With an influx in federal cash from Department of Homeland Security grants, local police departments nationwide have been outfitting their officers with armored vehicles, surveillance drones, and sophisticated weaponry.

The over $34 billion in grants has given rise to a growing concern that some police officers are looking less like civil servants, and more like soldiers on the front lines in Afghanistan.

“We do know that in 2011, a half-billion dollars of surplus military equipment went to police departments,” John Chasnoff, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union, told CBS St. Louis. “We have concerns that the lines between the two [police and military] is starting to blur.”

The ACLU wants to find out exactly what type of equipment is being used, as CBS St. Louis reports:

The ACLU has made a public records request for information from major city police departments across the U.S., including St. Louis City and St. Louis County. They also want to find out what kind of equipment is being turned over to the Missouri National Guard.

There's likely much to learn from such requests, as an extensive white paper from journalist Radley Balko has already revealed military-like tactics, including:

The increasingly frequent use of heavily armed SWAT teams for proactive policing and the routine execution of drug warrants, even for simple marijuana possession.

The use of anonymous tips and reliance on dubious informants to obtain no-knock search warrants in the first place.

Executing warrants with “dynamic entry,” diversionary grenades, and similarly militaristic tactics once reserved for urban warfare.

And The Daily Beast reports on some towns getting big weapons: