Texas Legislators Attempt to Give Federal Reserve Guards Arrest Powers

Truthstream received a message last week from Rep. Jonathan Stickland about his efforts to filibuster and delay this potentially dangerous transfer of power to none other than the Federal Reserve banking system.

Bill H.B. 2346 would grant commissioned officers of the Federal Reserve some of the powers given to sworn peace officers – including powers of arrest, search and seizure – in matters taking place on Federal Reserve property or, more broadly, in matters related to the Fed.

And that’s where the power could go unchecked. The extent of the influence and “business” of the Fed in the nation’s economy is far-reaching, if not all encompassing, indeed.

It has been stalled for now, but for how long is not certain. Giving arrest powers to a private force working on behalf of an unaccountable and shadowy private central bank is clearly a sloped and slippery path.

The text reads:

Should this bill pass – and take hold in other states and jurisdictions – how far will central bank powers go, if and when, Fed security forces assume “search and seizure” powers of investigation over any and all investigations of financial matters?

This is an institution with its fingers in all the pies. Tellingly, the motto of the Federal Reserve Police is “Protecting the nation’s economy.” What, exactly, does that make their policing business? And where does protecting the interests of the Fed end?

It is an interesting, but ultimately unanswered and untested question.

Already, officers at the Federal Reserve have been involved in systematically intimidating citizen journalists and threatening them with arrest for filming the central bank.

Meanwhile, State Rep. Joe Pickett (D-El Paso), who introduced the legislation, had his own form of retaliation against Rep. Stickland for blocking the bill, handing him a copy of the bill that included a drawing of a pair of stick figures which labeled a Federal Reserve as a “good guy” theoretically stopping a “bad guy” bank robber.

A stunning over-simplification for those wary of the growing intrusion of the Fed.

The Austin American Statesman shared this image in a blog post on the incident:

While there was a major bank robbery of the Federal Reserve back in the 1920s, the bulk of the heist has been on the part of the institution itself, or rather its secretive owners, who arguably make up the most powerful cartel in the world.

As G. Edward Griffin, author of The Creature from Jekyll Island, stated:

(The Fed) Is nothing more or less than a cartel. It’s no different than an oil cartel, a banana cartel or a sugar cartel. It happens to be a banking cartel and, like all cartels, it’s made up of the big players in that industry who get together and set rules to reduce or eliminate competition among themselves and regulate their own industry. And they regulate not in the best interests of the people, of course. Because it is a cartel, they regulate to their own advantage, but then they always go to great lengths to convince the people that they are regulating in such a way that it is in the best interest of the people.

Former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan admitted as much about the unaccountability of the Fed when asked by PBS talk show host Jim Lehrer: “What should be the proper relationship between a chairman of the Fed and the president of the United States?”

“Well, first of all, the Federal Reserve is an independent agency, and that means basically that there is no other agency of government (including the executive office) which can overrule actions that we take,” Greenspan responded matter-of-factly. “So long as that is in place… then, what the relationships are don’t frankly matter.”

The Federal Reserve is a private entity not funded by Congress, and as such its police-like security forces have operated under a nebulous para-government status. However, incremental changes have granted them more power, most notably after 9/11 and, more recently, with a 2010 bill signed by Obama granting Fed officers some of the same concealed-carry rights as publicly sworn peace officers:

On October 12, 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law S.B. 1132 the “Law Enforcement Officers’ Safety Act Improvements Act”, which states that law enforcement officers of the Federal Reserve are “qualified law enforcement officers” and thus are authorized to carry a firearm off-duty. This update to the Law Enforcement Safety Act, among other aspects, clarified that Federal Law Enforcement Officers working for Amtrak and the Federal Reserve (not funded by Congress) are specifically granted the same rights as publicly funded law enforcement officers as it relates to off-duty concealed carry. (via Wikipedia)

Fighting in this episode against the attempt to wield further power from the public institutions into unaccountable corporate hands is Rep. Stickland, an emerging “populist” Tea Party figure inside the Texas system.

The Texas Tribune reports on the large looming figure of Stickland:

There are three parties in the Texas House, the joke around the state Capitol goes: Republicans, Democrats and Jonathan Stickland […] the 31-year-old sophomore legislator has poured a seemingly inexhaustible supply of populist indignation into exposing what he sees as ideological hypocrisy within his own party.

“I’m not here playing games,” he said. “I’m literally just here trying to bring transparency to the process.”

Many of his colleagues beg to differ. They say Stickland’s tactics — tying up floor debates with questions and delaying legislation with parliamentary maneuvers — are doing nothing more than holding up the House’s business while rubbing Democrats and Republicans alike the wrong way.

“His M.O. is to stand at the back mic and be a martyr,” state Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, said last week. “His whole thing is, ‘woe is me, nobody likes me, I can’t get any bills passed so I’m going to sit here and cause disruption.”

In the waning weeks of the legislative session, Stickland’s efforts have provoked almost daily rebukes on the House floor, where he frequently springs to the microphone from what he calls the “liberty defense wall” — his desk in a row occupied by like-minded conservatives. (Read more)

Aaron Dykes is a co-founder of TruthstreamMedia.com, where this article first appeared. As a writer, researcher and video producer who has worked on numerous documentaries and investigative reports, he uses history as a guide to decode current events, uncover obscure agendas and contrast them with the dignity afforded individuals as recognized in documents like the Bill of Rights.