At least in some Western countries, the standards are to break the door down anyway, and maybe hold him at gunpoint (see: http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Americ...)

As good a place as any to drop Mr Balko's opus: "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces" which is all about this kind of madness.

http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Americ...

>While implying that the US is a totalitaian state will get you lots of up votes from insecure europeans, the word has no meaning if it encompasses the current state of affairs in America.

It would be convenient to keep the word "totalitarianism" forever connected with the very specific practices of Nazi Germany or, say, Stalin's USSR, and only those. Unfortunately the word and the practice existed way before and will continue to exist in the future. And there's not just a single form of it.

One can spend all his life between home, office, some cosy restaurant or cafe, friends house, and never understand anything that's going on in society at large, if he's so inclined. Especialy if he's on the upper echelon, e.g not a black, latino, native american, or "white trash", so he doesn't get to transparently see the structures of totalitarianism in a day by day basis.

From the militarization of police: http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Americ...

to cities built for exclusion and closing down of public space: http://www.amazon.com/City-Quartz-Excavating-Future-Angeles/...

to the privitazation of prisons (and the highest incarceration rate of the world by far, surpassing even Stalin's era Gulag percentages when it comes to blacks): http://www.amazon.com/Punishment-Sale-Private-Business-Incar...

to the dwindling middle-class (which is, when it exists, the real pillar of democracy): http://www.amazon.com/Servant-Economy-Americas-Sending-Middl...

Add mass surveillance, three-strike laws that resemble 19th century ethics, the concentrated control of mass media, constant external war, etc etc and you have quite a potent mix.

Radley Balko’s book, which is cited in the article, "Rise of the Warrior Cop"[0] actually makes a very good argument that the 3rd Amendment which prohibits the quartering of soldiers during peacetime was referencing this exact situation, wherein a group of government controlled "peace officers", which are essentially military personnel, are in constant deployment inside the United States of America keeping tabs on it's citizens. He argues that it has nothing to do with literally being forced to give up your bed to a soldier, but entirely with the state housing soldiers within it's walls. With the gifting of Tanks, M16s and other paramilitary gear to ordinary police officers, we're essentially creating another branch of the armed forces.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/dp/1610392116/

Absolutely. You might be interested in Radley Balko's book: http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Americ...

In Balko's book, Rise of the Warrior Cop, http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Americ...

he talks about various aspects and how those incidents were relatively rare, and militarization has not been happening all that much because of outgunning, but rather government incentives for the War on Drugs and measures designed to have closer coordination between the military and police forces.

Read: http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Americ...

Excerpt from a book by Radley Balko, The Rise of the Warrior Cop (link: http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Americ...)

Never forget Radley Balko on this topic, and he's got a new book out, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces (http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Warrior-Cop-Militarization-Americ...) as well as an old, hard/$$$ to find one, *Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America (http://www.amazon.com/Overkill-Paramilitary-Police-Raids-Ame...).

Makes for very depressing reading.