Operation Fast and Furious

[carlfense]

Holy smokes. Long read . . . but eye opening.

 

http://features.blog...?source=cnn_bin

A Fortune investigation reveals that the ATF never intentionally allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. How the world came to believe just the opposite is a tale of rivalry, murder, and political bloodlust.

 

[JJ Husker]

Very interesting. Wow- talk about dysfunctional government beaurocracies. They get paid six figures to act like immature 5 year olds? This may not be exactly the same fast & furious story we have been fed but the fact remains that guns that could've been stopped weren't. There is a huge problem and the buck needs to stop somewhere. Seems like the Obama administration and Holder's refusal to release information is only delaying any real solution. They need to get down to the business of creating and supporting rational laws and the ATF to enforcing them. Looks to me like everyone is letting us down in this deal.

[carlfense]

Very interesting. Wow- talk about dysfunctional government beaurocracies. They get paid six figures to act like immature 5 year olds?

Agreed.

 

This may not be exactly the same fast & furious story we have been fed but the fact remains that guns that could've been stopped weren't.

It doesn't sound like there was an obvious way. What do you think should have been done and how should they have accomplished it?

 

There is a huge problem and the buck needs to stop somewhere. Seems like the Obama administration and Holder's refusal to release information is only delaying any real solution. They need to get down to the business of creating and supporting rational laws and the ATF to enforcing them. Looks to me like everyone is letting us down in this deal.

There is plenty of blame to spread around. It doesn't sound like the initial problem even reached the upper local levels . . . let alone Holder or Obama. Unfortunately it has now become a political football for both sides. The GOP desperately wants to find a scandal to pin on Obama . . . and Obama seems more than willing to make the GOP play their game to the fullest extent . . . possibly in the hopes of making them look like tin foil hat wearing conspiracists . . . even if that means that we aren't addressing the real problems. Sad state of affairs. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just have an adult conversation about how to stop this river of firearms from crossing the border to Mexico?

[strigori]

The short of it is the right wing is trying to crucify Obama and Holder for working within the limits of the laws that the right wing wants.

 

Politics in this country are so far beyond broken....

[Ziggy]

The way I read it, a business magazine is trying to remain relevant and wrote an article on a hot political topic. And throughout the whole article the writer constantly laid blame on prosecutors and "Rogue" or "Renegade" ATF agents. And also the article basically says the ATF and the Justice department couldn't get their collective Sh*t together to stop people from running guns across the Mexican boarder. Not getting a wiretap warrant is pretty inexcusable, and add on that the guns were not followed from suspected straw buyers to Mexican drug cartels is borderline defenseless. The article points out some pretty important things about the "Fast and Furious" scandal that a lot of people don't know. But honestly its far to over done, and too much unneeded fluff to be taken seriously. The writer takes the word of people who supposedly are by the book straight arrows who worked on the case, and completely bashes a whistleblower who felt the case wasn’t being handled the right way and ended in an unacceptable way. In my opinion the article is too much opinion and not enough substance.

[carlfense]

The way I read it, a business magazine is trying to remain relevant and wrote an article on a hot political topic.

Over 6 months?

 

And throughout the whole article the writer constantly laid blame on prosecutors and "Rogue" or "Renegade" ATF agents.

Where do you think the blame belongs and why?

 

<snip> [A]dd on that the guns were not followed from suspected straw buyers to Mexican drug cartels is borderline defenseless.

How should they have followed them into a sovereign country? Which laws should they have enforced against the straw purchasers?

 

This is why we can't have reflexive opposition to sales requirements. No one needs to buy 10 identical ARs in one day with cash. That just doesn't pass the common sense test.

[strigori]

The way I read it, a business magazine is trying to remain relevant and wrote an article on a hot political topic. And throughout the whole article the writer constantly laid blame on prosecutors and "Rogue" or "Renegade" ATF agents. And also the article basically says the ATF and the Justice department couldn't get their collective Sh*t together to stop people from running guns across the Mexican boarder. Not getting a wiretap warrant is pretty inexcusable, and add on that the guns were not followed from suspected straw buyers to Mexican drug cartels is borderline defenseless. The article points out some pretty important things about the "Fast and Furious" scandal that a lot of people don't know. But honestly its far to over done, and too much unneeded fluff to be taken seriously. The writer takes the word of people who supposedly are by the book straight arrows who worked on the case, and completely bashes a whistleblower who felt the case wasn’t being handled the right way and ended in an unacceptable way. In my opinion the article is too much opinion and not enough substance.

Get a wiretap on what grounds? According to Arizona law, there were no laws broken. The main thing I took away from the article is the ATF is more or less stuck sitting around watching things happen that should be illegal but are legal in AZ. And now because an agent died (in large part because Mexico can't get their crap together) the congressional republicans are trying to score political points in an election year by saying Holder, and by proxy Obama, should have enforced laws that don't exist.

[Ziggy]

The way I read it, a business magazine is trying to remain relevant and wrote an article on a hot political topic.

Over 6 months?

 

And throughout the whole article the writer constantly laid blame on prosecutors and "Rogue" or "Renegade" ATF agents.

Where do you think the blame belongs and why?

 

<snip> [A]dd on that the guns were not followed from suspected straw buyers to Mexican drug cartels is borderline defenseless.

How should they have followed them into a sovereign country? Which laws should they have enforced against the straw purchasers?

 

This is why we can't have reflexive opposition to sales requirements. No one needs to buy 10 identical ARs in one day with cash. That just doesn't pass the common sense test.

 

Really the length someone works on a project is supposed to make it better or more informative? Look the writer put together a lot of information and apparently talked to a lot of people about the case. But attacking people involved in the case is seems petty and makes the article come off (to me) as biased and all the information tainted by the writers prejudice.

 

The blame belongs on the government, for failing to make gun laws that make sense, for failing to stop people from crossing the border with weapons, for failing to get wire taps to stop straw men, for not complying with congress when they want oversight over a Justice department ran op that ended with an American citizen / Border patrol killed by weapons believed to be involved in gun running. Lastly for Americans, for allowing our government to get so far away from what it was intended to be.

 

How to follow a weapon suspected to being smuggled into a foreign country. Get a warrant, put a GPS unit into the stock of the weapon, and ensure that the store owner only sells the monitored weapons to the suspected straw purchaser, monitor GPS locations and work with the Mexican Government to allow US agents (or Mexican agents with assistance from ATF) to arrest the smugglers in Mexican Territory.

 

Should anyone blindly oppose any bill passed or brought up, no. But the opposite causes just as many problems, by blindly voting for or agreeing with every bill that is pro-gun or anti-gun, you forget to make sure the bill actually makes sense and does what its supposed to.

[HSKR]

I still want to know why Holder just didn't hand over all the documents Congress asked for. If he had nothing to hide this would all be over.

[Yossarian]

The Justice Department sent a letter to Senator Grassley in February 2011 stating that the allegations of gun walking in Fast and Furious were false. In December 2011, Justice "retracted" the letter, suggesting that the allegations were not false, after all. Those are two things that are known to be true - the issuing of the letter and its withdrawal. If this were simply a matter of a dysfunctional bureaucracy, the AG and the President have needlessly raised it to a critical level. This has an eerie resemblance to the way President Nixon was run out of office. The only thing missing now is for another "Deep Throat" to emerge. Grab the popcorn...this is going to get interesting.

[Ziggy]

The way I read it, a business magazine is trying to remain relevant and wrote an article on a hot political topic. And throughout the whole article the writer constantly laid blame on prosecutors and "Rogue" or "Renegade" ATF agents. And also the article basically says the ATF and the Justice department couldn't get their collective Sh*t together to stop people from running guns across the Mexican boarder. Not getting a wiretap warrant is pretty inexcusable, and add on that the guns were not followed from suspected straw buyers to Mexican drug cartels is borderline defenseless. The article points out some pretty important things about the "Fast and Furious" scandal that a lot of people don't know. But honestly its far to over done, and too much unneeded fluff to be taken seriously. The writer takes the word of people who supposedly are by the book straight arrows who worked on the case, and completely bashes a whistleblower who felt the case wasn’t being handled the right way and ended in an unacceptable way. In my opinion the article is too much opinion and not enough substance.

Get a wiretap on what grounds? According to Arizona law, there were no laws broken. The main thing I took away from the article is the ATF is more or less stuck sitting around watching things happen that should be illegal but are legal in AZ. And now because an agent died (in large part because Mexico can't get their crap together) the congressional republicans are trying to score political points in an election year by saying Holder, and by proxy Obama, should have enforced laws that don't exist.

 

So you can hide behind Arizona state law when it is convenient but when the federal government wants to it has shown it will circumvent states rights at every opportunity. And regardless the ATF is a Federal agency, not a state agency. And it is illegal to sell, trade, or have intended to buy weapons with the intent to commit a crime. Getting a warrant for a suspect isn’t that hard when your buying multiple semi auto weapons in cash multiple times.

 

The article spoke multiple times about ATF requesting wire taps and were usually waiting several days longer than normal to get them. The article made some educated guessed about why, judical dragging feet, higher ups not seeing the volume of guns crossing the border. Regardless of political party, everyone should agree that Congress should be able to review operations that are epic failures and result in the death of American Citizens. If this happened during the previous administration, the oppositions outrage would far outweigh the current republican frenzy.

[strigori]

The way I read it, a business magazine is trying to remain relevant and wrote an article on a hot political topic. And throughout the whole article the writer constantly laid blame on prosecutors and "Rogue" or "Renegade" ATF agents. And also the article basically says the ATF and the Justice department couldn't get their collective Sh*t together to stop people from running guns across the Mexican boarder. Not getting a wiretap warrant is pretty inexcusable, and add on that the guns were not followed from suspected straw buyers to Mexican drug cartels is borderline defenseless. The article points out some pretty important things about the "Fast and Furious" scandal that a lot of people don't know. But honestly its far to over done, and too much unneeded fluff to be taken seriously. The writer takes the word of people who supposedly are by the book straight arrows who worked on the case, and completely bashes a whistleblower who felt the case wasn’t being handled the right way and ended in an unacceptable way. In my opinion the article is too much opinion and not enough substance.

Get a wiretap on what grounds? According to Arizona law, there were no laws broken. The main thing I took away from the article is the ATF is more or less stuck sitting around watching things happen that should be illegal but are legal in AZ. And now because an agent died (in large part because Mexico can't get their crap together) the congressional republicans are trying to score political points in an election year by saying Holder, and by proxy Obama, should have enforced laws that don't exist.

 

So you can hide behind Arizona state law when it is convenient but when the federal government wants to it has shown it will circumvent states rights at every opportunity. And regardless the ATF is a Federal agency, not a state agency. And it is illegal to sell, trade, or have intended to buy weapons with the intent to commit a crime. Getting a warrant for a suspect isn’t that hard when your buying multiple semi auto weapons in cash multiple times.

 

The article spoke multiple times about ATF requesting wire taps and were usually waiting several days longer than normal to get them. The article made some educated guessed about why, judical dragging feet, higher ups not seeing the volume of guns crossing the border. Regardless of political party, everyone should agree that Congress should be able to review operations that are epic failures and result in the death of American Citizens. If this happened during the previous administration, the oppositions outrage would far outweigh the current republican frenzy.

And Arizona is Republican at all levels, but no one is killing them for not issuing warrants, or even having sensible gun laws. Or killing themselves for not allowing the ATF to electronically track gun sales. There is a lot of blame to go around, and the only person our idiots in congress are interested in making a scapegoat is Holder.

 

This congress has no interest in the facts about what happened, just scoring political points, which is what the whole pissing match between Holder/Obama and Congress is right now. There is a reason why little of what is in that article is actually being spoken by members of Congress.

 

Federal laws on the sale/transport/whathaveyou of guns involves crossing state lines. These never did that. So the ATF is shackled by state laws in that.

[walksalone]

That was a brutal read...

 

The lack of command and control in that outfit, is downright frightening. It seems that, for the most part, Voth's intentions were good. I gotta say this, he got stuck with a douchebag crew, from what it sounds like.

[carlfense]

So you can hide behind Arizona state law when it is convenient

It's not hiding behind Arizona state law so much as the law doesn't exist and therefore can't be enforced.

 

And it is illegal to sell, trade, or have intended to buy weapons with the intent to commit a crime.

How do you show that they intended to commit a crime?

 

Getting a warrant for a suspect isn’t that hard when your buying multiple semi auto weapons in cash multiple times.

You haven't requested a lot of warrants, have you?

[Ziggy]

1. The Brady act makes it illegal for Illegal Immigrants and non citizens to own firearms in the US, also it is illegal to own firearms in Mexico so if the owner attempts to cross the border or sell/trade/give firearms to a non citizen/illegal immigrant he/she has broken the Federal law.

2. See post #1

3. Warrents was a generalization and was intended to cover a wire tap application, which in the article was said to talk 24 hours at Voht's last stop in MN. The article then went on to say wiretaps took weeks to get the ok on from DOJ agents.