Growing Use Of Private Security Indicates A Failing Democracy And Two-Tiered Society

One of the signs of an oligarchic plutocracy is the fact that the elites always feel in danger and require constant security. As income inequality rises, oligarchs control the majority of American business, and marginal political and business leaders feel threatened, we have seen a proliferation in not only the use of private security forces but also the co-opting of regular police forces to ensure the safety of the chosen elites. If this doesn’t remind you of Russia or some third-world plutocracies, it should. Because that is what America is more and more becoming.

Let’s just start right at the top with Donald Trump. Even today, when the American taxpayer is spending millions on Secret Service protection, Trump has also decide to keep his own private security force. At least two of Trump’s security team joined the White House staff after the inauguration and, from what I could find,  it is unclear whether his security team is still in place and in what capacity they might be working.

In the last few days, we have also learned that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt are using tax-payer funded security details of their own. DeVos was apparently spooked by the protests that prevented her from entering a DC public school and now has protection from US Marshals that cost around $1 million per month. It is unclear why she is using US Marshalls instead of the security team already in place at the Education Department. Pruitt has just received an around the clock detail apparently because of the danger of leftist activists and, incredibly, hostility from within the EPA itself.

I understand that Trump’s security is paramount and even cabinet members need protection at times. But he clearly does not need his own private security; that’s what we pay the Secret Service for. And it is hard to believe we have ever had an Education Secretary who needed $1 million per month in security or an EPA administrator who needed it 24/7. What these actions do reflect is a fear and a real disconnect from the people they are supposed to be representing, especially those people that have been protesting their policies peacefully.

When the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline started to really heat up last year, Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), the builder of the pipeline, originally brought in private security guards using dogs and pepper spray in an attempt to break up the protests. It was bad enough that ETP was using force to dislodge the protests, but they were also breaking North Dakota law as many of the private security guards did not have the proper license to work in that state. But that was no matter, because ETP just got the state police forces to come in and do the dirty work for them.

On Tuesday, United Airlines had a passenger forcible removed from a plane because of overbooking by the airline. I’m guessing the poor passenger had no idea he was violating some United policy by refusing to give up his seat because of the overbooking. Like any other normal person, he purchased a ticket and selected a seat on United and expected the company to comply with that explicit contract. He probably did not read the fine print somewhere on the ticket or website that gave the company the right to remove him for no reason at all other than they had overbooked, nor, I suspect, had he been warned that this might happen before he boarded the plane. But when United wanted him off the plane, they immediately called in the airport and local police who treated the man like a criminal.

Evan Osnos in the January 30th edition of the New Yorker had a fascinating story on the large numbers of the super-rich who are preparing for doomsday. Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, estimates “fifty-plus percent” of Silicon Valley billionaires have bought what he calls “apocalypse insurance”, a safe place either in the US or abroad. Peter Thiel is among the many who have purchased places in New Zealand in the belief that it is remote enough and unpopulated enough to survive there. But others have taken a more interesting turn, converting old US missile silos that were built to withstand a nuclear attack into safe bunkers that include their own private security force.  According to Larry Hall, the CEO of the Survival Condo Project that has converted one of these silos into essentially a 15 story apartment building, the owners are protected by a SWAT team that will also go and pick up owners within  400 mile radius or at the nearest airport 30 miles away. The super-rich know that the income inequality is unsustainable and that no one has a good answer for the jobs being lost to technology. And their answer is to not try and fix the problem, but create their own safe space with their own police and military power.

Another example of this fear in the elites and rich is the dramatic rise in gated communities in my lifetime, many of which are again patrolled by private security companies. And many of these communities simply “capture” public space as their own. I know I have driven down public roads in certain of these communities many times and been stopped by security asking what I was doing there and who was I seeing. The message was very clear and it was you are not welcome to use this road unless you have a reason to be here.

And now even state governments are authorizing local organizations to create their own police forces. Charlie Pierce points us to the not-so-great state of Alabama where the legislature has authorized Briarwood Presbyterian Church to set up its own police force that would have the same rights and powers of any other police force in the state. The only difference is these police officers would be answering to church leaders instead of state officials. Briarwood contends it needs these police officers to keep its school and congregation of 4,000 safe. Of course, some people who believe in our Constitution might just wonder a little bit about having what are essentially religious police.

The privatization of security is just another example of the two-tier society that America has become in the last few decades. Increasing corporate power and the inability or unwillingness to bring corporate criminals to justice is part of the problem, as is the ever-increasing income inequality. The destruction of our governing norms, primarily by the Republican party, also feeds this problem as does the resulting loss of faith in virtually all institutions. All told, none of this indicates a functioning, healthy democracy or society.