Justice Department Orders DEA to Halt Airport Searches Because of 'Significant Issues' With Cash Seizures

By Free Republic | Created at 2024-11-22 00:17:33 | Updated at 2024-11-27 23:26:59 6 days ago

Justice Department Orders DEA to Halt Airport Searches Because of 'Significant Issues' With Cash Seizures
Reason Magazine ^ | 21 November 2024 | C.J. Ciaramella

Posted on 11/21/2024 3:11:56 PM PST by Vigilanteman

The Justice Department has ordered the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to suspend most searches of passengers at airports and other mass transit hubs after an independent investigation found DEA task forces weren't documenting searches and weren't properly trained, creating a significant risk of constitutional violations and lawsuits.

The deputy attorney general directed the DEA on November 12 to halt what are known as "consensual encounter" searches at airports—unless they're part of an existing investigation into a criminal network—after seeing the draft of a Justice Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) memorandum that outlined a decade's worth of "significant concerns" about how the DEA uses paid airline informants and loose criteria to flag passengers to search for drugs and cash.

OIG Investigators found that the DEA paid one airline employee tens of thousands of dollars over the past several years in proceeds from cash seized as a result of their tips. However, the vast majority of those airport seizures aren't accompanied by criminal prosecutions. This has led to years of complaints from civil liberties groups that the DEA is abusing civil asset forfeiture—a practice that allows police to seize cash and other property suspected of being connected to criminal activity such as drug trafficking, even if the owner is never arrested or charged with a crime.

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...

TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Extended News; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: cash; dea; newsheriff; tsa

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Thank you very much and God bless you.

Sounds to me like somebody is getting worried about a new sheriff coming to town.

1 posted on 11/21/2024 3:11:56 PM PST by Vigilanteman

To: Vigilanteman

The War on Drugs has always been a war on our legal rights.

To: Vigilanteman

The entire concept of civil forfeiture in abhorrent to the Constitution and should itself be made illegal.

3 posted on 11/21/2024 3:21:35 PM PST by MeanWestTexan (Sometimes There Is No Lesser Of Two Evils)

To: Vigilanteman

I’m sure that the word has gone out, every person now carrying lots of cash will have to pony up the 10% for the Big Guy. Any deviation from the 10%, even just 9.95% instead of 10%, will be dealt with harshly.

4 posted on 11/21/2024 3:21:43 PM PST by Ronaldus Magnus III (Do, or do not, there is no try)

To: Vigilanteman

So the Beltway has amped up the smuggling of cash.....

5 posted on 11/21/2024 3:22:42 PM PST by blackdog ((Z28.310) Be careful what you say. Your refrigerator may be listening & reporting you.)

To: Bob Wills is still the king

The War on Drugs was really a War on our Rights.

6 posted on 11/21/2024 3:27:09 PM PST by BipolarBob (Our prodigal Haitian son has returned!! Prepare the fatted cat.)

To: Vigilanteman

Sounds like a bunch of people are trying to take their illegal cash out of the USA and DOJ wants to make sure it can happen.

Trump effect.

7 posted on 11/21/2024 3:51:57 PM PST by pepsi_junkie ("We want no Gestapo or Secret Police. F. B. I. is tending in that direction." - Harry S Truman)

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