Federal law enforcement agencies co-opted sheriffs offices as well state and local police forces in three states last weekend for a vast round up operation that one sheriff’s deputy has described as "martial law training".

Law-enforcement agencies in Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas took part in what was described by local media as "an anti-crime and anti-terrorism initiative" involving officers from more than 50 federal, state and local agencies.

Given the military style name "Operation Sudden Impact", the initiative saw officers from six counties rounding up fugitives, conducting traffic checkpoints, climbing on boats on the Mississippi River and doing other "crime-abatement" programs all under the label of "anti-terrorism".

WREG Memphis news channel 3 reported that the Sheriff’s Department arrested 332 people, 142 of whom were fugitives, or "terrorists" as they now seem to be known.

Hundreds of dollars were seized and drugs recovered, and 1,292 traffic violations were handed out to speeding terrorists and illegally parked terrorists.

Click here to watch a WREG Memphis news report

The authorities even raided businesses and store owners, confiscating computers and paperwork in an effort to "track down possible terrorists before something big happens".

The Sheriff’s Department is determining if and when they plan another round-up.

The operation, which involved police, deputies, the FBI, drug agents, gang units and even the coast guard, is just one example of how law enforcement at the state and local levels is being co-opted and centralized by the Department of Homeland Security via massive federal grants.

It also highlights how the distinction between crime and terrorism is becoming irrelevant.

An Infowars reader called in to the Alex Jones show yesterday to alert us to the story and explain that he had gleaned the information from a his friend, a sheriff’s deputy in Memphis, who had described the operation as "training for martial law in America".

Forget innocent until proven guilty, you are now a terrorist suspect until you are told otherwise.

It is now the norm to consider everybody equally likely to be guilty of something than innocent. This is proactive policing, not preventative or reactive policing, and is widely indicative of a society that is NOT free.

This form of proactive policing is a phenomena indicative of a once free state rapidly declining into a authoritarian police state.

If there was a real terror threat in these states, it would surely make sense to for law enforcement agencies to target known trouble areas, and follow up on already existing leads. Instead we are seeing local police and the coast guard being recruited to randomly target anyone in any area as possible terrorists.

Surely if there was a real terror threat, this activity would harm the effort to combat it.

Of course, such activity is clearly not related to a real and tangible terror threat, it is related to the ongoing effort to vastly increase the size and scope of the federal government and increase the power it has over American citizens.

The information and intelligence from the operation will be collated and routed through federally funded state-run fusion centers, which are working in conjunction with the military arm of the DHS, NORTHCOM.

Such information will soon include the DNA and other biometric information from every person arrested, which DHS head Michael Chertoff has declared is no longer your personal information.

We recently reported on the fact that after 9/11 the Justice Department advised the Bush administration that it was able to effectively suspend the Fourth Amendment where domestic counter terrorism operations are concerned.

In light of this, and given that the government has begun to class any crime as terrorism and set local and state police to work on "anti-terror" operations, it is clear that the protections provided by the Bill of Rights and the Constitution are under direct threat.

We have seen how new provisions will effectively nullify the U.S. constitution, and a recent spate of executive orders, in particular PDD 51, outline preparations for the implementation of open martial law in the event of a declared national emergency.

Centralized and federally coordinated law enforcement programs complement nationwide FEMA programs to train Pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to "obey the government" in preparation for the implementation of martial law, property and firearm seizures, mass vaccination programs and forced relocation. The effects of this particular program have already been witnessed.

Steve Watson

Endnote:

[1] ^ Photo: Chris Desmond/Special to The Commercial Appeal