The bottom line is this: Falsifying affidavits, breaking into businesses, shredding documents that are part of a federal investigation, covering up aspects of a publicly-commissioned investigation, and misusing revenues from regulatory fines — excessive or otherwise — area full-fledged criminal actions. That’s why Congress must commission an independent investigation.
Locke conceded a new investigative report — for which he commissioned retired judge Charles B. Swartwood III — shows that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration enforcement agents “overstepped their bounds.”
Do you think? The report notes that agents falsified an affidavit for a search warrant, then later executed a “warrantless” entry — usually called an illegal break-in — at the Gloucester seafood auction.
Yet Locke says none of the agents involved in those actions or then-NOAA police chief Dale Jones will be punished for their actions. Locke believes those actions were carried out due to improper training. Baloney. The actions of agent-in-charge Andrew Cohen & Co. sound as if they were really trained all too well for a federal policing force agents once bragged was “accountable to no one.”
Read the complete editorial from The Gloucester Times.