carry ammo is .357 SIG Winchester PDX1 Defender Bonded JHP. Here’s an Ammo Test video from  TNoutdoors9 on YouTube.  TNoutdoors9 regularly posts very informative ammo tests on many differnet brands and calibers of ammo. I find them very useful in helping me decide what ammo to carry.