{"id":8451,"date":"2024-11-22T14:59:36","date_gmt":"2024-11-22T06:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=8451"},"modified":"2024-11-22T14:59:50","modified_gmt":"2024-11-22T06:59:50","slug":"dea-passenger-searches-halted-after-watchdog-finds-signs-of-civil-rights-violations-and-racial-profiling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=8451","title":{"rendered":"DEA passenger searches halted after watchdog finds signs of civil rights violations and racial profiling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Justice Department has ordered the Drug Enforcement Administration to suspend its longstanding practice of searching passengers at airports \u2014 and seizing their cash \u2014 after the department\u2019s internal watchdog raised concerns that it was fueling widespread civil rights violations and potential racial profiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a management directive issued on Thursday, the Justice Department\u2019s Office of the Inspector General said it had been hearing complaints about the searches for years \u2014 and had recently learned new information that suggested there were significant problems with them, including potential constitutional violations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IG found that the program \u201ccreates substantial risks that DEA Special Agents and Task Force Officers will conduct these activities improperly; impose unwarranted burdens on, and violate the legal rights of, innocent travelers.\u201d It also found that the searches \u201cwaste law enforcement resources on ineffective interdiction actions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco ordered that the searches be suspended pending an internal evaluation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DEA concurred with most of the report\u2019s recommendations but declined to comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inspector general found that DEA agents and their local police partners have been stopping passengers at airports solely because they bought a last-minute ticket \u2014 and demanding, without a warrant, to search their bags.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The searches are supposed to be voluntary, but the report found that the timing of the operations created a de facto threat in that refusing to agree to a search could cause passengers to miss their flights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the agents found cash, they seized it through civil forfeiture \u2014 a legal process that places the onus on the passenger to prove it was not connected to drugs in order to get it back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IG said investigators could not come to any conclusions about whether the searches involved racial profiling because the DEA does not collect data on all the people it stops \u2014 only on the cases in which money is seized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Department has long been concerned \u2014 and long received complaints \u2014 about potential racial profiling in connection with cold consent encounters in transportation setting,\u201d the report said, adding that the DEA between 2000 and 2003 \u201ccollected consensual encounter data on every encounter in certain mass transportation facilities as part of a Department pilot project to examine the use of race in law enforcement operations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But neither the DEA nor the Justice Department \u201cdrew any conclusions from the data collected about whether the consensual encounters were being conducted in an unbiased manner, and in 2003 the DEA terminated its data collection efforts,\u201d the report said, and \u201cits consensual encounter activities continued.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A search in Cincinnati<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IG report highlighted an incident documented in a video released four months ago by the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit civil liberties law firm which is pursuing a class action lawsuit against the DEA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The passenger, who was in the Cincinnati airport and flying to New York, recorded himself telling a DEA agent that he did not consent to a search of his bags. The agent replied that his consent wasn\u2019t required and used what the institute called \u201cillegal bullying tactics.\u201d The video has been viewed more than 2.6 million times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have to consent,\u201d the agent was recorded saying. \u201cWhen you buy a last-minute ticket, we get alerts. \u2026 We have a lot of money and drugs going out of every airport to New York.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The passenger ultimately agreed to the search after missing his flight. Nothing illegal was found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IG found that the search was based on a tip by an airline employee who passed on the names of passengers who had purchased flights 48 hours before departure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That employee was being paid by the DEA a percentage of the cash seized, the IG found, and had received tens of thousands of dollars over several years. That arrangement is problematic, investigators concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawsuit alleges rights violations<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In January 2020, the Institute for Justice filed a class action suit against the DEA and the Transportation Security Administration, alleging that the agencies routinely violate airport travelers\u2019 constitutional rights by confiscating their money without probable cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some cases, the DEA has seized money only to have judges order the government to return it. In 2021, NBC News reported that the DEA seized $30,000 in cash that an unemployed shoeshiner from New Orleans was carrying through the Columbus, Ohio, airport because his purchase of a truck had fallen through. Prosecutors later agreed to return the money after the Institute for Justice got involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2020, NBC Los Angeles reported that $82,000 was seized by the DEA from an elderly man and his daughter in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe government took my dad\u2019s life savings,\u201d the daughter said. \u201cIt\u2019s like I was mugged on the street.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

USA Today reported in 2016 that, over a decade, the DEA seized more than $209 million in cash from at least 5,200 people at 15 busy airports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Justice Department has ordered the Drug Enforcement Administration to suspend its longstanding practice of searching passengers at airports \u2014 and seizing their cash \u2014 after the department\u2019s internal watchdog raised concerns that it was fueling widespread civil rights violations and potential racial profiling. In a management directive issued on Thursday, the Justice Department\u2019s Office […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":8452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[1394,2877,2878],"class_list":["post-8451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-usa","tag-dea","tag-passenger","tag-searches"],"yoast_head":"\nDEA passenger searches halted after watchdog finds signs of civil rights violations and racial profiling - LISTEN WORLD<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tingchao.xyz\/?p=8451\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"DEA passenger searches halted after watchdog finds signs of civil rights violations and racial profiling - LISTEN WORLD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Justice Department has ordered the Drug Enforcement Administration to suspend its longstanding practice of searching passengers at airports \u2014 and seizing their cash \u2014 after the department\u2019s internal watchdog raised concerns that it was fueling widespread civil rights violations and potential racial profiling. 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