BATFE has a whole lot of ticked-off agents who've had it:
www.CleanUpATF.org is a non-profit organization dedicated to returning integrity, accountability and decency to the management of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE or "ATF").
In recent years, ATF management has become widely and officially known for corruption, self-service, and at times, overt incompetence. Moreover, ATF managers at all levels routinely retaliate or discriminate against employees who make good faith attempts to address significant cases of flagrant abuse, unlawful acts, waste of taxpayer resources, etc. Managers often use the threat or actual imposition of unfounded disciplinary actions, Internal Affairs “investigations”, punitive transfers, and other flagrantly unethical measures to suppress dissension and subvert legitimate complaints about serious abuses.
In the last two years alone, there have been nearly 400 employee complaints. In an organization with only about 5,000 employees, that is a huge drain on resources and adversely impacts the agency's ability to pursue its purported mission of locking up bad guys. Many experienced and skilled field agents spend so much time just trying to cover their rear ends against trivial, bureaucratic internal policies and arbitrary management actions, that they have little time to actually enforce the nation's firearms and other laws.
Take a look, see what you think. The gentleman at Sipsey Street says
...Why would we want to support somebody who just wants to make an unconstitutional agency more fair and efficient?"
Well, I'll tell you why. The fact of the matter is that WE, all by ourselves, are not ever going to get oversight hearings into ATF misconduct in cases like David Olofson's or Doug Friesen's. Not on our own, not by ourselves. It ain't happening.
And, I will concede that it may well be too late for any hearings to have a material effect on events. However, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
And these guys are in a perfect spot to shine a light on the cockroaches who run ATF -- the SES, Senior Executive Service. "Waco Jim"? SES. Little Jimmy Vann (alleged named by an ATF secretary because of the size of his member) of the agency's national counsel's office? SES.
and suggests If you have a congressman or congresswoman who is on any oversight committee, whether they are Republican or Democrat, forward these damning allegations by field agents against the SES crooks to the congresscritters with the demand that they look into these charges. Don't editorialize. Don't criticize the agency's mission. Keep it short and simple. You want the taxpayer's dollars protected and spent wisely. You want these agents' complaints looked into.
I'd heard of the agent who managed to be accepted into Hell's Angels and was pretty much screwed over by BATF afterward; some of this stuff is both new to me and friggin' disgusting. If there's going to be a BATFE, it needs to be run as a proper LE agency, by all the rules; and that includes not screwing your own people because (fill in the current excuse). There are good agents in that agency, who really do care about the law, and justice, and won't screw people over just for a good mark on their record(though why many of them are still in that place, from the sound of it, I don't know), and they deserve better than the bosses they appear to have.
No comments:
Post a Comment