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posted by martyb on Sunday December 11 2016, @02:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the better-take-the-car dept.

The Economist has an interesting story about how the DEA has been paying transportation employees a percentage of the results of any seizures or confiscations.

There are many reasons why you might have been stopped at an American transport hub and your bag searched by officials. You might have be[sic] chosen at random. Perhaps you matched a profile. Or you could have been flagged by an airline, railroad or security employee who was being secretly paid by the government as a confidential informant to uncover evidence of drug smuggling.

A committee of Congress heard remarkable testimony last week about a long-running programme by the Drug Enforcement Administration. 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.

The testimony follows a report by the Justice Department that uncovered the DEA programme and detailed its many potential violations. According to that 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.


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 11 2016, @10:46PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday December 11 2016, @10:46PM (#440099) Journal
    I'm for it. It is remarkable how three of the past four presidents have admitted to significant drug use yet we have almost no progress at the federal level beyond a couple of late measures by Obama (temporarily halting federal-level civil seizures and releasing some people from jail who had only committed drug law violations).