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The DEA Has Been Secretly Paying Transport Employees To Search Travelers' Bags (economist.com)
There's a new reason you can be stopped by airport security: because the security officer who flagged you "was being secretly paid by the government...to uncover evidence of drug smuggling." schwit1 quotes The Economist:
For years, officials from the Department of Justice testified, the DEA has paid millions of dollars to a variety of confidential sources to provide tips on travellers who may be transporting drugs or large sums of money. Those sources include staff at airlines, Amtrak, parcel services and even the Transportation Safety Administration...
According to [a DOJ] report, airline employees and other informers had an incentive to search more travellers' bags, since they received payment whenever their actions resulted in DEA seizures of cash or contraband. The best-compensated of these appears to have been a parcel company employee who received more than $1 million from the DEA over five years. One airline worker, meanwhile, received $617,676 from 2012 to 2015 for tips that led to confiscations. But the DEA itself profited much more from the program. That well-paid informant got only about 12% of the amount the agency seized as a result of the his tips.
The DEA had paid out $237 million to over 9,000 informants over five years towards the end of 2015, according to the report. The Economist writes that "travelers no doubt paid the price in increased searches," adding that the resulting searches were all probably illegal.
According to [a DOJ] report, airline employees and other informers had an incentive to search more travellers' bags, since they received payment whenever their actions resulted in DEA seizures of cash or contraband. The best-compensated of these appears to have been a parcel company employee who received more than $1 million from the DEA over five years. One airline worker, meanwhile, received $617,676 from 2012 to 2015 for tips that led to confiscations. But the DEA itself profited much more from the program. That well-paid informant got only about 12% of the amount the agency seized as a result of the his tips.
The DEA had paid out $237 million to over 9,000 informants over five years towards the end of 2015, according to the report. The Economist writes that "travelers no doubt paid the price in increased searches," adding that the resulting searches were all probably illegal.
New-age travellers or all of them?
Why UNIX?
Into court, legal services and awards for individuals that were illegally searched.
OR... will the airline employees and others be sued for carrying out an illegal search (for money)?
When it's all said and done, it will be the lawyers who get rich.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
We should let these guys in government decide which news is "real" and which is "fake". Or, if you need a 1st Amendment workaround, hire Facebook and Google to decide.
This wasn't a line item in their budget (or it would have been hard to keep it secret), this raises a few questions.
1. Where did the payments come from?
2. Were the recipients "protected" from tax audits so as to keep the source of the money secret?
If these weren't being paid under the table, the employer would know because of income tax withholding adjustments based on total income. "Gee, we now have to withhold 90% of this guys' pay and increase his contributions to social security because of his increased income from employment ... sounds suspicious to me."
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
will turn you in for reporting embezzled money.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
We said they were lying and they were lying. It's the nature of the beast.
But maybe next time Lucy will hold the ball in place, right?
Stop being afraid - it clouds your judgement.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
there's just one accurate version usually a very short story... cease fire stand down,, free the (also) innocent stem cells,, truth+mercy=justice....
Sure, they have badges, but they're really no different than the thugs they are supposed to bring to justice. Criminals working against the law, criminals working "for" the law.
This is almost certainly leading to 'civil forfeiture' - where you are not prosecuted for a crime. Your posessions are - and you have very limited opportunity to defend it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... - last week tonight on civil forfeiture.
It is especially problematic because the siezing agency gets to keep the funds, which provides them a clear incentive to overreach.
In general, if you can't prove to beyond a reasonable doubt where your money came from - in detail, and even if you can - your chances of getting it back are small.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It's not illegal to take money to do searches. It might be against company policy to do that on several levels and the people in question should be fired.
It is highly illegal for the government to pay or coerce someone into doing something they themselves are forbidden to do. It is also illegal to not disclose the source of information at trial absent a law permitting it and there's no law permitting this. The DEA employees, their managers, and anyone who approved these actions should be fired and prosecuted.
Actually the DEA should be done away with entirely anyway.
They'd make a tax payment upon receipt or quarterly. The employer would have zero reason to know.
So yes maybe they searched harder and more frequently - but they were paid for divulging information post search.
I can see that we are going to have to start tattooing the 4th amendment on the eyelids of every three letter agency employee from here on out.
Makes you wonder how much planting of evidence the guy who made over $1 million did?
Don't forget Bush! Obama inherited DEA from his predecessor, didn't he? 8 years of Presidency is not enough to fix a federal law-enforcement agency, especially if you pick Attorney Generals for their Social Justice credentials, rather than the ability to run a sizeable organization. (An ability, Obama himself never had either.)
And, unlike closing Guantanamo, Obama never even promised to reign-in the Drug Enforcement Administration — so we can't hold him responsible for its abuses, can we?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
... illegally searched.
..illegal search
Oh, you can bet this will be another one of many "no expectation of privacy" exemptions from 4th Amendment protections.
and there is likely some non-civil forfeiture going on too. I mean, why not help yourself to some stuff while your doing a search, cause that never happens.
It makes them an agent of law enforcement, hence having to abide by the 4th amendment. Therefore the searches become illegal..
This is unlike where if I violate your privacy and go to the cops. Cause if they never asked me to do it, I'm just a tipster.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
https://reason.com/blog/2016/0...
OK, I'm not at all a fan of government's ever-expanding power to search whatever they want, whenever they want. But I don't see how searching checked luggage going onto an airplane, which is subject to X-Ray inspection and specifically subject to search, is "illegal."
Let's see what TFA says:
OK. That's a breach of policy, and it's definitely scummy. But "doing something against DEA policy" doesn't make it illegal to do so. And even if it was, this would be an argument that they PAYMENTS were illegal. Not the searches.
This is an evidence-free conclusory statement without even the self-confidence to drop the word "may." Again, these are bags are tendered voluntarily to an airline, for transportation on an aircraft, with the knowledge and expectation that they are subject to search. Where's the fourth amendment violation?
There are a LOT of reasons to get worked up around the government's increasingly cavalier disregard for the Fourth Amendment. But there are so many better targets than "TSA agents searching checked luggage" to focus your ire on.
Can anyone think of a single good thing the DEA has done? I mean, I believe that all drugs should be legalized, taxed, and regulated tightly, and I know a lot of Americans share that same view. So just what has the DEA done that benefits the US?
I wonder why the DEA isn't just going and buy the stuff directly from the dealers, instead of doing it this complicated way.
Where in the 4th Amenment does it apply only to agents of law enforcement? TSA is already doing illegal searches.
Nice government work if you can get it. Let's hope the stink this revelation will create gives the new administration the incentive to eliminate one of our most hated three-letter agencies.
Yesterday we saw a story posted here about the DHS trying to hack into a State governments' information systems, and now today we see corruption and gross overreach in the DEA. We're all familiar with the overreaches of the TSA as well, aren't we? These and many more things are all examples of politicians taking advantage of the 'war on terror' and the 'war on drugs' has bought us. Too many people in these United States have been trading their Constitutional rights, civil rights, and even human rights, for empty promises of 'safety' for long enough that the corruption within three-letter government agencies has now become rampant; we're one step away from an outright Police State, where no one has any 'freedom' and we're all under the thumbs of jackbooted thugs with badges and guns.
Fortunately, only the luggage of evil drug smuggling criminals were searched, no rights of innocent honest Americans were violated.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
The IRS pays 30%.
Have gnu, will travel.
Precisely. This is another DEA program working against the constitutional rights of Americans. By paying people who can legally search any package, they are turning private employees into government agents, ala Stasi agents.
The DEA was tapping every call into and out of LA county for close to 10 years. Not sure if they were looking at closing competitors of the DEAs illegal drug trade when they worked hand in hand with the CIA, but both agencies were linked to the same operations.
Like anything FedGov does is 'illegal' anymore. Funnie stuff. My aching sides.
At least this is not the border patrol; it just feels that way.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Money for drug finds, and no chain of custody requirements. I guarantee that a substantial portion of these "finds" were planted.
I used to put broken rusted razor blades and needles dipped in shit in my baggage. Sometimes I would notice traces of blood on them while opening it. I feel a warm fuzzy feeling inside thinking of anyone rummaging through my shit dying of gangrene, rotten flesh sloughing off their decaying bodies.
"Tear down this agency."
A human transportable bomb in the right place on an airplane can take it down. ISIS put an explosive soda can on an airplane, and took down a Russian Airbus 321. It took 10 backpack sized bombs to kill 200 people on Spainish high speed rail in 2004.
This is *exactly* what was happening in the DDR (East Germany).
Memo one, blame the previous administration..... problem solved.
Memo two, for the next major problem, get out a pen and 2 envelopes, prepare to write a couple of letters for your successor........
...when they scrape it off my cold, dead lungs.
Orwell was too narrow in how omnipresent and omniscient Big Brother is.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Ludes.
Ludes are gone. The DEA did win one skirmish.
Of course, today there is, no doubt, a very similar test chem. Saying they had a positive effect is a big stretch.
Ludes are just one of very many 'staggers'.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It doesn't matter if they are asked to do a fairly obvious task of reporting drug possession. It might make a difference if a DEA agent asked a specific person to be searched.
But by flying, you agree to be searched regardless. You consented when you entered the airport. There is no way anyone would declare this illegal, unless they are completely ignorant.
Just because you think it should be illegal doesn't make it so.
It wouldn't violate the 4th amendment because public airline flyers are considered to have no reasonable expectation of privacy. If you see your bag go through an xray scanner, and can see it being scanned on a monitor, and your checked luggage can only be secured with a 'TSA-approved' lock because it may be hand-checked, then you expect that your bags will be searched. Therefore, a reasonable person would expect the contents of their bags to not be private.
Where in the 4th Amenment does it apply only to agents of law enforcement? TSA is already doing illegal searches.
TSA searches aren't illegal. The Supreme Court upheld this sort of thing as an exception to the 4th Amendment long ago. Same for sobriety checkpoints on the roads, random searches for mass transit, and other similar things.
Paying people to search bags for criminal evidence does not fall under the social exemption and is illegal.
After 9/11 it was immediately obvious there would be new intense searches of travelers and their luggage. I thought of applying for a job as a screener. Silly me; when I found out those jobs would pay little I didn't pursue it. Missed opportunity!
Now, had those screeners just kept the money of drugs...
No, it doesn't, because they aren't being paid to SEARCH, they are being paid for providing TIPS. This is a very big difference. Because they are not acting at the direction of the government, they gain no legal protections for their actions. If they search a bag they weren't allowed to open, for example, they can be sued or arrested just like any other civilian.
However, if they provide information to the DEA about people with suspicious packages or large quantities of cash, the DEA will pay them for their report.
Paying on a per-tip basis has long had problems with accuracy and reliability - every time a tipster is short of cash, wow! He finds new suspects! But governments still do it, and are always surprised when people abuse their evidence free bounty systems.
One time I was waiting at a gate for a plane (after having gone through the security checkpoint) and there were TSA agents lurking at the gate. They told me they wanted to do a "secondary security check". I let them go through my stuff (Did I have a choice?).
In retrospect, they were probably not really interested in security. I'm just an average white guy so no racial profiling going on.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
There are two things going on there, both really bad.
One, we apparently have non-sworn, non-law enforcement employees doing searches and making inspections where they have an incentive to "find stuff" for direct payout.
Two, all of this bullshit is taking place within the DEA/FBI/US Government's already well-known policies and practices of presumptive guilt on cash or people which results in seizures of private property, like currency, under the purely speculative claims that it may be drug-related.
It's not even just piles of cash. They now routinely run your credit and debit cards and can and do seize your entire bank account balances merely because you had an ATM card with access to money. Never mind how you got it. Maybe you have a six-figure job. Maybe you won a lottery or maybe you are just wealthy. Doesn't matter. They can and will take it all.
Presumptive seizures were already a travesty. But now we have low wage flunkies sniffing around too. Are these people even able to testify in court? I've never heard of a drug case where the primary witness was an Amtrak porter or something. But hell, many of these cases never even GET to court because they do the presumptive guilt thing and it's all over.
This isn't Trump's fault. It's been going on for decades and nobody has stopped it because the damn agencies get to keep the money and fuck all if you get between them and money they want, even if it is your legally earned money. Their job is to send people to prison.
Sig for hire.
When people are pulled for suspicion, yes it's legal.
When people are being pulled because someone was paid to pull you...that means there was something other than 'suspicion' involved. And, yes, that is illegal.
This is the bullshit that causes actual criminals to get off on technicalities. It makes us LESS safe.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
This isn't the security search when you go through the lines. This is you being pulled out of line for 'special' searching. there's a difference.
A 'random' search is legitimate. When the searcher was being 'paid' to do 'random' searches...you now have a legal point you can argue that your search wasn't 'random' at all and therefore NOT agreed to. And it can cause real criminals to get off when the evidence is stricken.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Yeah, racketeering would render you logic meaningless. You don't think the mafia tried the exact same deal? No we didn't pay him to do anything.
When the payment is available it changes the justification for the search. If I'm legally traveling with 10K in cash and they report me to the DEA...that's still illegal.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I agree but that's due to the 14th Amendment's Due Process clause rather than the 4th Amendment. If the program were operating under an issued 'general warrant' then it'd be the 4th. No warrants are involved here.
Except this is exactly what a W-2 or a 1099 is for. Things that are documented for tax purposes are documented for chain-of-custody and laundering-prevention purposes. Operate within the law, and most of your problems with law enforcement *gasp!* vanish. It's almost like law enforcement is doing their fucking jobs for once.
Now, that's not to say that forfeiture is the correct way to handle things as it's structured now. It's absolutely not. Seizure should not simply hand over the property to the government. It should go into escrow until a jury decides whether it can be seized, and that jury should only decide that after someone has been convicted of a crime in connection with the activities that brought that property to them. Upon acquittal, the property should be returned with interest paid by the agency that performed the seizure. Upon conviction, a jury should be tasked with deciding whether the seizure can be permanent. If the verdict is negative, the property should be returned without interest. If the verdict is positive, the agency holding it in escrow should turn it over to the GAO (or state-level equivalent) for disbursement, distribution, conversion, or use.
No one can block the President from doing whatever he wants with the military. He is the Commander in Chief, remember? And Guantanamo is a military prison — that's the whole reason it was used by Bush to hold foreign combatants out of reach of America's civil legal system.
So, yes, Obama could have just let all of the inmates loose. Into Cuba or into Antarctica or anywhere else... Or he could've killed them — the way he deliberately killed tens and hundreds of would-be detainees to avoid having to explain to his base, why Guantanamo population is growing... Including Osama bin Laden.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Report 12323a: "Instead of personal effects, luggage contained bobcat. Would not inform again ...
GREAT! They're getting the job done, promoting public safety, inexpensively. What's not to like?
Modding you up would delete my comments, but I think this is a very good contribution!
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Turns out the president can't rule by fiat. Now remind me who blocked him from closing down gitmo...
Obama had two choices. He could announce that he was going to pardon everyone we were unwilling to charge with a crime within a set time frame that would lead others to figure out what to do with those prisoners, or he could go back on his promise and cooperate with the ongoing desecration of the constitution by operating a place where supposedly human rights do not exist. He took the road taken only by cowards and liars.
He can claw back the tiniest whit of respect by pardoning Snowden and Manning. I don't see that happening either. If it does I'll admit I was wrong about Obama in the most minuscule of ways. After all, he has broken both of his core promises: the first was gitmo, the second was transparency. He promised us the most transparent administration of all time, and he operated the least. That is no one's fault but his.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They are not paid to search. They are rewarded when something is found. You are using the wrong words because you believe one side of the issue, and are ignoring facts.
I am telling you it is legal, and how it is legal, because your argument only works on people who agree with you. When you argue with incorrect facts, you make no progress.
When a TSA agent sets someone aside, not based on a randomization algo, but because the person is "acting suspiciously", that is legal. There is no standard for what should trigger suspicion in an agent's brain, so you can't contest the grounds for extra screening. Not successfully. But if there were a legal question, that's where I would start.
Feel free to continue arguing based on what you believe, or dig up case law that you don't understand. But that's preaching to the choir.
Now, that's not to say that forfeiture is the correct way to handle things as it's structured now. It's absolutely not. Seizure should not simply hand over the property to the government. It should go into escrow until a jury decides whether it can be seized, and that jury should only decide that after someone has been convicted of a crime in connection with the activities that brought that property to them. Upon acquittal, the property should be returned with interest paid by the agency that performed the seizure. Upon conviction, a jury should be tasked with deciding whether the seizure can be permanent. If the verdict is negative, the property should be returned without interest. If the verdict is positive, the agency holding it in escrow should turn it over to the GAO (or state-level equivalent) for disbursement, distribution, conversion, or use.
I have no doubt that you mean well, but your position on this is fatally flawed - because it condones unethical - and hence illegal - conduct by government.
The dual rights to ethical government, and ethical practice of law are universal and inalienable rights in any society with a government and legal system. Even the appearance of conflict of interest must be avoided when alternatives exist. In the US legal system, these rights are protected under the 9th Amendment (the catch-all for all unspecified rights retained by the people) and the 10th Amendment (unspecified rights reserved to the people.
By definition, rights retained by the people can not be taken away by ANY entity of government, up to and including the federal Supreme Court. The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution, and made the highest law in the land, specifically to prevent government - that's ANY and ALL government entities - from being able to infringe fundamental rights. Further, every senior official swears an oath to recognize this and act accordingly, as a precondition of holding office!
For government to be allowed to keep money from fines, or seizures, creates at least the appearance of ethical conflict of interest - which makes such conduct illegal under the highest law in the land. Using money laundering to hide how this money is being spent (by giving it to a GAO or equivalent) does NOT in ANY way change the fundamental ethical and legal issues here.
In case that isn't immediately obvious, I encourage you to recall all the recent occasions where the federal government didn't have money to pay it's employees. This creates a vested interest in government employees to ensure that money is in the budget - and hence the conflict of interest.
In practice, government at all levels the USA creates artificial and arbitrary laws - often ones structured in such a way as to commonly infringe fundamental rights - then government officials enforce those laws to put money in the budget. It's not an accident that the vast majority of drivers, for example, drive faster than the posted speed limits, exercising their right to travel in a reasonable manner - a right that government frequently chooses to illegally infringe.
We're not just dealing with the appearance of conflict of interest here - the problem is far more serious than that.
In short, we have a situation where corruption in government has become the norm. It's not always the same kind of corruption that takes place in many countries (though there's some of that, even at the lower levels of government, and a whole lot at the upper levels), but it's still corruption - and the civil forfeiture laws and precedents are a big part of that corruption. The courts that have upheld these illegal laws are staffed by scum - people with no integrity, and people who have made themselves accessories to criminal conduct indistinguishable from armed robbery (and it's not within the legal authority of government to grant immunity or right to pardon to such persons).
Worse, these illegal laws threaten the legitimacy of government in the US - and who knows where that will le
If you don't think the reward is an inducement to behavior from a legal perspective, just wow. It makes no difference legally whether the payment is upfront or after if it's declared as policy.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I'm talking about the goddam law, because people keep saying "illegal" or "unconstitutional" you shitgoblin. Psychology is not an issue.
If you have some actual law to spout, do it now, or shut the fuck up. If you have standing, then sue and fix this for all of us. Otherwise, you aren't helping. Fuck off into fantasy land, and tell the Olsen twins I said hi.
You're wrong, and your beliefs make you think you're not. When that happens, it is time for learning to occur. So learn the law and quit sounding like a bitch. Argue in front of the Supremes, because I already agree with you.
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