Authority
The Coast Guard Investigative Service is a federal law enforcement agency whose law enforcement authority is derived from 14 U.S.C. ยง 95. This authority provides for Coast Guard special agents to conduct investigations of actual, alleged or suspected criminal activity; carry firearms; execute and serve warrants; and make arrests. The criminal investigative function of the Coast Guard Investigative Service is similar to that of a major crimes unit at a large metropolitan police department, investigating crimes such as those "internal" to the Coast Guard, including fraud, larceny, homicide and rape, as well as "external" investigations of maritime-related crimes ranging from migrant and drug smuggling, false distress calls, and violations of the environmental laws. The Coast Guard Investigative Service is a centralized directorship managed by a professional criminal investigator who reports directly to the Coast Guard's Assistant Commandant for Intelligence. It is located outside the Coast Guard's operational chain of command.
Read more about this topic: Coast Guard Investigative Service
Famous quotes containing the word authority:
“Authority poisons everybody who takes authority on himself.”
—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)
“It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties.... Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“I believe I’m a better authority than anybody else in America on my own wife. I have never known a person with a stronger sense of right and wrong in my life—ever.”
—Bill Clinton (b. 1946)