Second-Class Law Enforcement?

Okay, I'm going to show you two pictures and ask you to answer a very important question: Which one of these two men are federal law enforcement officers?

1) This is a Customs & Border Protection (CBP) Officer. He carries a gun and handcuffs, wears a bulletproof vest, and drives a police cruiser with lights and sirens. He has full arrest powers, can seize evidence, and can execute search warrants. He received his training at the U.S. Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia. He and his fellow CBP officers conduct inspections and provide security at 326 American border crossings, searching for smuggled drugs, weapons, contrabands and illegal immigrants.

2) This is Matt Hasselbeck. He's the quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks. He received his training playing football for BC. He threw 222 passing yards against Tampa Bay in the season opener and occupies the second-string QB slot on my fantasy football team (since I'm not going to sit Donovan McNabb. What am I, crazy?)

So again, the question is- which one of these guys is a federal law enforcement officer?

You may be surprised to learn that the answer is, neither one. The CBP officer, even though he receives full law enforcement training, carries a firearm and has arrest powers (criteria which otherwise define 'police' under government personnel regulations) doesn't receive the classification, and therefore retirement benefits, as other federal law enforcement officers.

(Also, Matt Hasselbeck probably is not any sort of law enforcement official. To the best of my knowledge he’s a decent, but not outstanding, NFL quarterback. But I’m not certain- there was that Tommy Lee Jones movie where he was a cop and had to protect a bunch of cheerleaders, so you never really know.)

Now federal law enforcement officers aren't the same as federal special agents, like those employed by the FBI, DEA, or DSS. Agents have nationwide jurisdiction and investigate federal crimes (as well as other duties) while federal law enforcement officers provide police service for various federal assets and personnel. For example, the Federal Protective Service is responsible for providing police protection to almost 9,000 federal office buildings nationwide. Other organizations with special requirements, such as our friends at No Such Agency, maintain their own police forces for their facilities.

But all of these various federal police officers are treated under similar personnel classifications. These ensure that they get comparable retirement and pay benefits. (Although the benefits packages do vary sometimes- for example, only the Capitol Police have the on-the-job privilege of hauling Code Pink nut jobs off to the pokey.) These benefits are incredibly important if you want to retain the talent and experience within your own workforce, instead of hemorrhaging freshly-hired personnel to better jobs. Which is exactly what CBP is facing right now- its officers are leaving after a year or two on the job. Sometimes less than that.

The problem is that the Bush administration doesn't think CBP officers deserve the status of federal law enforcement officer. In their Statement of Administration Policy on June 12th, they strongly objected to a bill that would fixed this, claiming that the definition of “law enforcement officers” under the federal retirement system differed from the "commonly understood" one. The real difficulty here, to which they admit, is that giving CBP officers the retirement package (called "6c retirement') and benefits they deserve, will cost a lot of money. I should point out that t he U.S. Postal Police and Veterans' Administration Police are in the same boat as the CBP officers.

Again- these guys make arrests, execute search warrants, carry firearms and handcuffs, drive police cruisers and are trained at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. Honestly, what the hell else can you call them?

Granted, a few CBP officers actually like this setup. Since they’re not technically law enforcement officers, they can rack up “double-time” in a way that the other federal cops can’t. However, the majority is dissatisfied with the situation. They don’t like getting screwed on their benefits, but more importantly, they (rightly) feel marginalized and under-appreciated by the refusal to recognize them as law enforcement. It’s this kind of administrative behavior that has CBP officers voting with their feet, and it’s endemic throughout the Department of Homeland Security. A survey of federal employees ranked them rock-bottom for job satisfaction.

This all comes back to the basic Republican philosophy. (Yeah, I’m going to make this political. Tough.) Their core claim is that they put their trust in people, and not in government. Well, that's nice. But it fuels the kind of lunatic thinking that outsources unholy amounts of federal work to private contractors while slashing the civil service, eventually spending the same money for inferior work so they can cynically claim to have cut the federal bureaucracy. How does that put trust in their people?

Well, it's the same thing here. A major component of the Presidential plan for border and homeland security is to vastly expand the size of CBP. He wants to add agents and officers, as well as millions of dollars in equipment and fencing for the SBInet (Secure Border Initiative) program. This would be the much-vaunted 'virtual fence' out there in the desert incorporating security cameras, motion sensors, and gee-whiz gadgets like Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, better known as Predator drones.

Bush has no problem advocating an avalanche of funding to expand and improve CBP's capabilities. But when it comes to the costs of maintaining them, and ensuring that they can retain experienced personnel, the Bush White House expects us to believe that they're poorer than churchmice.

You see, there's nothing sexy about federal retirement programs. No one can point to them as a massive homeland-security victory and they're not going to get anyone re-elected. But these men and women literally put their lives on the line to keep drugs, weapons, terrorists, contraband and human traffickers out of our country. Hiding behind a technicality and claiming that 6c retirement for these officers isn't a worthwhile use of taxpayer dollars....that's crap.

And I think developing an experienced and professional workforce to protect our nation's border crossings really is a homeland security victory, albeit a small one. That is, if anyone in the White House had the foresight to recognize it.

Betray-Us

A few somewhat-related comments on the Petraeus/Crocker hearings of yesterday and the day before. I was fortunate enough to have both days off work, so I got to sit on the couch and geek out while watching almost the entirety of the hearings on C-SPAN. I'm not blessed with a Congressional press pass, like some folks I know, so C-SPAN is the next best thing.

-The room in which the hearing was held is the same one where the old House Committee on Un-American Activities (better known as the McCarthy hearings) used to hold court. I'm searching for a connection but not quite finding one.

-The MoveOn.org ad, using the term "General Betray Us," was so counterproductive I can't even think straight. It did the same thing that those crazies who screamed and shouted and protested from galleries did- associated thoughtful people on the left who have legitimate questions about the war, with the nutbags who write "Troops Home Now" in fake blood on their dresses. Ugh.

Although to be fair, the nutbags who get dragged out of the House chambers do make for some pretty good entertainment value. Maybe that's why C-SPAN hasn't adopted the same policy of pro sports leagues; if you illegally disrupt the proceedings, you're not going to get shown on TV. I think it should be the same way. There are legal and illegal ways to protest Congressional action, or the actions of those before Congress. If you engage in illegal activity during your protest, you shouldn't have the PR benefit of airtime. Period.

Also, this would be kinda self-serving because then progressives wouldn't have their legitimate dissent visually associated with those Code Pink wackos.

-While watching the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, Tom Lantos (D-CA,) I decided to use Google Image Search to try and figure out to which one of the Star Wars cantina scene aliens he was most closely related. I'm currently thinking the T-headed dude.

-Joking aside, my overall concern with the way the hearings went (and this is abbreviated, trust me- the site crashed and I lost a much longer version of this post) was that everyone except for two New Yorkers (Gary Ackerman, a Dem, and John McHugh, a Republican) seemed to be asking the wrong questions. Everyone else wanted to know how soon the troops would come home, what strategy we would use, or how the war would be prosecuted. Our New Yorkers were asking the one question that really seemed to matter to me- is it worth it? Petraeus didn't have much of an answer.

-Perhaps the most telling moment of the rounds of hearings, for me, happened while I was listening on the radio. (So I have no idea who asked the question.) But someone asked Petraeus, "General, is this war making America safer?" And after some pro-caliber hemming and hawing, he said, essentially, that his mission was to ensure stability and democracy in Iraq and he couldn't honestly say yes or no.

Wow.