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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.
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.
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/...
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.
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!
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.
I wonder why the DEA isn't just going and buy the stuff directly from the dealers, instead of doing it this complicated way.
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.
Money for drug finds, and no chain of custody requirements. I guarantee that a substantial portion of these "finds" were planted.
... So just what has the DEA done that benefits the US?
Well, they've contributed massively to jobs and the economy. Just think of all those private prisons whose sole purpose is pretty much to house people who either used and/or sold drugs, or were railroaded - that's a massive boost to the construction industry, and to the guards and administrators who might not otherwise get jobs. And don't forget all those law enforcement officers and administrators - major jobs there. Then there's civil forfeiture - it's difficult to justify stealing people's money and stuff unless you can falsely accuse them of some spurious drug-related 'crime' that they probably didn't commit anyway. Hell, some police departments' budgets rely heavily on civil forfeiture - they base revenue projections on it, for Christ's sake...
What's that you say? All of this is actually a net drain on the economy? The social cost is huge? It violates both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution? Well, citizen, I don't like your tone, so it's time to fork over some of YOUR assets, and maybe spend a night in jail. We have a voodoo-based Ponzi-scheme-inspired economy to maintain; we can't let people like you stand in our way, regardless of how logical and factual your arguments may be.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
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.
Say what? I'm sure the new administration will cut the DEA even more slack and give them more power. Then the DEA may come after you, 'cause it's obvious that you're smoking something you didn't buy at the local convenience store.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Breaking bad was pretty good. If there was no DEA the program probably wouldn't have been made.
Nullius in verba
But seriously, lawsuits can't succeed without laws
Lawsuits succeed based on proving you were actually harmed and that the actual harm was wrongful. It takes very few laws and only a little enforcement. Local judges have been settling disputes between neighbors for many centuries.
none of my examples require imagination, they're real
You should have no problem proving them in court then. You don't need to police your neighbors' private actions because (unless you are a liar) you have proof that their actions aren't private and that they actually harmed you.
Everyone else who is minding their own business should have the opportunity to be safe from having their behavior policed.
...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.
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.
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.
Report 12323a: "Instead of personal effects, luggage contained bobcat. Would not inform again ...
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