Could an FBI agent on a case speak to a US Army Ranger on duty?

[ariseishirou]

To clarify: this is on American soil, in the near future, outside a fictional town on the eastern seaboard.

Comments

[anonymous]

It's only been a day since the riots started? I find it very unlikely the Army would have been called in that early; it likely wouldn't be until the Guard had conclusively proven they couldn't deal with the riots, which would take at least a couple days. (How big are these riots?) Plus, terrorism operations within the US are FBI's jurisdiction, and they are *very* protective of that. I think there'd have to be an extremely compelling reason to have the Army take it over

[ariseishirou]

Thanks for the info! I actually miswrote that part, I meant to say it's been a day since the Rangers were put on stand-by, it's been several days since the riots started. (It's good to know that a longer timeline is more realistic; I'll keep that in mind.)

I didn't actually know the military wasn't allowed collect data on US persons, that's very good to know, too.

There's nothing stopping the Army guy, the commanding officer and the FBI agent from talking to each other. FBI investigation data is unclassified, and does frequently get shared with the military

This is basically exactly what I wanted to know, thanks!

[anonymous]

Yes the would be allowed to talk, though they both may be effectively prohibited from talking about "work" by their respective Instructions/NDAs. How seriously your boys take that is up to you.

US military can be deployed to US soil but not under DoD command, IOW the Ranger Det's OIC (officer in charge) would be answering to the Guard Commander or State Governor rather than Regimental HQ. That said I would expect Regimental HQ to be keeping a close eye on the situation and making their opinions known.

My helicopter crew was "deployed" to New Orleans after hurricane Katrina and I imagine that the basic rules would be similar. Officially we were working for the states of Louisiana and Florida's joint disaster relief committee but our "bosses" at Pac-Fleet were certainly keeping tabs on us, and told us not to let the staties push us around.

[sandwichwarrior]

^ The above reply is me ^

[ariseishirou]

Thanks for the extremely informative reply! I want this to work out in an at least somewhat believable way, and the input is very helpful.

As you must have special insight in this particular case: Did you have any special rules that you were instructed to abide by when "deployed" to New Orleans, given that it was US soil? Were the "staties" grateful for your help, or resentful? These are also (obviously) relevant to my interests here.

[sandwichwarrior]

In regards to the OP. Pretty much every unit will have a set of "Standing Orders" posted by the CO, one of which is almost always something to the effect of "Do not discuss the details of ongoing operations with anyone who is not involved in that operation". I figure the FBI would have similar rules about discussing ongoing investigations.

In regards to the rest...

Did you have any special rules that you were instructed to abide by when "deployed" to New Orleans, given that it was US soil?Beyond some basic stuff like pulling the weapons and countermeasures off the aircraft and adding an extra radio (to monitor the police band) not really no. We were told by the higher ups "don't talk to the press" and "don't antagonize the locals" but that was pretty much a given. Probably the biggest headache was sorting out the financials, IE setting up a government checking account so that we could legally pay for things like Fuel and Food. (civilian airfields generally want more than just a requisition chit if you show up demanding 1200 gallons