Please tell me we're not in a police state yet

In the west we got rid of debters prisons in the 1800s for multiple reasons. It's illogical to prevent a person from making money to settle debt by imprisoning him. It's more costly to the people with prison expenses. But I guess the biggest reason is it's damned wrong. If you go into debt with a party and cannot make it there are civil actions (lawsuits, etc) to handle the matter.

But thanks to the Department of Education it seems we've brought back a historical anachronism. From Stockton CA (where else but California...well maybe New York...or Chicago) you gotta see this.

STOCKTON, CA - Kenneth Wright does not have a criminal record and he had no reason to believe a S.W.A.T team would be breaking down his door at 6 a.m. on Tuesday.

"I look out of my window and I see 15 police officers," Wright said.

Wright came downstairs in his boxer shorts as a S.W.A.T team barged through his front door. Wright said an officer grabbed him by the neck and led him outside on his front lawn.

"He had his knee on my back and I had no idea why they were there," Wright said.

According to Wright, officers also woke his three young children ages 3, 7, and 11 and put them in a Stockton police patrol car with him. Officers then searched his house.

As it turned out, the person law enforcement was looking for was not there - Wright's estranged wife.

"They put me in handcuffs in that hot patrol car for six hours, traumatizing my kids," Wright said.

Wright said he later went to the mayor and Stockton Police Department, but the City of Stockton had nothing to do with Wright's search warrant.

The U.S. Department of Education issued the search and called in the S.W.A.T for his wife's defaulted student loans.

"They busted down my door for this," Wright said. "It wasn't even me."

According to the Department of Education's Office of the Inspector General, the case can't be discussed publicly until it is closed, but a spokesperson did confirm that the department did issue the search warrant at Wright's home.

The Office of the Inspector General has a law enforcement branch of federal agents that carry out search warrants and investigations.

Stockton Police Department said it was asked by federal agents to provide one officer and one patrol car just for a police presence when carrying out the search warrant....

OK, am I the only person who is shocked our Department of Education (a waste of cash if ever there was) has a SWAT team and can use actions more appropriate for a murder suspect than for a person in default for student loans. And once they get this person what do they do with them...put them in prison? For what? This is not a criminal matter but a civil matter. BTY, remember that the regime of B Hussein Obama federalized the student loan industry...so as of last year all student loans are debts to the feds...the guys with this SWAT team. Now if Bank of American had a student loan in default and requested DoE take enforcement actions like this, the ACLU would be screaming. Now I hear nothing (no surprise).

I'm praying this man has a good lawyer...if there a legal fund out there I will put donate money. His rights have been violated in more ways than can be counted and he needs to compensated. But more than that I want this SWAT team disassembled and whoever authorized it's existance impaled (figurative, not literally). Who the hell thought you could raid a man's house and arrest him for a late student loan. I'm recalling some words, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,...".

BTY Chief of Police for Stockton, if this report is true you should have had nothing to do with it. This is an abuse of people's rights if every there was.

Outrages like this make me recall the words of Reagan,

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.