The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) made a shocking admission while speaking about a Staten Island man who was arrested for making homemade firearms. The DHS, with the help of Amazon, eBay, PayPal, and others, is monitoring Americans buying 3D printers and 3D printing materials that could be used for making firearms.
The Homeland Security Investigations New York’s El Dorado Task Force (EDTF), which consists of various units for DHS, including the Homeland Security Investigations Financial Crimes Task Force, helped the New York Police Department (NYPD) raid the home of John Raia. The 57-year-old man was accused of manufacturing firearms without serial numbers and having several standard compacity magazines, which are against New York State law to own. New York law enforcement authorities arrested the man. After this raid, the task force showed off the guns and ammo it had seized during the raid.
Sgt. Rashawn Vaughn, commanding officer of the Homeland Security Investigations Financial Crimes Task Force (HSIFCTF), spoke with the press after the raid and made some startling admissions. According to the investigator, DHS is tracking the sale of anything that can be used to create a firearm, including metal rails used in 3D-printed guns. Not only is the government monitoring the sale of perfectly legal gun parts, but they are also tracking things such as the purchase of 3D printers. The vast majority of people who buy 3D printers do not use them to print guns, but buying too many printing supplies or printers could get you investigated by Homeland Security.
There is no federal law against making homemade firearms, even though the Biden Administration demonizes the practice by calling privately manufactured firearms (PMFs) “ghost guns.” The lack of federal statute banning the PMFs means that DHS is investigating people for carrying out perfectly lawful commerce. If someone passes a certain threshold for purchasing 3D printing supplies, which DHS hasn’t announced, the federal government admitted that it would investigate the buyer and monitor their social media.
More disturbing is that giant online retailers such as Amazon and eBay and payment processors such as eBay are turning over sales records of anyone who purchased certain items, including 3D printers, every two months to authorities to sift through. None of those being investigated broke any laws for their purchases. To many, this would be like investigating anyone who buys a car because they might buy one to use as a getaway vehicle to be used during a bank robbery. In an article published by AmmoLand a couple of weeks ago, the FBI was quoted as saying that they cannot investigate people for Constitutionally protected conduct, but that seems to be what DHS is doing when it comes to buying 3D printers and legal gun parts.
“We just basically track internet purchases from eBay, PayPal, Amazon, different various online companies,” Vaughn said. “We get a list every other month, backdated a month, with people purchasing components that could possibly create a ghost gun, like the rails, the 3-D printer.”
This practice reminds the gun community about the Gun Violence Prevention Through Financial Intelligence Act (GVPTFIA). That act would require the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to help banks track gun purchases so they can notify the federal government. This time, it is reversed. The big tech giants that take gun owners’ money are turning over thousands of records to the federal government on the suspicion that someone might make their own gun, even though that is not federally illegal and is legal in most states.
The gun community has a deep distrust of the government and perceives the FBI, DHS, and the ATF to be Big Brother-like entities. In the monitoring of lawful commerce, these departments are doing nothing to build trust with the people of the Country. AmmoLand News will file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to get more details on the monitoring programs to determine how widespread and long it has been in effect. If you have bought a 3D printer, especially in a state like New York, you should know that Big Brother might be watching you.
About John Crump
John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. Mr. Crump has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, or at www.crumpy.com.
I sincerely hope that Ammoland will continue to dig. There’s no reason to assume that DHS confined their investigations to 3D printers and materials. “We get a list every other month, backdated a month, with people purchasing components that could possibly create a ghost gun”, implies that their interest go far beyond desktop additive manufacturing. I would not be surprised to discover that they’ve been sucking up purchase data and investigating people for merely showing an interest in 3D printing, machine shop tools and practice, blacksmithing, wilderness skills, and a host of items and subjects I haven’t thought of; anything… Read more »
Absolutely.
Anyone with interests in ‘off grid’ power or isolated living is already on several watch lists. Anyone with subscriptions to any of the self reliant type magazines that show how to build root cellars, water storage, preserve your own food, etc. is already under scrutiny.
We know that the NSA has the ability to monitor every phone conversation in the world in real time. It is not that big a stretch to realize that that same monitoring tech could and probably is used to monitor every non cash purchase transaction as well.
“Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.” — Woody Allen
Just conduct yourself as if we’re living in the old USSR or the GDR where every spoken, written, or electronic communication is monitored and recorded by the government.
Because it likely is.
that has been happening since the late 80’s. if you are missing a text message, phone call, or voice mail or e-mail since then call nsa they will have it.
only place i could have worked in the civilian world after the navy was nsa and i wasn’t going to spy on my fellow citizens, but i guess there are enough that will.
do you trust our government, or for that matter any government?
I went to months of training on some of the first small Computerized Branch Exchanges for businesses in the mid 80s. (ROLM CBX series.) It took several years, but eventually the local telephone company finally started replacing the old cross bar switches with the new digital switches in the local COs. What was funny, is that the phone co was actually out of Oregon, but they serviced some small areas up in Washington State. We got caller ID, digital voice mail, the whole bit, YEARS before the rest of the county we were in did. We had one local whacko… Read more »
You may recall the giant data centers built in Utah and West Virginia whose purpose was to process and store every phone call made in the country. This was during the Obama administration. I don’t know if the projects were completed after the purpose was revealed.
Up and running. If an analyst sees metadata of interest, the conversation can be brought up within minutes.
From Director Dettelbach:
“ATF is committed to supporting a team effort to fight gun crime through increased use of technological innovations that we bring to these partnerships, which we refer to as Crime Gun Intelligence (CGI). CGI combines available information on crime guns, shooting incidents, human intelligence, social media, telephone analysis, and technology to disrupt the cycle of firearm violence. …” [emphasis added]
Would be nice if they can shut down the scam callers
Hasn’t been going on all that long. But things changed radically with CALEA. https://www.fcc.gov/calea The original replacements for the old analog switches (SxS, Panel, #1XBAR and #5XBAR were still analog within the switch fabric itself. You could still get a court order to have a telephone tech place an untracable tap on a specific line, and we did a lot of them. Each month the Traffic Dept. would also issue a list of lines to be routinely tapped” for quality assurance and monitoring purposes.” So we did a lot of those too. In these older replacement switches, #1ESS and #1AESS,… Read more »
Who uses land lines anymore?
Look at all the hoops AT&T, Verizon, Frontier, and the other legacy carriers are being forced to jump through to get out from under FCC and local regulator “carrier of last resort” rules and you’ll see that the answer is “lots of people.” No one has made any money off of POTS (plain old telephone service) since before the old AT&T was split up in 1984 or on long distance service since MCI won a GSA contract with a wholesale price of $0.05 per minute in the 1990s. But there don’t seem to be any volunteers to take the wire… Read more »
Who said anything about land lines? @DDS’s post regards all calls, including cell phones. Need to converse using VPN’s encrypting all packets. Then they are welcome to waste their time decrypting my grocery list.
I do! Do you think that I am stupid enough to place a microwave transmitter right up against my head and yammer on hour after hour with it? My friend’s wife Portia died from ovarian cancer caused by her flip phone being clamped over her waistband all day long. Fred nearly died from colorectal cancer that was caused by his pager and then cell phone. My last GF Peggy, she got cancer in her left breast from keeping her “smart” phone in her bra cup, Ken has a bald patch of skin on his left thigh the EXACT same size… Read more »
It’s called “lawful intercept.” I, at a former employer, was required to design in features for it on all network products.
guess you saw the computer at comdex before it was whisked away the digital/ibm hybread carbon based machine saw it before the opening while they were setting up goverment sets up a “meta data” center same year………..
Man, it makes me wonder if Sgt. Vaughn has any conscience or morals.This once great country is circling the drain.
Hmmm, I’ve long wanted to try that 3D printing. Maybe now is the time.
No ‘perceives’ to it.
Getting tired of re-runs.
We should probably shoot government. If it moves we should shoot it again.
Wow, just imagine if Raia had demanded to see his WRITTEN guarantee of getting a fair trial when they raided his home? Wouldn’t that make it a false arrest? Anything else after that point would then be invalid too! Or am I missing something?
Besides the anonymous down voters, does anyone here disagree with what I say? Is there anyone who has a factual and logical rebuttal to any of it?
Is there anyone who knows how to get in touch with John Raia or any of his family members or friends?
The only semi-guarantee to not being ridden over is to demand to see the warrent. If their is no warrent you must use your weapons to prevent the illegal arrest of yourself. If their is a warrent and you know you are going to be shafted in court then you have a choice between the shaft and that gun battle you are facing. That is about it.
HLB
But it all boils down to just one thing, ALL of this data that is being vacuumed up is being collected for an evil purpose, which is to use against us in the 100% corrupted legal system/Matrix! And we have many exit points from it, all that we have to do, is to just use them! We don’t have to use all of those exit points, one is enough! Pick the one that appeals to you the most for whatever reason it may be, and just stick to it! Such as, can anyone prove that you are actually under the… Read more »