Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

Enormous armoured vehicles ply the streets of small town New Hampshire? Police are training in military-style bootcamps? And helicopters are surveilling the movements of everyone on the streets? Sounds like something out of Robocop or Minority Report. But it’s all happening now. Homeland Security is intentionally giving military weapons to civilian police forces across the US. And they say, if you know what’s good for you, Do Not Resist.

Do Not Resist is also a new documentary about the deliberate militarization of US police forces by the federal government. It was directed by cinematographer and filmmaker Craig Atkinson and won Best Feature Documentary at the Tribeca film fest. It had its international premier at Hot Docs in Toronto and is playing again this weekend.

I spoke to Craig at CIUT.

He told me about SWAT teams, the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, BEARCATs, MRAPs, CSIS, DHS, NSA, DOD, Ferguson, excessive fines and fees, aerial surveillance, “civil forfeiture”… and more!