Watch out for Contract Guards Federal Protective Service

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Moreover, guards employed by some contractors were not always complying with post orders once they were deployed to federal facilities. FPS’s post orders describe a number of things that guards are prohibited from doing while on post. For example, guards are prohibited from sleeping, using government property such as computers, and test-firing a weapon unless at a range course. However, as we testified in July 2009, when FPS routinely inspects guard posts, it has found incidents at level IV facilities where guards were not complying with post orders, including the following:

A guard was caught using government computers while he was supposed to be standing post, to further his private for-profit adult Web site.

A guard attached a motion sensor to a pole at the entrance to a federal facility garage to alert him whenever a person was approaching his post. Another law enforcement agency discovered the device and reported it to FPS.

A guard, during regular business hours, accidentally fired his firearm in a restroom while practicing drawing his weapon.

A guard failed to recognize or did not properly X-ray a box containing semiautomatic handguns at the loading dock at one federal facility we visited. FPS became aware of the situation only because the handguns were delivered to FPS.

In each of these incidents, the guards were fired or disciplined. However, FPS continues to find instances where guards are not complying with post orders. For example, 2 days after the July 2009 hearing, another guard fired his firearm in a restroom in a level IV facility while practicing drawing his weapon.

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No police scrutiny: Drop the camera and back away - Tuesday, Jul. 13, 2010

No police scrutiny: Drop the camera and back away


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Take care, New Hampshire, that you don't let the police catch you using your cell phone or video camera to record their interactions with the public. You could be arrested and charged with a felony.

That's what happened to 20-year-old Adam H. Whitman of New Castle on July 4. Portsmouth police were called to a party after midnight and wound up filing charges against 20 people, many for underage drinking. Whitman, whom police say was intoxicated, was charged with disorderly conduct for allegedly encouraging partiers to resist the police, the Portsmouth Herald reported.

Then police explored the contents of a confiscated cell phone. It was Whitman's. Apparently, he had recorded some of what happened after police arrived. Law enforcement does not approve of that. Whitman found himself charged with wiretapping, a Class B felony in New Hampshire.

Wiretapping? Yes. Under New Hampshire law, using a device that "is affixed to, or otherwise transmits a signal through, a wire, cable, or other like connection used in telecommunication" to record an oral conversation without the permission of all participants is considered wiretapping.

Like the Driver Privacy Act, which was intended to protect citizens from criminals, the state's wiretapping statute has been used by law enforcement to protect itself from public scrutiny. Police who find their actions being recorded can, and do, charge citizens with wiretapping.

In Nashua in 2006, police charged Michael Gannon with wiretapping after he brought surveillance video from his home security cameras to the police station to show police brass how poorly he said officers treated his son while they investigated a robbery charge. The wiretapping charge was later dropped, but police kept the evidence -- the security video recordings.

It shouldn't be a crime to record public officials doing their jobs or to record public disturbances or other crimes. Doing so can be a public service. (Had someone taped the incident involving Christopher Micklovich and four off-duty Manchester police officers outside the Strange Brew Tavern earlier this year, that saga would not be dragging on and on.) But in New Hampshire it's not only a crime, it's a felony. This needs to change.

Better use that 35x zoom and get a tripod/Image stabilization! This is ridiculous and is really scary what is going on in MD in regards to recording the police.

Save Award

Saveaward.gov

Yeah lets ask the people who make a living off of big spending to offer ideas to cut spending thats a great idea! How about something simplier. Go here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_agencies_of_the_United_States_govern... or here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_executive_departments

Start picking agencies that private market could easily handle.
Why not get rid of every executive department created after the year 1900? They're useless anyway and can be handled by private businesses. Also what does the DOA do? Do they really protect our meat and eggs?