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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 Monday December 12 2016, @10:44AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 12 2016, @10:44AM (#440300) Journal

    Free speech zones are necessarily about speech

    There's a nice example of this from my neck of the woods: bear management areas [nps.gov]. It's about managing bears, right? No, it's about keeping people out of certain areas of Yellowstone National Park at certain times of the year. Sure, these are about improving the lot of bears in the park, but the only thing being managed is the people.

    Similarly, free speech zones are about putting a bunch of people in a place that won't disrupt the rest of society. To wit, a right to protest (which is also granted by the First Amendment) is not a right to disrupt.

  • (Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday December 12 2016, @11:43AM

    by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Monday December 12 2016, @11:43AM (#440313)

    There's a nice example of this from my neck of the woods: bear management areas. It's about managing bears, right?

    Free speech zones are speech. While some names can be deceiving, the term "free speech zone" is not; they are exactly as they sound. People exercising their right to freedom of speech are placed in these zones because they were doing so.

    Similarly, free speech zones are about putting a bunch of people in a place that won't disrupt the rest of society.

    The government has no power to limit the areas in which people may exercise their right to freedom of speech to specific locations, even if it is done in the name of preventing disruption and even if many people are speaking. Where, specifically, in the Constitution does it say otherwise?

    To wit, a right to protest (which is also granted by the First Amendment) is not a right to disrupt.

    Individuals in protests who do illegal things may be punished for doing those things, but you may not punish all of the protesters merely because some do illegal things. And restricting the locations in which they can speak freely to designated zones is not constitutional. Simply kick them off the private property or arrest them, and then they can continue their protests on public property or on private property if they have permission to do so.

    You also ignore all the cases of the government trying to limit specific types of speech, and you act like the only uses of free speech zones are to prevent disruption.

    While we're at it, even if the government has the power to stop illegal acts like trespassing, that doesn't mean they can do so by any means necessary. You seem to take a 'the ends justify the means' approach to this situation, where if you perceive that X stops disruption, then doing X must be justified and constitutional. That is false. The government may have the power to investigate crimes, but they must still abide by the fourth amendment. The government may also have the power to stop trespassing, but it doesn't follow that free speech zones are a constitutional way to prevent disruption.

    This all reminds me of the twisted logic that I sometimes see where some gun control advocates will argue that banning the sale of ammunition is fine because the second amendment doesn't specifically mention that doing so is forbidden. A different type of twisted logic, but still, you have some nice companions.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 12 2016, @06:24PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 12 2016, @06:24PM (#440490) Journal

      The government has no power to limit the areas in which people may exercise their right to freedom of speech to specific locations, even if it is done in the name of preventing disruption and even if many people are speaking. Where, specifically, in the Constitution does it say otherwise?

      And you have already stated that the government has the power to arrest people for trespassing who are exercising their freedom of speech on private land without the permission of the landowner. So this assertion is already incorrect by your own words.

      You also ignore all the cases of the government trying to limit specific types of speech, and you act like the only uses of free speech zones are to prevent disruption.

      No, I do not. I merely point out that free speech zones do have a constitutional justification. Tools have good and bad uses. It makes no sense to ignore the reason such tools are proposed and used in the first place just because the tools are misused elsewhere.

      While we're at it, even if the government has the power to stop illegal acts like trespassing, that doesn't mean they can do so by any means necessary. You seem to take a 'the ends justify the means' approach to this situation, where if you perceive that X stops disruption, then doing X must be justified and constitutional.

      Or I don't do that. That's the problem with unfounded assertions. They can be false as well as true. Here, I have yet to do that. It doesn't "seem" that way to me.

      The government may also have the power to stop trespassing, but it doesn't follow that free speech zones are a constitutional way to prevent disruption.

      I agree. But we seem to have this mysterious inability to articulate why free speech zones are unconstitutional. I assert it's because they aren't actually unconstitutional. No one's speech is actually being infringed on.

      • (Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday December 12 2016, @06:58PM

        by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Monday December 12 2016, @06:58PM (#440503)

        And you have already stated that the government has the power to arrest people for trespassing who are exercising their freedom of speech on private land without the permission of the landowner.

        Which has nothing to do with speech. As I said, you could be standing around doing nothing and still be trespassing. They don't put people in free speech zones for standing around and doing nothing.

        Tools have good and bad uses.

        There are zero justifications for restricting protesters to specific areas when there are other places they are allowed to be (public property). If you merely wanted to prevent trespassing, you could kick people off of private property without forcing them to go to specific locations.

        And these zones are often used to crush dissent. Many of the charges have even been thrown out, but government thugs still managed to successfully suppress and intimidate people.

        Or I don't do that. That's the problem with unfounded assertions. They can be false as well as true. Here, I have yet to do that. It doesn't "seem" that way to me.

        Well, it sure seems that way to me, at least partly. All the nonsense about disruption wouldn't make sense otherwise, because it's not even relevant to the topic of free speech zones.

        But we seem to have this mysterious inability to articulate why free speech zones are unconstitutional.

        What you have is an inability to comprehend why free speech zones are unconstitutional, and an inability to differentiate between escorting someone off private property and forcing them to go to a designated area to be able to continue speaking freely.

        It's like how many social justice types have an inability to comprehend that insulting language isn't violence and doesn't constitute assault. When someone is that far gone and is mixing up so many unrelated concepts, discussion with them becomes nigh impossible.

        No one's speech is actually being infringed on.

        Everyone who was forced to go to a free speech zone has had their speech infringed upon. If they resisted and continued speaking outside of the zone (even, potentially, in areas where they are allowed to be), it would result in their arrest.

        Now you're thinking like a gun control advocate.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 12 2016, @07:22PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 12 2016, @07:22PM (#440512) Journal

          Which has nothing to do with speech. As I said, you could be standing around doing nothing and still be trespassing. They don't put people in free speech zones for standing around and doing nothing.

          Ok, why is that relevant? For example, suppose a city has a protest on public land. They hand title to the land over to me. "Kids, get off my lawn". Then after the police disperse or arrest everyone for trespass, I hand title to the land back to the city. Do the laws on trespassing still have nothing to do with speech? Each step in isolation was constitutional, but the whole becomes unconstitutional because it is an obvious, underhanded tactic for breaking up a legitimate protest.

          I also want to point out a key word, "zone". While it might be used legally here in the same sense as regular urban zoning, it remains that cities routinely and constitutionally zone land for various uses. Free speech zones in this sense are merely zoning land temporarily for a given use which happens to be the exercise of speech or petitioning for redress. That's why I continue to state that free speech zones aren't about free speech. They're about allotting space temporarily in a city for a given purpose which is a thing that US cities have been doing constitutionally for a while. And we have long recognized that zoning has legitimate reasons for existing, namely, that it allows both for city planning and for separating human activities that aren't compatible with each other.

          Everyone who was forced to go to a free speech zone has had their speech infringed upon. If they resisted and continued speaking outside of the zone (even, potentially, in areas where they are allowed to be), it would result in their arrest.

          Again, how does that infringe on their rights? You have yet to say.

          There is a point to my posts. In order to protect real violations of the US Constitution, you need to understand what is actually constitutional. Merely asserting without support as you have for the past half dozen posts, that free speech zones are unconstitutional, ignores that they are. That weakens arguments for things that really are unconstitutional since it both divides resources of protesters and dilutes the message.

          • (Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday December 12 2016, @08:33PM

            by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Monday December 12 2016, @08:33PM (#440538)

            Do the laws on trespassing still have nothing to do with speech?

            The laws on trespassing would be less worrisome than the government temporarily giving away public land in order to suppress protests. Those specific cases would be about speech, but so what?

            I also want to point out a key word, "zone". While it might be used legally here in the same sense as regular urban zoning, it remains that cities routinely and constitutionally zone land for various uses.

            Go ahead and create the actual zones, but forcing people to go to them to speak freely is unconstitutional.

            They're about allotting space temporarily in a city for a given purpose which is a thing that US cities have been doing constitutionally for a while.

            The given purpose here is unconstitutional. Just because something has been done for a while and has been used to do many constitutional things doesn't mean every usage of it is constitutional.

            You're ignoring what free speech zones are used for and merely asserting that they're not about speech, which is in direct contradiction with reality.

            Again, how does that infringe on their rights? You have yet to say.

            How does arresting people for exercising their right to freedom of speech because they didn't go to a specific location to do so infringe upon their rights? It's a mystery.

            Merely asserting without support as you have for the past half dozen posts

            Merely asserting without support that I merely asserted that free speech zones are unconstitutional without support is laughable, especially since there's direct evidence to the contrary. There's a difference between you being unable to comprehend the arguments being made and the arguments simply not existing.

            I have to wonder if you're doing some sort of parody, but you seem sincere.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 13 2016, @12:02AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 13 2016, @12:02AM (#440621) Journal

              Merely asserting without support that I merely asserted that free speech zones are unconstitutional without support is laughable, especially since there's direct evidence to the contrary. There's a difference between you being unable to comprehend the arguments being made and the arguments simply not existing.

              Then where have you supported your case? You keep saying things like

              How does arresting people for exercising their right to freedom of speech because they didn't go to a specific location to do so infringe upon their rights?

              Keep in mind that the reason would be that they are disrupting other peoples' lawful activities or creating an unsafe condition, not that they are exercising a right in a designated area. It's once again a non-free speech issue which would be the official trigger just like the trespassing case you have already allowed.

              • (Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:10AM

                by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:10AM (#440735)

                Then where have you supported your case?

                It's like with the SJWs who claim that insults are literal assaults: You'll never understand because you're using definitions of ordinary terms so radically different from mine that it interferes with normal communication. Free speech zones aren't about speech? You're done.

                Keep in mind that the reason would be that they are disrupting other peoples' lawful activities or creating an unsafe condition, not that they are exercising a right in a designated area.

                No, that is quite often not the reason. There are documented cases of people being moved to free speech zones merely for expressing certain opinions, which can be easily found with a search engine. Stop asserting that this is just about trespassing and such; that's utter nonsense. You shouldn't just ignore all the abuses by saying 'tools have good and bad uses'.

                Also, people aren't moved to free speech zones for doing other things than speaking, so it absolutely is about speech. If someone is doing something that's actually dangerous and illegal, then they should be arrested for doing so or made to stop, not have their free speech rights restricted to a specific location. If they were trespassing, then simply tell them to go to a location where they're allowed to be, and there are many more places people are allowed to be than just free speech zones. Trying to claim that free speech zones aren't about speech is bullshit sophistry of the highest order.

                just like the trespassing case you have already allowed.

                You're so focused on an irrelevant issue like trespassing. All I've said is that it's okay for the police to escort trespassers off of the property or arrest people for trespassing, and then you came up with some absurd situation where the government gives away public land so that protests can be suppressed. Don't act like that means I agree with you.

                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 13 2016, @01:58PM

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 13 2016, @01:58PM (#440779) Journal

                  You're so focused on an irrelevant issue like trespassing.

                  You made a blanket claim which you already provided an exception for. As you already noted, you consider it acceptable for the state to remove by force people who are exercising their right of free speech, but violating something else. That's exactly the legal justification for free speech zones where a huge mass of people can normally cause a huge safety or societal disruption issue. This isn't a matter of definitions, but a practical matter of just having a lot of people in one place.

                  Further, it has precedence. Parades, sports events, and other planned mass gatherings usually have the same sort of zoning and crowd control.

                  No, that is quite often not the reason. There are documented cases of people being moved to free speech zones merely for expressing certain opinions, which can be easily found with a search engine. Stop asserting that this is just about trespassing and such; that's utter nonsense. You shouldn't just ignore all the abuses by saying 'tools have good and bad uses'.

                  You should not ignore all the uses just because you can find abuses. I can find cases for any government power where it has been abused. That doesn't mean that those powers are inherently unconstitutional.

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @02:55PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @02:55PM (#440795)

                    You made a blanket claim which you already provided an exception for.

                    Well, I don't really think it's an exception, barring the ridiculously unlikely scenario you spoke of earlier.

                    As you already noted, you consider it acceptable for the state to remove by force people who are exercising their right of free speech

                    But not because they are doing so. The problem with free speech zones is that they arbitrarily limit the locations in which people may exercise their right to free speech to specific zones, and that is simply not a power the government has. Arresting someone for not being in such a zone and exercising their free speech rights infringes upon their right to speak freely, as your first amendment rights do not depend on your location. But this is a complete waste of time, because you appear unable to differentiate between stopping someone from doing something unrelated to speech and the government arresting someone for their speech.

                    Free speech zones cannot, to me, be justified in the name of safety, even if I assume the safety concerns are real. What truly matters is freedom.

                    Further, it has precedence.

                    Only fools who worship authority care about such a thing. It has no effect on the actual constitutionality of free speech zones, so it's irrelevant.

                    I can find cases for any government power where it has been abused. That doesn't mean that those powers are inherently unconstitutional.

                    There are a lot of powers the government abuses, and since I value freedom more than safety, I believe it should be stripped of those powers. In many cases, the Constitution does not even grant the government those powers to begin with, making them illegitimate.

                    If a power is used to abuse people's constitutional rights in practice, then the government should be stripped of that power. But this is besides the point, because free speech zones are unconstitutional for other reasons. The reason I bring it up is because you seem to only want to talk about trespassing and other such nonsense.

          • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:38PM

            by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:38PM (#441046) Journal

            Ok, why is that relevant? For example, suppose a city has a protest on public land. They hand title to the land over to me. "Kids, get off my lawn". Then after the police disperse or arrest everyone for trespass, I hand title to the land back to the city. Do the laws on trespassing still have nothing to do with speech? Each step in isolation was constitutional, but the whole becomes unconstitutional because it is an obvious, underhanded tactic for breaking up a legitimate protest.

            That would be perfectly legal. It would also be perfectly legal for you to just hang on to that title and never give it back. That's a hell of a risk for the city to take.

            And it might not work anyway. Even on private property the police generally won't just go hauling people off immediately. (Hell, even when you protest at secure/private government areas like the White House they take a few hours before they'll make any arrests) In a situation like that you might even have to wait for a lawsuit or two to go through before they can do anything. Property rights are rarely that simple, particularly when revoking public access to a property.

      • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:20PM

        by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:20PM (#441039) Journal

        I agree. But we seem to have this mysterious inability to articulate why free speech zones are unconstitutional. I assert it's because they aren't actually unconstitutional. No one's speech is actually being infringed on.

        I have no right to speak outside of that zone. That in itself is a restriction of my right to free speech. The government can't just say "Free speech is only allowed from 2am - 5am inside the dumpster of the DMV with the lid securely locked". Sure, they aren't restricting what you say, but restricting where and how you can say it is ALSO a restriction on free speech.

        Trespassing isn't about speech, it's about physical presence. They can't arrest you for *speaking* on someone else's property, but they can arrest you for *being there*. So if they want to say "The only public property is inside the dumpster behind the DMV, all other land is private and we will arrest anyone present no matter what they're doing" -- that's OK, that's not a restriction on speech. It's also going to result in a ton of people getting arrest for trying to drive to work, or walk to the store, or go to school...

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 13 2016, @11:47PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 13 2016, @11:47PM (#441076) Journal

          Sure, they aren't restricting what you say, but restricting where and how you can say it is ALSO a restriction on free speech.

          Just like all things, it is a power that can be abused. But without the power to say "you can protest here, but not there", we have situations like abortion clinics which can't be entered due to protesters on public land surrounding the property, protesters who can legally obstruct or slow traffic during rush hour, protest groups who are violently opposed to each other can intermingle (eg, KKK protesters and counterprotesters mixing it up), protests which create dangerous conditions (too many people packed in too small a space), and protesters who can extort things [theverge.com] by blocking legitimate human activities (describes a fair number of European labor union strikes let us note).

          Trespassing isn't about speech, it's about physical presence.

          So are free speech zones.

          • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @04:19PM

            by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday December 14 2016, @04:19PM (#441308) Journal

            Sure, they aren't restricting what you say, but restricting where and how you can say it is ALSO a restriction on free speech.

            Just like all things, it is a power that can be abused. But without the power to say "you can protest here, but not there", we have situations like abortion clinics which can't be entered due to protesters on public land surrounding the property, protesters who can legally obstruct or slow traffic during rush hour, protest groups who are violently opposed to each other can intermingle (eg, KKK protesters and counterprotesters mixing it up), protests which create dangerous conditions (too many people packed in too small a space), and protesters who can extort things by blocking legitimate human activities (describes a fair number of European labor union strikes let us note).

            And that is how it should be. In a democratic society, if a large number of people disagree with what you are doing they can massively inconvenience you -- at the cost of massively inconveniencing themselves as well. That's the price of freedom; in fact, that's practically the definition of the word. If you don't like it, don't live here.

            Trespassing isn't about speech, it's about physical presence.

            So are free speech zones.

            They don't move you there unless you are engaged in specific types of speech, so no, they have nothing to do with physical presence and are entirely about speech. You don't get arrested or moved for standing in front of an abortion clinic. But if you stand there with specific signs or saying specific words, you will.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @04:24PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2016, @04:24PM (#440417)

    And people like khallow are why were in a fascist police state. Smart enough to argue points, stupid enough to believe the really bad ones. Boot licking authoritarian.

  • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:13PM

    by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday December 13 2016, @10:13PM (#441036) Journal

    Similarly, free speech zones are about putting a bunch of people in a place that won't disrupt the rest of society. To wit, a right to protest (which is also granted by the First Amendment) is not a right to disrupt.

    Yes it is, it's right there in the First Amendment. Congress may make no law restricting the right to free speech. Put another way, it says the government has no right to prevent disruption. It doesn't say they can't restrict free speech except when necessary to maintain an orderly cohesive society.

    If it gets disrupted that much, then it needs to be. That's a feature, not a bug.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 13 2016, @11:13PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 13 2016, @11:13PM (#441067) Journal

      Put another way, it says the government has no right to prevent disruption.

      You have yet to show that free speech is being restricted.

      • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @04:24PM

        by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday December 14 2016, @04:24PM (#441312) Journal

        It's being confined to a specific location. How is that not a restriction?

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 14 2016, @04:39PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 14 2016, @04:39PM (#441321) Journal
          So are laws against trespassing. Given that they can speak whatever they want, and we have plenty of technologies for distributing that speech globally, you have yet to show that being confined to a location is a restriction on their speech.
          • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @09:41PM

            by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday December 14 2016, @09:41PM (#441435) Journal

            It's a restriction on speech because the restriction is *entirely based on speech*. You have yet to show that it isn't. Gimme an example of people being relocated to free speech zones that wasn't based on them attempting to exercise their right to free speech. You just need one example to disprove the theory, but you can't even come up with a *hypothetical*, let alone an instance from the real world...