News and notes from around the interweb:
- DEA pays airline staff to target innocent travelers tens of thousands of dollars for information from airline systems to help the government find passengers carrying cash that can be confiscated.
After 10 years in which the DEA has $3.2 billion in cash without any charges filed and with myriad procedural errors, the practice of confronting passengers at airports has been temporary (but indefinitely) suspended.
The goal of these “consensual searches” is to find and seize cash, not drugs, from travelers. Rather than being based on suspicion of crimes, they are based on suspicion of carrying cash. Airline staff are given a cut of the seized cash to finger passengers to be stopped by DEA agents in the hope that they will “consent” to searches so that any cash that is found on their person or in their luggage can be seized:
- Despite $5 million set aside by the state, St. Louis couldn’t attract a new international airline (HT: Enilria)
- Waldorf Astoria New York will start accept reservations starting December 10th for stays in 2025. It’s a true classic, but desperately needed the refresh. When I stayed there, my grandmother still held onto her memory of spending the night in a suite there with my grandfather.
The property, which has been closed for seven years, was acquired from Hilton by Anbang Insurance Group(whose government-controlled successor is Dajia Insurance Group) in 2014 and is managed by Hilton under a 100-year agreement.
- 40% transfer bonus from American Express Membership Rewards to Virgin Atlantic through December 31.
- Starbucks opens coffee shop with views into North Korea
- Not generally a fan of United’s food, but the crab cakes get really rave reviews.
Friends, remove the wool from your eyes. The norms, rules, laws, and morals of the last era are no more; they are now meaningless words and platitudes. In their wake, it’s either: ‘incentives’ and ‘gratuities’ (the carrots), or threats and ‘might makes right’ (the sticks). The US Supreme Court now allows bribes so long as you refer to them as ‘gratuities,’ so be prepared to pay up.
@1990 Community Context: “On June 26, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court held 6-3 in Snyder v. United States that a federal statute, 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(1)(B), does not criminalize “gratuities” to state and local officials—i.e., payments made to those officials AFTER an official act as a reward or token of appreciation. To sustain a conviction under Section 666, federal prosecutors now must prove actual bribery, that is, a payment made or agreed to BEFORE an official act to influence a state or local official with respect to that future act”.
One part of the DOJ reigning in another part of the DOJ.
That Waldorf Astoria NY will make a lovely migrant shelter. Enjoy your turd sandwich, NYC, you deserve every bite.
Per Atlanta News First:
The IG report showed one airline employee “has received tens of thousands of dollars from the DEA over the past several years for seizures resulting from information [they] provided of travelers with tickets purchased within 48 hours of their flight.”
Clearly, a few gate agents in ATL have been more focused on receiving kickbacks from illegal DEA seizures than processing upgrades at the gate…