The U.S. Department of Justice has ordered the DEA to cease searching passengers at airports, following an Inspector General’s investigation showing that the people doing these searches – which often led to confiscation of cash from travelers without any charges being filed – lacked proper training and kept insufficient documentation, leading to a likelihood of committing constitutional rights violations.
The decision to stop “consensual encounter” airport searches (and searches at other transit hubs) was made a little over a week ago, but the report was only just released today, highlighting a decade of abuses including the strong suggestion that the DEA was performing these searches for the purpose of seizing funds for its own use.
In a 10-year period, the DEA seized over $4 billion in cash, the vast majority of which was unconnected to any criminal charge.
Searches will now only be allowed if connected to an ongoing criminal investigation or approved under exigent circumstances by the DEA Administrator.
I’ve written about civil asset forfeiture at airports before, and even served as an expert witness in a case against the practice. The DEA frequently targets minorities so they’ve stopped tracking race. Police records though contain data showing 56% of jetbridge stops are of black passengers, while 68% are minorities.
- The government seizes cash without charging anyone with a crime.
- Then the victim has to prove the money wasn’t used in a crime to get it back. There’s a byzantine process for doing this, and usually the victim has to enter into a partial settlement to get anything back at all, which includes a promise not to sue.
- And the way this is all structured, the agency seizing the money gets to keep part of it for themselves.
Even just flying Atlanta to Los Angeles is enough for a stop and seizure, because passengers are flying from ‘one known drug location’ to another. The government considers one way tickets suspicious, even though airline pricing practices have changed so that it often makes more sense to book one ways.
Ultimately it’s important to know that even though it is your right, it’s a good idea not to carry large amounts of cash with you at the airport. It’s subject to confiscation. And if you’re carrying more than $10,000 out of the United States, you need to register that with the government – not just with the country you’re carrying it into.
More on civil asset forfeiture, from Last Week Tonight:
You people do realize that the vast majority of these seizures are like 10s of thousands of dollars in cash; often bound on long distance flights? There is a reason the system is set up this way, and it’s to stop obvious nefarious money from being easily shipped.
So somebody at the top of the list mentions biden. Suddenly a bunch of boneheads start Manufacturing a conspiracy in their heads. This crap started back after Bonzo declared his War on Drugs. A continuation through the first Bush Administration and another conservative movement across the country similar to the recent barrage of BS laws beating down rights occurred allowing Nazi police organizations big and small to start encroaching on human rights. Get an education.
Those are NOT the only abuses being perpetrated by members of the DEA or their contractors.
@Robert
If you had read the article, you would have seen that the $3.2 billion number was over 10 years, so this went on under previous administrations as well. A lot of this civil asset forfeiture started under the Bush administration, as part of its “War on Terror”.
Consider this point seriously as at airports i have seen bangaladeshi and pakistani helpers at bag checking time at security time ..they steel costly items like camera or digital gaming devices or costly items from bag and putting outside of bag but not placing it back…making pessenger confused distracted and steeling items by talking with them asking stupid questions and not putting item back to boarding bagage. …. i found this couple of time ….they didnt out my oculus VR device back and I caught him…..beware of these thugs working at airport who are checking your bags…
@SgtRob says:
November 22, 2024 at 5:01 am
“Thank God for Biden. Of course chomo 47 will try to change it back to make his fake law abiding friends happy”
Hey SgtRob, as if Biden was cognitively sound and in control for the last 4 years? Thank God for all the leftists appointed to his administration who destroyed this country is more like your comment.
You do realize that this is a FEDERAL government directive/law put in place way before Trump? Trump doesn’t necessarily have friends in the federal government. Not in the DEA nor FBI.
You have to be stupìd or just plain old TDS suffering to invoke Trump and thank God for Biden.
3 Billion divided by 120 months (10 years) is 25 million a month. . Wtf?
“Tricky Dick” Nixon put the WAR ON DRUGS into high gear.
Goons, thugs. Back around 1975 Congress discovered that the CIA was running a school for kidnappers and assassins in the old Georgetown Car Barn in Washington DC. It sits right next to the “Exorcist Steps”
Near Georgetown University.
The CIA was training secret police units from foreign countries there.
Mostly South American right wing death squads involved with THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS.
Congress shut it down. Where did the CIA experts in kidnapping, torture and murder go?
Wait for it… most were transferred to the DEA.
Disgusting pieces of (fill in the blank)
@SgtRob says:
November 22, 2024 at 5:01 am
“Thank God for Biden. Of course chomo 47 will try to change it back to make his fake law abiding friends happy”
Hey SgtRob, as if Biden was cognitively sound and in control for the last 4 years? Thank God for all the leftists appointed to his administration who destroyed this country is more like your comment.
You do realize that this is a FEDERAL government directive/law put in place way before Trump? Trump doesn’t necessarily have friends in the federal government. Not in the DEA nor FBI.
You have to be ignornt or just plain old TDS suffering to invoke Trump and thank God for Biden.
This garbage started under Ronnie Raygun and was reformed under Dubya, so all you folks out there blaming the libtards need to look in your own backyard before throwing those stones.
I’m sure a lot of this money came from less than moral activities.. however there are a lot of people who have to carry large amounts of cash not because they want to.. I had a friend who had to do it after he finished college in Canada and went back to his country.. there was no viable way to forward the money home without paying a fortune. Unfortunately we don’t have a good international money transfer system. In many places one of the only options is Western Union who charges up to 30% to send money, a small fee up front, but then an extremely unfavorable exchange rate.
STOP !!!!!!!
THINK WITH A CLEAR MIND ITS NOT YOUR MONEY THEY ARE AFTER , ITS FUNDS GOING TO FINANCE TERRORIST.
IF YOU HAVE SIMPLE MINDED PLACE YOUR MONEY IN A DEBT CARD OR TRAVELERS CHECKS OR SIMPLY WIRE FUNDS . WE NEED TO KEEP OUR COUNTRY SAFE . NOW EVEN MORE AS WE HAVE A GERMAN LEADER AND A WHOLE BUNCH OF MONEY HUNGRY Buttheads INCLUDING WANNA BE’S. WHAT WE SHOULD DO IS FIND A REMEDY FOR THE VAGRANTS . HELP THE CHILDREN, ITS NOT THEIR CHOICE THEY HAVE.TO SLEEP IN A DRAINAGE HOLE OR EAT WHAT THEY FIND , OUT IN THE RAIN, COLD, EXTREME HOT CONDITIONS.
OUR PROBLEM IS AND WILL CONTINUE TO OUR GOVERNMENT MORE NOW THAN EVER , AS FOR A EXAMPLE. IF THE PRESIDENT ELECTED WOULD BE NATIVE AMERICAN, DEMANDED FOR ALL BORDERS TO BE CLOSED TO ALL NON NATIVES DO AWAY WITH WHITE MAN’S LAWS . A WAR WOULD START IT’S CALLED DISCRIMINATION.
Clicking through to the article the author posted… It looks like the 4 billion seized was not just from flyers but everyone in the US so that includes people that get stopped on the highway.. of that, 80% was deemed to be not suspicious. In terms of airports 209 million had been seized over a ten year period.
For those that need to transfer money out of the country there is Wise. Very nice exchange rates too.
Maybe don’t transport $10,000+ in cash like a suspicious criminal?
DEA are the good guys.
Without law enforcement the criminals win.