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The DEA Once Turned A 14-Year-Old Into A Drug Kingpin. Welcome To The War On Drugs
Posted: 10/24/2014
Nick Wing
This is the second part of a two-part series. Read part one here.
Americans spent approximately $100 billion a year on illegal drugs between 2000 and 2010, according to a 2012 report published by the RAND corporation. Part of the Drug Enforcement Administration's job, alongside several other law enforcement agencies, is to make that process more difficult at home, where harsh federal drug laws have ensured that such transactions are conducted -- until recently, in some states -- entirely on the black market. The DEA also works to cut off imported illicit drugs at the source, which means mounting operations around the world to tackle a global drug trade that generates $322 billion annually, according to UN estimates.
It's a gargantuan task. Critics of the war on drugs say it's an impossible one. Over 40 years, the U.S. has spent more than $1 trillion in the fight. Thousands of people on both sides of the battle have lost their lives. In the end, it's led only to cheaper, higher quality drugs at home and abroad, and by most accounts, little change in the number of people using them. While the momentum may finally be shifting away from an enforcement-first national drug policy and toward prevention and treatment, aggressive enforcement of the nation's drug laws doesn't appear to be going anywhere just yet.
Until the nation drastically rethinks its approach on drugs, the DEA will continue to play an integral part in the war against them, and that sometimes means resorting to controversial tactics. Below, find out how domestic spying, broken promises and a 14-year-old from Detroit have all played a part in that seemingly endless struggle.
The DEA has been spying on U.S. citizens with a surveillance program more expansive than the NSA's.
Just months after Edward Snowden unmasked the National Security Agency's massive domestic spying program, The New York Times broke news of the Hemisphere Project, which pairs experts from telecommunications giant AT&T with federal and local anti-drug officials, including DEA agents. It gives law enforcement officials access to "every call that passes through an AT&T switch -- not just those made by AT&T customers -- and includes calls dating back 26 years," according to the Times report. That's around 4 billion call records every day, each logged with information on the location of callers. The official government slideshow describing the program suggested it had been helpful in tracking drug dealers who frequently change phones, or use disposable "burner" phones.
continued here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/24/dea-war-on-drugs_n_6030920.html
Posted: 10/24/2014
Nick Wing
This is the second part of a two-part series. Read part one here.
Americans spent approximately $100 billion a year on illegal drugs between 2000 and 2010, according to a 2012 report published by the RAND corporation. Part of the Drug Enforcement Administration's job, alongside several other law enforcement agencies, is to make that process more difficult at home, where harsh federal drug laws have ensured that such transactions are conducted -- until recently, in some states -- entirely on the black market. The DEA also works to cut off imported illicit drugs at the source, which means mounting operations around the world to tackle a global drug trade that generates $322 billion annually, according to UN estimates.
It's a gargantuan task. Critics of the war on drugs say it's an impossible one. Over 40 years, the U.S. has spent more than $1 trillion in the fight. Thousands of people on both sides of the battle have lost their lives. In the end, it's led only to cheaper, higher quality drugs at home and abroad, and by most accounts, little change in the number of people using them. While the momentum may finally be shifting away from an enforcement-first national drug policy and toward prevention and treatment, aggressive enforcement of the nation's drug laws doesn't appear to be going anywhere just yet.
Until the nation drastically rethinks its approach on drugs, the DEA will continue to play an integral part in the war against them, and that sometimes means resorting to controversial tactics. Below, find out how domestic spying, broken promises and a 14-year-old from Detroit have all played a part in that seemingly endless struggle.
The DEA has been spying on U.S. citizens with a surveillance program more expansive than the NSA's.
Just months after Edward Snowden unmasked the National Security Agency's massive domestic spying program, The New York Times broke news of the Hemisphere Project, which pairs experts from telecommunications giant AT&T with federal and local anti-drug officials, including DEA agents. It gives law enforcement officials access to "every call that passes through an AT&T switch -- not just those made by AT&T customers -- and includes calls dating back 26 years," according to the Times report. That's around 4 billion call records every day, each logged with information on the location of callers. The official government slideshow describing the program suggested it had been helpful in tracking drug dealers who frequently change phones, or use disposable "burner" phones.
continued here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/24/dea-war-on-drugs_n_6030920.html
