Because in the US, criminal investigations have to be carried out by duly recognized officers of the law (or their designees), outside of some extremely specific exceptions like the UCMJ. This structure is so fundamental to the system that it can be traced back to English common law. There are a handful of outliers: some “government watchdog” groups have limited judicial powers (though I can’t actually think of any examples of this right now), the crew of aircraft or ships under US flag have (limited) law enforcement powers while underway and there’s the big nebulous complexity of the coastguard’s interaction with the civilian legal system.
(An aside: at and below the state level there’s some additional fuckery, like for example firefighters in some municipalities are endowed with policing powers while carrying out their duties, and some places have reciprocal LEO certifications for things like mental health first responders, but those are all extremely limited in scope and still rely on those people being considered officers of the peace (or some equivalent designation))
An agency to investigate things like this would require their own dedicated enforcement branch, just like the FDA, USDA, Post Office and even NASA all have (disappointingly the NASA police are just called the “protective services office” and not “space cops”. Tragic waste of a good opportunity there). We’d need more cops to staff this hypothetical new agency, and we can’t simply “borrow” cops from somewhere else - they’re already busier than they can handle, even setting aside jurisdictional complexities and expertise. This is how the system in the US is structured, and to deviate from it we’d have to rework that structure fundamentally.
Because you intrinsically are. It would require more people with investigatory and enforcement powers to staff this hypothetical agency. Not smalltown pigfuckers, sure, but what you’re describing is structurally little different from the FBI or ICE. A massive new law enforcement agency like that will need people to do that and those people are called cops.
Those people are not cops. I could right now investigate top youtubers to see if their platforms are being used to spread misinformation without displaying any credentials. And if you paid me to do that I wouldn’t be a cop.
(Wait, do you mean the FBI and ICE aren’t cops? not nitpicking just genuine uncertainty)
Your investigation would also carry no legal weight and, unless you are extremely careful, would land you in various defamation and harassment lawsuits if you ever tried to act on it. If this hypothetical agency were to do similar, investigate people with no authority, it would invite all kinds of trouble. Not only would it likely be inadmissible in court as it would constitute gross violations of their civil rights, it would absolutely result in the kind of countersuit to which soverign immunity does not apply. This is how people get away with crimes “on a technicality”, because there were such gross procedural and jurisdictional errors that the investigation itself is suspect.
Yes, you can go out and look into people’s background. No, you can’t just go present that to a court and get it accepted. Depending on what it is it might be accepted in a civil suit, but it would be circumstantial at best and most likely you’d be censured for trying to submit hearsay.
Courts and even civil cases just do not work like you are envisioning. Vigilante fact checking isn’t an official thing, and agencies of the executive are subject to judicial rules just the same as are.
You don’t understand enough about trial law, civil law enforcement or investigatory standards to be justifiably this adamant about this idea. You can’t find a magic way to frame this that will let you harass people via the legal system but somehow not make you a cop. This is the reason SLAPP suits almost never win - they’re pathetically baseless lawsuits, they just abuse the appeals system to bully people into giving up. You could do that, if you had the money, but you couldn’t enforce anything beyond using that mechanism to get your own way.
It’s not that I don’t understand what you’re suggesting, it’s that your idea is flat-out wrong and probably illegal were you to ever act on it.
Because in the US, criminal investigations have to be carried out by duly recognized officers of the law (or their designees), outside of some extremely specific exceptions like the UCMJ. This structure is so fundamental to the system that it can be traced back to English common law. There are a handful of outliers: some “government watchdog” groups have limited judicial powers (though I can’t actually think of any examples of this right now), the crew of aircraft or ships under US flag have (limited) law enforcement powers while underway and there’s the big nebulous complexity of the coastguard’s interaction with the civilian legal system.
(An aside: at and below the state level there’s some additional fuckery, like for example firefighters in some municipalities are endowed with policing powers while carrying out their duties, and some places have reciprocal LEO certifications for things like mental health first responders, but those are all extremely limited in scope and still rely on those people being considered officers of the peace (or some equivalent designation))
An agency to investigate things like this would require their own dedicated enforcement branch, just like the FDA, USDA, Post Office and even NASA all have (disappointingly the NASA police are just called the “protective services office” and not “space cops”. Tragic waste of a good opportunity there). We’d need more cops to staff this hypothetical new agency, and we can’t simply “borrow” cops from somewhere else - they’re already busier than they can handle, even setting aside jurisdictional complexities and expertise. This is how the system in the US is structured, and to deviate from it we’d have to rework that structure fundamentally.
I feel like you’re confusing policing for investigating.
I’m curious what makes you say that? Investigation is a huge part of the process of policing.
Right but it’s not the only part. You’re making it seem like I want more people on the streets with the power to arrest people for whatever.
Because you intrinsically are. It would require more people with investigatory and enforcement powers to staff this hypothetical agency. Not smalltown pigfuckers, sure, but what you’re describing is structurally little different from the FBI or ICE. A massive new law enforcement agency like that will need people to do that and those people are called cops.
Those people are not cops. I could right now investigate top youtubers to see if their platforms are being used to spread misinformation without displaying any credentials. And if you paid me to do that I wouldn’t be a cop.
(Wait, do you mean the FBI and ICE aren’t cops? not nitpicking just genuine uncertainty)
Your investigation would also carry no legal weight and, unless you are extremely careful, would land you in various defamation and harassment lawsuits if you ever tried to act on it. If this hypothetical agency were to do similar, investigate people with no authority, it would invite all kinds of trouble. Not only would it likely be inadmissible in court as it would constitute gross violations of their civil rights, it would absolutely result in the kind of countersuit to which soverign immunity does not apply. This is how people get away with crimes “on a technicality”, because there were such gross procedural and jurisdictional errors that the investigation itself is suspect.
I can literally go and do this right now I wouldn’t need authority.
But with an actual dedicated team they could collect this evidence and present it to a court for this issue.
Yes, you can go out and look into people’s background. No, you can’t just go present that to a court and get it accepted. Depending on what it is it might be accepted in a civil suit, but it would be circumstantial at best and most likely you’d be censured for trying to submit hearsay.
Courts and even civil cases just do not work like you are envisioning. Vigilante fact checking isn’t an official thing, and agencies of the executive are subject to judicial rules just the same as are.
You don’t understand enough about trial law, civil law enforcement or investigatory standards to be justifiably this adamant about this idea. You can’t find a magic way to frame this that will let you harass people via the legal system but somehow not make you a cop. This is the reason SLAPP suits almost never win - they’re pathetically baseless lawsuits, they just abuse the appeals system to bully people into giving up. You could do that, if you had the money, but you couldn’t enforce anything beyond using that mechanism to get your own way.
It’s not that I don’t understand what you’re suggesting, it’s that your idea is flat-out wrong and probably illegal were you to ever act on it.