Wednesday, June 08, 2011

It's whipping post and tar & feathers time for the Department of Education (updated)

The U.S. Department of Education issued the search and called in the S.W.A.T for his wife's defaulted student loans.

"They busted down my door for this," Wright said. "It wasn't even me."

According to the Department of Education's Office of the Inspector General, the case can't be discussed publicly until it is closed, but a spokesperson did confirm that the department did issue the search warrant at Wright's home.

The Office of the Inspector General has a law enforcement branch of federal agents that carry out search warrants and investigations.
Go read the whole thing, for full breakables-warning impact.
A: EVERYONE in the Dept. of 'Education' involved in such things should be fired. Immediately. And then sued for everything they've got.
B: Any so-called lawman who'd agree to take part in a dynamic-entry(i.e. 'Put on your ninja suits and let's go kick doors and abuse people!') raid for such bullshit should be immediately fired AND forbidden from ever wearing a badge again. And sued. If for nothing else than "How effing stupid do you have to be to agree to take part in such a thing?"

Update: this at Reason: DoE now claims it wasn't over a loan:
While it was reported in local media that the search was related to a defaulted student loan, that is incorrect. This is related to a criminal investigation. The Inspector General's Office does not execute search warrants for late loan payments.

Because this is an ongoing criminal investigation, we can't comment on the specifics of the case. We can say that the OIG's office conducts about 30-35 search warrants a year on issues such as bribery, fraud, and embezzlement of federal student aid funds
.
Well, doesn't that make it all better?
No.
As someone asked, if the IG of the DoE actually needs an arrest made, why can't they go to the EffingBI, the US Marshall's Office, or the local cops? Why does the IG need a friggin' SWAT team?
Unless and until we hear that this "criminal investigation" involves some kind of imminent threat of violence, there will be no margin of excuse for it, only new opportunities for bureaucrats and commentators to demonstrate that they are perfectly content living in and even contributing to a police state.

3 comments:

Sigivald said...

First reports are always wrong - and this one didn't pass the smell test.

Current information says:

Criminal investigation unrelated to loans.

OIG doesn't investigate/enforce/collect defaulted loans - they investigate fraud and embezzlement.

So it seems to me that Mr. Homeowner was misinformed.

(Or perhaps more likely, jumped to a completely erroneous conclusion; since he very likely has no idea about any criminal investigation, I suppose he might decide that "Department of Education warrant" + knowing she'd defaulted on her loans = "warrant was for defaulting".

And then he says that in front of a camera, and a million people simply assume it must have been The Reason.)

Windy Wilson said...

Sigivald, so this is just another garden-variety "bust down the door and rough up the people at the wrong address" type warrant?
The question still remains, why does the IG of the DOE need it's own swat teams?
Will this turn into an investigation of embezzlement of student aid funds?

Anonymous said...

Excellent point, SWAT are a missuse of taxpayer's money.