Current Events > Republicans give themselves secret police force in North Carolina

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North Carolina's recently approved state budget would give legislators investigative powers that Democrats compared to a "secret police force" in Nazi Germany.
The Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations or GovOps would have the authority to investigate state and local government agencies, as well as any agency that received taxpayer funding, and public employees contacted by investigators would be required to keep those communications and requests for information confidential, reported WRAL-TV.
We do not need a legislative spy agency," said state Sen. Graig Meyer (D-Orange), who compared the proposed investigative unit to the "Gestapo." "[It's a] dangerous level of dark and dangerous government."
Gov Ops staff would be authorized to enter any building owned or leased by a state or non-state entity without a warrant, and lawmakers say that would include private residences owned by contractors and subcontractors who run businesses from their homes.

If you do business with the state, and your business is registered at your home, then partisan legislative staff from Gov Ops could go into your home without a warrant to get documents from your home, including computer files, Meyer said. I am upset because this is a level of intrusion of government that I dont think the majority of us want whether we are Republican or Democrat.
House speaker Tim Moore brushed aside Meyer's concerns as hyperbole, saying that lawmakers wanted to investigate state agencies for the government's slow response to Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Florence in 2018, which Republicans have blamed on Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
"People three years, four years after the hurricane still didn't have a home, and hundreds of millions of dollars had been spent," Moore said, "and those people were asking why. Their representatives were asking why, and so we asked why, and we got stonewalled a lot, so we need to have the ability to demand and insist that that information be provided.
But Meyer insisted the investigative powers could easily be abused for partisan purposes.

I dont think I have ever publicly called the GOP leadership authoritarian because thats not a term I take lightly, but their approach to seizing power and cover up their tracks now fits the bill, Meyer told Popular Information. The hypotheticals of how Gov Ops power could be abused are endless. Verbal assurances of restraint are inadequate; we need clear guardrails in law.
The legislature created the Gov Ops committee years ago to hold government institutions accountable, but unlike most watchdog groups it is dominated by Republican lawmakers, and partisan politics strongly influence its investigations -- such as a recent inquiry into diversity training programs at the University of North Carolina.
For the life of me, I dont understand why any government entity needs this much control on a partisan level, said state Rep. Allison Dahle, a Wake County Democrat. This is not a way for us to run our government, folks. This is a scary, scary step."

Republicans in North Carolina are facing criticism for including a measure in their state budget critics say will create a "secret police force."
North Carolina's state budget is set to expand the authority of the Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations, a legislative investigative committee. The changes will allow the committee to investigate state a local government agencies, "or non-State entity receiving public funds."
The budget will allow the GOP-controlled committee to access "any documents or records related to any contract awarded by a State agency, including, but not limited to, (i) records related to the drafting and approval of the contract and (ii) documents and records of the contractor that the Commission determines will assist in verifying accounts or will contain data affecting fees or performance," according to its text.
Democrats have raised concerns about this measure being a government overstep, arguing that the text would state allow agents to enter any government contractor or subcontractors' homes to access these documents. Republicans have argued the committee's expanded scope is necessary to ensure greater oversight following criticism over the state's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and recent hurricanes.

State Representative Allison Dahle compared the investigative body to a "secret police force" during debate on the budget on the floor of the House. She warned that it would "give carte blanche to legislators and legislative employees to look into any entity that receives state funding," according to The News & Observer.

"This secret police force can even come into, for example, a law firm that receives state funding for court-appointed lawyers. This now means that the sanctity of the attorney-client privilege is now defunct," she said.
State Senator Graig Meyer warned that the budget would give "Gov Ops broad, intrusive, & punitive powers to investigate any state entity or any 'non-state entity' that has pretty much any connection to the State of NC at all," in a post to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

"Let's say you're a subcontractor to a contractor w a state agency...get ready to turn over your docs," he wrote.
Republicans, however, have defended the legislation against Democratic criticism.
"Why is it taking so long for these people to get back in their houses? What's taking so long. So, when our Gov Ops committee went in and started asking these same questions, they were stonewalled as well," State House Speaker Tim Moore, a Republican, said, according to a report from Raleigh-based television news station WNCN.
Senate leader Phil Berger, also a Republican, told the news station that expanding the committee's authority is "not a partisan thing."
"It is something that is designed to assist the General Assembly and all members of the General Assembly in carrying out our constitutional obligations to oversee the money that's being spent," he said.

Gov Ops staff would be authorized to enter any building owned or leased by a state or non-state entity without a warrant, and lawmakers say that would include private residences owned by contractors and subcontractors who run businesses from their homes.

Government so small...

I can't see this surviving a legal challenge.

I live in NC... will be interested to see how much the local news covers this evening. Scary either way...

The entire Republican party needs to be investigated and/or outlawed.

I live in NC... will be interested to see how much the local news covers this evening. Scary either way...

Government so small...

I live in NC... will be interested to see how much the local news covers this evening. Scary either way...

I live in NC... will be interested to see how much the local news covers this evening. Scary either way...

I can't see this surviving a legal challenge.

"state rights"

Any time some republican politician says, "That's not what we intend to do here," it's confirmation that that's exactly what they're planning to do. Fascist scumbags.

Even a deaf, dumb, and blind North Korean peasant could tell that this is blatantly unconstitutional.