In 1968, students at Columbia University staged a mass uprising other college campuses in protesting not just the war in Vietnam, but their school’s collaboration with the Institute for Defense Analysis, a Defense Department affiliate that researches weapons technologies. Today, weapons produced by that institute are used by the US military throughout the world and by campus police forces across... 

The Pentagon has an awful lot of leftovers, but luckily for law enforcement agencies across the United States they aren’t going to waste. Millions of dollars’ worth of military gear is distributed to local police forces on an annual basis, and these regular exchanges are occurring from coast to coast in towns and cities that are hardly considered epicenters of violent crime, let alone on par with... 

Cops in armored vehicle asked by residents “Are you coming to take our guns away?” In an interview with Fox 59, a Morgan County, Indiana Police Sergeant admits that the increasing militarization of domestic police departments is partly to deal with returning veterans who are now seen as a homegrown terror threat. In a chilling story entitled Armed for War: Pentagon surplus gives local police an... 

The US military is handing over leftover equipment from the Iraq conflict to police under a military surplus program. Civil liberties groups have criticized the initiative as unnecessary and a move toward the militarization of American law enforcement. American law enforcement agencies have received 165 MRAPs – 18 ton, armored vehicles with gun turrets – this year, according to an AP investigation....