I suspect that's the case for most of these other "unusual" SWAT teams in the article. The Department of Interior's SWAT team, for example, is part of the US Park Police and provides ERT responsibilities for highly visible national monuments, like the Statue of Liberty or Washington Monument. The HHS SWAT team is the ERT for the NIH campus in Maryland, etc.
(I kid you not; google it.)
quote: NASA investigators then arranged the sting, where Conley met with Davis and her current husband at the Denny's restaurant at Lake Elsinore in Riverside County.
Soon after settling into a booth, Davis said, she pulled out the moon sample and about half a dozen sheriff's deputies and NASA investigators rushed into the eatery. /quote https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/granny-roughed-up-in-moon-rock...
It’s a bit off to call it a “sting” though when the NASA inspector general is the only one that thinks a crime is actually taking place.
Edit: to be clear, the IG is asserting in these cases either that the astronauts stole NASA property or that they illegally profited off of the mission (as later Apollo astronauts got in trouble for doing when they sold the personal effects they took with them).
However in most of these cases it’s clear that (1) these weren’t misplaced samples, but rather an extra rock they picked up and kept, for which there’s no law against; and (2) they didn’t profit off it, but rather freely gave chips of the rock to their wives, girlfriends, children, close friends, or just kept as a momento.
Now two generations later these Apollo era people are dying off and their estate is finding out that the little moon rock grandpa has is worth $10k/gram at auction, and trying to cash in. And when they do, NASA sends a SWAT team to their house.
Please reference: Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire[0]
The author argues that the US is creating the "terrorists and nuts" that the US is then protecting itself from.
If the US was not hyper-interventionist on the world stage, there would be almost no terrorist threat.
> Please reference: Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire[0]
> The author argues that the US is creating the "terrorists and nuts" that the US is then protecting itself from.
I suspect that the terrorists and nuts most interested in firing a SAM at a NASA launch would be of the domestic varieties.
And yet never in history has that been attempted, despite the presence of suicide bombers.
That, in itself is not really an argument. Nothing has been attempted until it happens.
As far as another agency providing that security, if you do launches regularly, and have to pay for all the travel and TDY, it would get expensive in a quick hurry. Better to keep in house, and pay local law enforcement to help out where needed for the truly big launches, as 33 operators wouldn't go far enough with that much territory to protect. Federal LE probably helps in those big launches too.