Fast, Furious gun-walking called unusual

sfgate.com ^ | 4 August, 2012 | Dan Freedman

[marktwain]

Washington --

Justice Department and ATF officials have described the controversial gun-walking tactics used in Operation Fast and Furious as an aberration, but ATF agents have employed variations of the same surveillance techniques for decades.

ATF has long targeted gun traffickers through a combination of tailing, wiretaps and "controlled delivery" - following a contraband trail to the point where agents can catch a criminal organization's masterminds in the act, often with the help of an inside informant.

"Once the criminal takes receipt, ATF generally swoops in and locks up everybody," said Michael Bouchard, former operations director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "That's a part of doing undercover work. It happens all the time."

Straw purchasers

What doesn't happen all the time, current ATF officials insist, is gun-walking - Phoenix-based agents instructed to observe Mexico-bound gun purchases rather than interdict them.

In Fast and Furious, which ran from late 2009 through early 2011, agents watched straw purchasers - Mexican drug-cartel surrogates - buy weapons in Phoenix-area gun stores and hand them off to middlemen for transport to Mexico.

Fast and Furious blew up into a Washington scandal after two weapons linked to the operation were recovered at the southern Arizona site where Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in December 2010.

[marktwain]

The headline write decided to say that gun-walking was "called unusual" rather than simply calling it unusual.

[marktwain]

Gunwalker / Murdergate ping.

[marktwain]

I thought that this was an interesting point that I had not seen before:

“Asked during a congressional hearing last year how ATF planned to arrest Mexican cartel kingpins implicated in such crimes, Newell responded that agents would simply inform Mexican authorities and nothing more.”

[bcsco]

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[MestaMachine]

“Instead of interdicting weapons, agents were instructed to note the serial numbers of weapons sold to traffickers and record them on ATF’s suspect gun database.”

“They would then match the numbers with those of weapons recovered at Mexican crime scenes, thus proving the obvious - U.S-purchased weapons were being used in cartel-related shootings in Mexico.”

“They would then match the numbers with those of weapons recovered at Mexican crime scenes, thus proving the obvious - U.S-purchased weapons were being used in cartel-related shootings in Mexico.”

“They would then match the numbers with those of weapons recovered at Mexican crime scenes, thus proving the obvious - U.S-purchased weapons were being used in cartel-related shootings in Mexico.”

Oh, yeah.

[Venturer]

Fast and Furious will amount to nothing as we all knew it would.

It would have brought down a Republican administration, but only this years election can bring down the “Magic Negro”.

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

marktwain ~ “Asked during a congressional hearing last year how ATF planned to arrest Mexican cartel kingpins implicated in such crimes, Newell responded that agents would simply inform Mexican authorities and nothing more.”

This statement is significant:
#1 It means that ATF sees this US Federal agency’s supervisor-directed program as Mexico’s problem
#2 The intent of this US (criminal)Federal “Justice Department” program was to produce ‘sound bites’ for the US and Mexico media.
#3 The secondary intent was for the media to limit U.S. citizens right to buy and sell firearms

Problems:
no ability to track the weapons. as U.S. agents were directed to “stand down” by their Justice Dept. supervisors
no Mexican legal prosecution/ Mexican authorities were never notified
no criminal prosecutions until after the program was closed
no admission of US Justice Department involvement would have come to light,except for a few brave whistle-blowers who told the truth to a Congressional committee.
we still don’t know how many of these weapons were used to kill U.S. citizens in the United States.

[marktwain]

Fast and Furious will amount to nothing as we all knew it would.

Many people are working hard to make sure that it does not amount to much.

As you noted, it would have brought down a Republican administration already. It is a battle between the MSM and the new media. This scandal would never have seen the light of day if not for the new media.

A number of voters on the edge have already been turned toward the Republicans by this scandal. How many is not certain, but there are many blue dog Democrats that read the NRA journals.

I agree that we will have to vote President Obama out of office, and this scandal is another reason to do so for many people.

[GOPJ]

False flag (aka Black Flag) operations are covert operations designed to deceive in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is: flying the flag of a country other than one’s own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations and can be used during peace-time. - wikepedia

My guess? This was long term and went to the top...

[Nachum]

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