Maybe. I’m just trying to provide some facts about the nature and source of the authority.
Certainly there is a concern about people posing as law enforcement. And the fact that federal agents don’t generally wear standardized uniforms threatens to exacerbate that. (I think there was even a recent thread on verifying federal credentials). I’m sure there is paperwork. But a public order that John Smith of the Border Patrol has been deputized as a special DUSM isn’t going to tell you that this fellow is John Smith. They deputized over 1,000 state and federal law enforcement officers for the Salt Lake Olympics; something similar for inaugurations – on a temporary basis; would a list of names really have helped?
In any event, the risk seems highest for individual impostors. I think there’s less concern with a group, since they’re so conspicuous. And I’m not sure you need to know (in the moment) whether the person is BOP or Border Patrol or a member of the Cherokee Tribal Police – all of whom have been and can be deputized as special DUSM. And, given some of what I’ve read, knowing the parent agency might lead to more dispute over the authority than you need.
I don’t know how sincere the confusion in the media (or these threads) was. But everyone seems to have immediately recognized that these people were affiliated with DOJ (a fact they generally seemed to confirm) and were exercising federal authority. Where they came from can be investigated after the fact, but I’m not sure anyone actually thought they were vigilantes with no law enforcement authority.
No, any more than a list of names of all the state police in your state would help you know that the trooper that pulled you over is legit.
If they’re going to deputize BOP guards to act as police in DC, then they need to notify the public that that arm of the Federal power has been so deputized. And they need to ensure by some means that BOP guards can be visibly identified by the public as BOP.
That way, when you encounter a BOP guard on the streets of DC, you can tell he’s a BOP guard, and that he is acting on the basis of his service having been deputized by people who have the authority to do so.
AFAICT, it seems that both steps are missing here: there has been no notification to the public of what services have been so deputized, and at least in the case of BOP, there’s nothing that identifies them as BOP.
Additionally: there’s a reason police wear badges identifying them individually by badge number.
That reason is so that, if one or more of them behave improperly, there’s some reasonable chance of tracing that malfeasance to a specific individual, and doing something about it. ‘I saw somebody in riot gear hitting that old lady with a stick!’, even if you’ve got it on video, is a whole lot less help than ‘I saw Officer 397XY 409 lastname Smythe hitting that old lady with a stick!’
The first version makes it much easier to claim ‘we have no idea who that person was, of course it shouldn’t have happened but how can we be expected to do anything other than make noises about it when there’s nobody specific to investigate?’
And that problem’s only made worse when the people behind the misuse of force can add ‘you don’t even know whether they were BOP or National Guard or state police or US Army or private security guards, so we can’t possibly trigger the investigatory procedures for any specific agency.’
ETA: to remove any conceivable doubt: badge number and name entirely made up for this post. I don’t even know the relevant formula for badge numbers.
The central point of the derision with which we hold the “just following orders” defense is that every individual bears responsibility for their actions.