Pipeline companies are hiring off-duty cops, prison guards, and even probation and parole officers to act as a private police force to deter and remove activists seeking to protest oil and gas pipelines, E&E reports. Protesters across the country allege they have been unjustly arrested and abused by armed officers sworn to protect the public interest but operating in the pay of a private entity. “If you’ve hired the deputy … he’s more likely to do what you want,” Bill Quigley, a Loyola University New Orleans law professor representing some of those protesters, told E&E. (E&E $)