It’s no secret that the Drug Enforcement Administration relies heavily on an army of confidential sources — men and women compelled, coerced, or enticed to share information with law enforcement, sometimes to alleviate their own legal troubles, sometimes for cash.
Precisely how those relationships play out, however, is often shrouded in secrecy.
A recently published audit by the Department of Justice has now offered a startling glimpse behind the scenes of those operations, revealing a world in which hundreds of millions of dollars have been doled out to thousands of informants over the last five years. Those informants include package delivery personnel, bus company employees, and Transportation Security Administration agents moonlighting as drug war spies — all operating with abysmal oversight and scant evidence of return on investment.
Published Thursday by the DOJ’s Inspector General, the audit reports that from 2010 to 2015, the DEA boasted more than “18,000 active confidential sources assigned to its domestic offices, with over 9,000 of those sources receiving approximately $237 million in payments for information or services they provided.” By comparison, the FBI is said to maintain a roster of some 15,000 informants.
Exactly how useful the DEA’s sources are is unclear — even, apparently, to the DEA itself.
“Because DEA’s files do not detail the universe of information provided by its sources, it is unable to examine their reliability and whether they frequently or rarely provide useful information, or whether the information DEA agents acted upon resulted in identifying individuals involved in illegal activity or instead caused DEA to regularly approach innocent civilians for questioning,” the audit noted.
“We are deeply concerned about this inability to assess source reliability, which seriously impairs DEA’s ability to oversee and manage the activity of these sources and the Confidential Source Program overall.”
Built on 50 interviews with DEA and DOJ officials, the report examined data from nine field site locations, as well as the agency’s Office of Special Intelligence and its Special Operations Division.
So-called limited-use informants, the audit found, are among the highest earners in the DEA’s ecosystem of sources, with 477 such informants earning an estimated $26.8 million during the period the DOJ examined — an average of about $56,000 per source.
Ostensibly, limited-use sources are “tipsters” who require the lowest level of supervision and operate independent of law enforcement direction. In reality, the DOJ reports, these sources have frequently worked hand in hand with the DEA, often for many years, sometimes for decades, unbeknownst to their employers. Many are cultivated by DEA interdiction units, which typically target “employees in the travel and parcel industries with access to passenger information or private facilities,” who are then “paid to conduct searches on proprietary databases, or access packages shipped through private companies, to provide traveler and package information to the DEA to assist in interdiction activities.”
The audit identified at least 33 DEA sources working at Amtrak, including train attendants and ticket agents, who collectively were paid more than $1.4 million over four years. On a daily basis, these sources would provide the DEA with printouts of passenger manifests and other information, allowing special agents to conduct background checks or brief interviews based on that information. In reviewing the DEA’s relationship to its well-paid Amtrak sources, the DOJ determined the information the sources dug up could have been provided by Amtrak authorities to the DEA at no cost to the federal government — DEA officials claimed that going through the proper channels to obtain the information was too time consuming. In one case, the DOJ identified an Amtrak employee who had worked as a DEA informant for 20 years, earning $962,615 for providing information.
In a statement to The Intercept, Amtrak said it “participates in a joint task force with the DEA to share intelligence about suspected criminal behavior … at no cost to the federal government.”
“The DEA violated federal regulations by selectively approaching and paying Amtrak employees for information that the DEA would have received for free,” the company said of the DOJ audit. “Amtrak does not tolerate fraud, waste, abuse or any behavior inconsistent with our company values and standards of conduct. Our employees are expressly prohibited from sharing information for personal gain.”
The DOJ also found at least eight TSA employees who had secretly worked as DEA informants, marking the extension of a practice the Inspector General had first flagged as a problem earlier this year. Security screeners were used to “identify and provide the DEA with information pertaining to suspicious passengers carrying large sums of money that were identified during the course of the sources’ TSA duties,” the audit noted. “The OIG’s investigation found that registering a TSA security screener as a confidential source violated DEA policy, which precludes registering as a confidential source ‘employees of U.S. law enforcement agencies who are working solely in their official capacity with DEA.’”
DEA informants were also found working in the commercial airline industry — “because they had access to corporate airline databases containing detailed passenger information” — and for private intercity bus companies. In particular, the DOJ focused on DEA informants in the parcel and packing industry, noting that these sources were attractive to the agency “because they had access to company databases, access to parcels en route, or authority to administratively open parcels without a search warrant, which increases the potential for identifying suspicious parcels.”
In one case, the DOJ found a parcel company employee who had worked for the DEA for 12 years, earning more than $1 million. Over the course of the source’s secret employment for the agency, the individual intercepted more than 180 parcels, which were regularly forwarded on to the DEA. No drugs were ever found.
The DOJ cited numerous problems with DEA’s limited-use sources, including the agency’s payment to other government or quasi-government employees to act as its eyes and ears outside the official structures of intergovernmental cooperation. In addition to raising the prospect of widespread Fourth Amendment violations, the audit noted that in the case of the TSA, employees are already required by law to share information of suspected criminal activity with law enforcement, “therefore the DEA agreed to pay for information that the screener was already obligated to provide.”
The TSA did not respond to a request for comment.
The audit also describes tens of millions of dollars paid to hundreds of sources whose status was “deactivated” by the DEA, meaning their relationship to law enforcement was meant to be cut off because they had an arrest warrant or had committed a serious offense. In one case, a source who was deactivated for providing false testimony in trials and depositions was reactivated by senior DEA officials, earning more than $400,000 over five years before being terminated again for providing false statements to a prosecutor.
While the DEA’s secretive Intelligence Division was unable to provide a list of its payments to sources, the IG’s office estimated that “during the five-year period of our review, the Intelligence Division paid more than $30 million to sources who provided narcotics-related intelligence and contributed to law enforcement operations, $25 million of which went to just nine sources.”
“The report is certainly pretty damning,” said Sean Dunagan, a former DEA intelligence analyst, in an email to The Intercept. Dunagan, who is now a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an organization seeking to end the war on drugs, highlighted the audit’s focus on the DEA’s use of so-called sub-sources — essentially informants working under other known DEA informants — as a major area of concern.
According to the audit, “The DEA has no controls, policies, or procedures for interactions with these ‘sub-sources.’” Though his work was focused abroad, in Mexico, Dunagan said, “The use of sub-sources is very sketchy” and offers the DEA “a workaround that leaves no room for oversight.”
Reacting to the DOJ’s findings, Michael German, a fellow at New York University Law School’s Brennan Center for Justice, told The Intercept, “If the policies around domestic sources are this loose, I’d be very concerned about what’s happening overseas.” (While the IG audit was limited to the DEA’s domestic operations, the agency indeed maintains a significant presence abroad, often working closely with other members of the intelligence community on secretive programs and initiatives — in 2014, The Intercept revealed the DEA’s involvement in a sweeping top-secret NSA program aimed at collecting the content of every cellphone call made in the Bahamas.)
German, who spent 16 years in federal law enforcement, including as an undercover special agent with the FBI, said he found it “surprising to see a report like this in 2016″ given the instances of federal agencies coming under criticism for their use of informants in recent years. “So many other agencies have been through such public criticism over those activities you’d think [the DEA] would have curbed that long before this IG report came out.”
The DEA did not respond to a request for comment.
Update: September 30, 2016
This story has been updated to include comment from Amtrak.
Top photo: A Drug Enforcement Administration agent’s badge is pictured on July 22, 2009, in Houston, Texas.
Free Rick Wershe!!
“The FBI groomed 14-year-old Richard Wershe to become a drug dealer and informant. The teen dope slinger helped put away the mayor of Detroit’s brother-in-law—and got in bed with his niece. When Wershe got busted, the FBI didn’t help him and the mayor got his secret revenge.” –
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/29/is-cocaine-legend-white-boy-rick-serving-life-for-busting-crooked-cops.html
More info about my friend Rick and his case: https://www.facebook.com/FreeRickWersheJr/
“•Richard ‘Rick’ Wershe Jr started work as an FBI informant when he was 14
•His information led to the arrest of cops and a mayor’s brother-in-law
•But at 17, he was given life without parole for cocaine possession
•Wershe, along with former FBI agents and attorneys, believe he is still behind bars because of the enemies he made
•A new documentary now sheds more light on the efforts to shut him up
•Convicted killer Nathaniel Craft says he was asked to kill Wershe by a cop
•Hitman was then asked to cover his tracks so it wouldn’t be connected
•Director Shawn Rech believes he became a ‘scapegoat’ for a city in decline” – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3759371/Did-police-officer-order-HIT-17-year-old-FBI-informant-brought-members-Detroit-s-corrupt-elite-Hitman-claims-asked-kill-small-time-drug-dealer-bars-1988-knows.html
“,,,enticed to share information with law enforcement, sometimes to alleviate their own legal troubles, sometimes for cash.”
Isn’t that BRIBERY? Bribery is specifically prohibited in the Constitution, while the use of recreational drugs is not, & is therefore left for the States to decide for themselves what to do via the 9th & 10th Amendments.
https://www.youtube.com/attribution?v=YnyK40A1iMo
Dr. MOSS DAVID POSNER was a Viet Nam draft resistor turned California physician,who rated 5 out of 5 stars with his patients.
He wrote about ADD, had a page at Peacepink, and he worked in the CA prisons, until he was finally forced out, because he kept extensive files about prisoner health, mental health; records of rape, torture and abuse in various CA prison facilities.
In short he was a criminal-a man who practiced a dangerous doctrine of ‘first do no harm.’
And, he believed he too was a target of malicious organized harassment.
The link above is one of his video’s advising targets of organized stalking on how to survive. In other words-Dr. Posner ( unlike Mona, or Glenn, apparently) knew that organized stalking is real, and actual.
He died in 2012.
DEA INFORMANTS GANG STALK
I should have worked for Amtrak or UPS!
The DEA is no less anti-science, regardless of rationalizing otherwise in their recent cannabis scheduling decision, than climate deniers.
They should be forced by Congress and media to publicly explain the hypocrisy of allowing DHHS to patent cannabidiols (CBDs) “found” in a Schedule 1 plant – 13 years ago, and exactly how their licensing of pharmaceutical manufacturers to create medicines under that patent is being legally justified by “their science” – even while claiming cannabis had no medical uses. Almost ANYONE on the planet with epilepsy in their family has now heard and knows the truth that cannabis is medicine.
I say turn the tables and make the DEA scientifically prove this plant is as dangerous as they claim – to preserve ANY authority. Their politically driven scheduling decisions have already lost all credibility.
Also consider how DEA agents must inherently understand that lies about cannabis are used to perpetuate agency funding / existence, a dishonest excuse since its inception. It means EVERY SINGLE AGENT knows a great part of their job and the mission is based solely on corrupt politics, that they’re actually harming civilization and society instead of helping.
It was THEY who first gave us perpetual war conditioning, not terrorism, and then exported it to every country possible through the State Dept and a subverted UN. Down and out cannabis or drug-user “scumbags” somehow harming society more than the dishonest drug warriors and Big Brother surveillance is ludicrous. The poor or dispossessed trying to be less miserable aren’t the ones attacking constitutional and human rights.
Their insane war on cannabis users and growers continues even as the U.S. plans to soon market CBDs to the world, via pharmaceutical companies licensed under their patent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US-patent-6630507.pdf
HOW is the world NOT condemning the U.S. – for falsely terrorizing it about cannabis since Nixon?
The DEA is no less anti-science than climate “change” deniers.
ORGANIZED STALKING IS PARTLY CONSPICUOUS OR OVERT SURVEILLANCE OFTEN DONE BY DEA OR FBI INFORMANTS
I don’t have the resources to know who or what is ultimately behind my targeting, but my conspicuous or overt stalking and surveillance began, right after I began to blitz large media outlets all over the U.S. with links that supported the medicinal use of cannabis, from medical authorities or esteemed journals, like the Institute of Medicine, the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, The American College of Physicians, etc.
I saw that pro-cannabis advocacy organizations — like NORML — were doing a decent job putting a lot of the science together, for instance “Emerging Clinical Applications for Cannabis and Cannabinoids” by NORML’s Deputy Director, Paul Armentano.
But they were doing a LOUSY job communicating the science to the people. It appeared they were not even trying. At all. So, I began blitzing media outlets all over the U.S., especially in states that were about to vote on whether to permit the medicinal use of cannabis or not, with the historical and medical facts about cannabis, straight from medical authorities. I did not write “opinion” pieces. I spread the word from medical authorities, and I did it whenever I could. I started in 2002 and spread thousands of links to credible medical organization’s position papers on cannabis or expert testimony from experts like Dr. Lester Grinspoon.
I targeted media like the Wall Street Journal, and I’d pick apart their editorial stance against the use of cannabis as medicine. Because the facts were on my side, I destroyed ghost writers on a daily basis. I used many names, as I knew the “professional liars” would not be happy.
But I was not prepared for what would happen to me: Conspicuous Stalking/Break-ins/Vandalism/Theft/Alterations, Character Smears/Whisper Campaigns and Overt Surveillance for 6 YEARS STRAIGHT!!
It started with aggressive tailgating and two incidents of law enforcement harassment (and formal apologies from supervising police) in New York state and then conspicuous “escorts” all over the state of Colorado by 4-12 black Ford Explorers with American flags on their back windshield, which would box me in when I was driving on the highways and even follow me off exits and even around parking lots. Other SUVs would conspicuously wait right after the on-ramps to resume their stalking/overt surveillance, when I got back on the highway. The windows on all these vehicles were completely blacked out, and they were incredibly aggressive, giving me no room in the front, to the side, or in the back, sometimes for up to 4 hours straight (all the way from southern Colorado to my home deep in the mountains). The overt and blatant nature of the surveillance was outrageous. I did try calling local and state police with license plate #s dozens of times, but they wouldn’t help. I did everything I could to lose the my conspicuous box surveillance, but it wasn’t possible.
I chose not to be involved in any professional capacity and turned down financial opportunities to help begin some of the first dispensaries in Colorado, as the people behind them were sketchy, at best, and I wanted to spread the truth. Plus, with a serious medical condition, I could not afford jail time so I didn’t participate in any for-profit business or dispensaries.
If I had, I would be doing quite well financially, as the people who started the first dispensaries had been “green-lighted” by the DEA, and the DEA officials were rewarded handsomely. Instead, I obtained only my small, legal amount of cannabis and wrote whenever I was physically able. You can make millions but don’t effectively spread the facts.
Then, I started to be followed around my small town in Colorado by known neighbors and unknown strangers to the community. I spoke directly to the stalkers, but they played dumb, even though I had hundreds of photos, proving stalking and harassment. My home began to be broken into, and my home and possessions were vandalized, destroyed, stolen or altered, including moved around. I was stalked mercilessly 24/7/365. I could not go for a walk without residents driving loops around me. If I went for a hike, I’d be tracked-down by people on horses. The vehicles from out of town would buzz me, when I was walking, and almost hit me going 30-50 mph over the speed limit. When I called the police the deputies began to stalk me and then simply deny it (even with photo evidence). Attorneys wouldn’t help. Internal Affairs never returned dozens of calls and letters.
Other residents tried to help me, but explained that information “from the outside” was trickling into the community. I was essentially blacklisted. The smell of growing cannabis wafted through the town and that was okay, but spreading information about cannabis was not, as I wasn’t paying the right people off.
My overt or conspicuous surveillance — by vehicles and with people on foot — continued in 5 locations in Colorado, in two locations in rural Maine, in several locations in Maryland, and has continued in Greensboro, North Carolina. I am overtly or conspicuously surveilled by a few neighbors, many of whom are known criminals and/or were charged with crimes or with family members arrested for drug dealing. My home is illegally entered almost every time I leave it. Alarm systems and cameras have been circumvented and my alarm system was silently triggered repeatedly while I was home, with a functioning alarm not sounding, resulting in police at my door and now bills from the police for false alarms. The alarm company acknowledged that my alarm system was not being triggered by my key fob or keypad; that it was “external to your system.” The nearly a thousand dollar system was useless, and my Drop Cams were hacked and the stream masqueraded and not showing hundreds of illegal entries. I agree it doesn’t make sense, unless you consider some people really are “neutralized” and “disrupted.” I’m not a Dr. Martin Luther King, but I did see a huge opportunity when discussion forums began popping up on-line (internet billboards!!).
There is blatant vandalism (hundreds of black slashes all over the pantry/laundry room, with a 5″ X5″ hole in the wall and a couple dozen smaller holes). My computer has been vandalized repeatedly, costing me hundreds of dollars to fix it. Whole wardrobes have been poked with hundreds of holes. Police actually looked at hundreds of black slashes and big holes in my laundry and said it was “normal wear and tear!” And the hundreds of holes to my clothing: “Normal wear and tear.” Brand new pants and shirts riddled with holes was just “normal wear and tear.”
I have a senior father who was former DoD and has used all the overt and conspicuous surveillance as fodder for him saying I’m “seriously mentally ill,” though I have no history of mental illness and my therapist tried very hard to get police to take my reports seriously, saying I’ve always been “oriented times three,” lucid, not psychotic and never delusional. The cops don’ t fucking care about the truth, at all.
If your own family will turn on you, and you’re poor, you can be followed 24/7/365 and no one will intervene.
I’m a former teacher, social worker with no history of mental illness. I’m on SSD because of a rare connective tissue disorder, but my disability had no psychiatric component whatsoever!! It is terrifying, and my guess is I’m not the only person this sort of thing is happening to. But with so many fake targets — or mentally ill targets — talking about mind control and exotic weapons, genuine targets for “disruption” and “neutralization” are conflated with claims that are outrageous.
The next-door neighbors who moved in exactly the day I moved in, includes a 24 year old arrested for allegedly kidnapping a 17 year old and keeping her captive for a few days, until she was able to get away. When his case — one that was supposed to end in “earth shattering results” and would “include many more arrests” — was dismissed after only 6 months in jail, he returned home, with a brand new black and red Camaro, while his mother stays home. He supposedly is a trucker, but he has been here every day since he got out (and he was here after he was released — in plainly visible violation of the terms of his parole — for 18 months!! Even though the police were all fully aware!!)
The few times when the next door neighbor, a middle-aged woman, wasn’t home when I left my home, she drove right past me as I was less than a quarter mile from my home (more than 912 consecutive days!! It is that fucking blatant!)
One neighbor, was blatantly following me everywhere I walked for the first year and a half (more than 500 times). One time, he passed me 19 times in a one mile stretch, and he waited in the complex across the street from mine, and he would drive in along side of me, as I walked in, more than a 100 consecutive times, from 6:30 a.m – 2:30 a.m!! (“Conspicuous Entry/Exit” like the FBI).
I’ve called the police, but they have refused to investigate. All the vandalism just “normal wear and tear,” and my neighbor who stalked the bejezus out of me: “He likes to drive, and it has nothing to do with you” (even though I had HUNDREDS of photos all time-stamped).
A few homes in the complex have snitches in them (not the whole family in several instances) and people trying to get off probation or parole. When I had ethical police come over from another scene in the complex (so no one could get to them first), 2 officers assured me their investigation unit would be following up, as it “was NOT normal wear and tear, at all!!”
I’ve been falsely accused of threatening to physically harm two different sets of neighbors, and they have blatantly lied and said that I was “regularly scaring all the children.” Police have accused me — directly to my face — of repeatedly “making a scene in my complex,” yet I leave and go completely silently.
When I began showing police all the photos, they disappeared from my computer, the camera, and a hard drive that was very well-hidden. And when I left a flash drive I had in a local gym locker (with a lock), all evidence was erased.
I have considered buying covert video cameras — to film the surveillance — but I can’t keep everything on me, as I don’t have a car and can’t carry a backpack long distances. And I’m poor as hell. And if I wear a video camera in public, my complicit family member would use it as fodder to have me involuntarily committed. Before this started happening to me, I would have agreed that a person would have to be a “distinct danger to themselves or others” to be involuntarily committed. But after I have witnessed so many lies and such blatant character smears — taken as fact by police — the truth is, if you don’t have money and are isolated, they can do anything they want to you!!
It is happening to me, and it can happen to any other person isolated without help and poor.
I hear you, Stalked. And I believe you.
I look forward to the day I see people hang their heads in shame for not believing us.
Hang in there. You’re not alone in this. I’ve been through pretty much everything you have. It is harrowing. It is destructive. It is Zersetzung. And it’s happening in America.
http://www.fightgangstalking.com
The DEA is more criminal than the criminals it is supposed to be looking for. Just average for fascist America.
“So many other agencies have been through such public criticism over those activities you’d think [the DEA] would have curbed that long before this IG report came out.”
NO. It demonstrates that the police state of America is so wide that it cannot be controlled. For example: Hundreds of millions of dollars spent by militaristic police forces to enforce a law on marijuana that is opposed by a majority of the governed proves we are not a self governing people, but are subject to certain individuals with individual causes. Police who depend on a drug war to maintain budgets and growing power through massive jobs; Privatized prisons who need to fill the beds with ‘druggies’ or other non violent ‘criminals'; Politicians who need a ’cause’ to get donations and votes to keep their seats of control.
City police, State Police, National guard policing, FBI, CIA, AFT, NSA, MPs; IRS; and a multitude of other agencies ensure we have broad police powers covering every american: and still it is never enough because people resent being controlled by others and will violate one rule or another. With millions of pages of laws on the books at one lever or another, It is impossible for any one of us to NOT commit one crime or another on an almost daily basis.
Lynch and her cohorts condone these massive payouts to everyone form criminals to contractors, one in the same. DHS / FBI’s InfagGard are in the mix also. NO oversight on these pricks either.
The DEA brings new meaning to the word STAZI. The only thing missing is a Swastika on their uniforms.
$237,000,000 / 18000 / 5 years = $2,633 (average)
That’s about enough to cover a used car payment… what’s the big deal?
“the DOJ found a parcel company employee who had worked for the DEA for 12 years, earning more than $1 million. Over the course of the source’s secret employment for the agency, the individual intercepted more than 180 parcels, which were regularly forwarded on to the DEA. No drugs were ever found.”
A million buck to intercept 1.2 parcels per month with no success.
The two possibilities are they are laughing their ass off, or, more likely, they’re a relative or girlfriend of a DEA agent… laughing their ass off.
I’m pretty sure I could train a chinchilla to intercept more packages and find some drugs.
Once again, a serious crime if you or I “intercepted” parcels.
This is so dumb! Who oversees these people? This is American tax dollars they giving away for basically free and most likely to themselves or close relatives..
What are we putting up with this?
“or, more likely, they’re a relative or girlfriend of a DEA agent”
It’s called Fuckuption–corruption disguised as a fuckup.
Nice work.
The level of corruption even within the corruption itself is pure American comedy. The part about the DOJ saying we should get this information for free is just the capper. We really are beyond parody at this point.
So the DEA is taking the idea that even the man who broke into your house to rape and murder you can still testify against you about the grow op he saw when he was hiding in your basement.
So the DEA figured they could avoid getting warrants if they could hire people to break into your house and then testify about whatever they saw.
The DOJ’s response is that we should be able to avoid getting warrants without having to pay people.
There’s a curious market effect going on here. Clearly the DEA has too much cash lying around. And clearly warrants are “too hard.”
Maybe take away some of their cash—assuming they aren’t getting it from the Mexican gangs in the first place—and suddenly warrants might not seem so difficult to them.
$13,000 average to each informant. I’ll do it for free!
The Head of the Cartel resides at the CIA. GO look for him, he is the top guy.
free is the problem.
the free thing is the favors others do for the special services depts of lawfirms who represent drug cartels and organised crime.
One of the few happy things about this story is that it once again demonstrates how poorly the various agencies of Government are at sharing information. Certainly, it is a big waste of money, but personally I prefer that, and the bumbling incompetence that goes along with it, to the alternative in which the DEA, TSA, DHS, CIA, FBI and NSA would have a very close and cooperative relationship, sharing and assimilating all the information they vacuum up on us.
Although I have complained in the past about the mistaken approach to terrorism that results in the NSA’s collecting everything, the bright side is that with knowledge that broad it is bound to be extremely shallow. Personally I am willing to accept the very small risk of actually being killed by terrorists as a price for that incompetence. But I know that the public does not share my views, and trembles in fear of terrorists when they are more than twice as likely to die from a fall from a ladder than from a terrorist attack.
Amtrak Update
I certainly hope Amtrak management will obtain a list of Amtrak employees that received funds and request that those funds be sent back to the DEA.
Despite the fact that the “War on Drugs” has been a dismal failure in a long list of failed Federal plans (too long to enumerate), this “War” like the War in Iraq drags on. Very few happy people take drugs. Whether misery is fueled by economic or emotional failure, a flawed system is always riddled with drug problems, as the so-called recent “legal” opioid crisis indicates. The amount of money wasted on informants, with little to show for it, is simply another case in point that our political system in America no longer works.
That’s true, but considering that the terrorist organization that is the nsa is spying on me illegally right now and recording every keystroke I make, I’m going to just say that I won’t be the person to inform the American public or government (or military, if they care for whatever reason to be interested enough in my thoughts to warrant questioning why it is that I would tell the, the same thing about the American political system) that the American political system doesn’t work anymore, and probably hasn’t for some time.
I do, however, think it funny when I read about ex agents joining anti perpetuation of mass murder and war and rape organizations to combat them. Would be interesting to see them debate each other publicly with all of the necessary information available to potential “voters” regarding who is murdering or raping who and for what (or what’s) purpose, regardless of how deluded they are in believing that that is what they are in fact doing, and not simply committing crimes against humanity.
in 3rd world contries, the proper name of employed “informants” is “minders”.
3rd WORLD USA
sinking fast
“all operating with abysmal oversight and scant evidence of return on investment.”
I’d say organized crime’s ROI has been, and continues to be, spectacular.
With more than half the country legalizing cannabis in one form or another, the DEA still has the balls to declare cannabis has no medical value.
Given how it’s predecessor was founded by the infamous Harry Anslinger and how the anti-drug laws were made in response to Timothy Leary getting the Marijuana Tax Act declared unconstitutional, are we surprised?