DEA hired TSA to take cash from luggage
By Nick Wing, Huffington Post
A Department of Justice watchdog officially condemned the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration this month, following a report that the agency had recruited a Transportation Security Administration security screener to search bags for cash that the DEA could confiscate.
The very existence of such a partnership highlights much broader concerns about the controversial legal practice known as civil asset forfeiture, which critics say contorts law enforcement priorities and props up a system of policing for profit.
In a summary of its investigation, the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General concluded that the agreement “violated DEA policy” on a number of levels. While the OIG determined that the TSA informant never provided any actionable information to the DEA, it concluded that the plans to pay the agent out of the cash he or she helped seize “could have violated individuals’ protection against unreasonable searches and seizures if it led to a subsequent DEA enforcement action.”
No surprise here; the asset forfeiture programs have been an open door to corruption from the beginning and an embarrassment for more than a few honest agents and supervisors who have seen it for what it is but have been unable to overcome the ambition and greed that drives it. Nice to see DOJ step up to the plate; wonder where they’ve been the last 25 years? Wonder where they’ll be when this little storm blows over?
Congress has told the DEA to stop enforcement in medical marijuana states, under Section 538 of the current Appropriations Bill: “None of the funds made available in this Act to the Department of Justice may be used, with respect to the States of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, [and every other medical marijuana state], to prevent such States from implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.”
The US Government now admits that weed kills cancer: http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/marijuana-medicine
“Evidence from one cell culture study suggests that purified extracts from whole-plant marijuana can slow the growth of cancer cells from one of the most serious types of brain tumors.”
Taking the money as contraband… planting drugs, guns and money for a bust… sounds like old school LAPD to me.
Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints