Author Topic: Border violence pushes north  (Read 345 times)

Bramsterdam (see ya)

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #15 on: August 24, 2007, 09:07:43 PM »
Only the drug users want it legalized so yeah the only thing that happens is that the price is cheaper and the effects are better. Wanting the government in control of your drugs, that is a stupid thing. And for the people who don't do them are paying the others' health and hospital bills.
 

Narrator

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #16 on: August 24, 2007, 10:50:11 PM »
But if drugs are illegal, how am I gonna get my paper to finance the revolution?
 

Fuck Your Existence

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #17 on: August 25, 2007, 02:45:43 AM »
But if drugs are illegal, how am I gonna get my paper to finance the revolution?
what about those diamond mines? just chop off some more limbs and get production up. You need to hook me up...i need to sharpen my floss game
 

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #18 on: August 25, 2007, 06:56:47 AM »
what about those diamond mines? just chop off some more limbs and get production up. You need to hook me up...i need to sharpen my floss game

Diamonds financed the revolution here in Sierra Leone, but are insufficient to finance a worldwide revolution.
 

Shallow

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #19 on: August 25, 2007, 08:40:43 AM »
Only the drug users want it legalized so yeah the only thing that happens is that the price is cheaper and the effects are better. Wanting the government in control of your drugs, that is a stupid thing. And for the people who don't do them are paying the others' health and hospital bills.


You're talking as a Canadian right, like that the health care will cover them? But doesn't the system cover drug users anyway? Anyway I think it would be absurd to think Canada would legalize with out the government controlling it. They don't even allow alcohol to be sold outside thie control here. I'm not for that myself but better the government run it legally than the streets run illegally. And like I said the sin tax associated with the drugs would easily pay for the programs used to clean up addicts. Think of how much weed will be bought legally by 19 year olds across the country for parties and shit. None of those kids will end up in rehab programs but they will pay for rehab programs across the country for heavy drug users, and then some. And large legal grow ops will add so much to the economy creating job after job.
 

Bramsterdam (see ya)

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #20 on: August 29, 2007, 06:21:52 PM »
You're talking as a pothead right? lol.


Well if you're for drugs being legal good for you but theres no way you can convince me legalizing every drug is going to have a positive impact on the world.
 

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #21 on: August 29, 2007, 11:54:06 PM »
HIDTA border task force mired in drug-war scandal

 Over the past 17 years since its creation, probably no other initiative has done more in seeking to coordinate the resources of federal, state and local law enforcement in the so-called War on Drugs than the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program.

HIDTA, which operates offices across the United States, is a federally funded program with an annual budget of some $225 million that is administered by the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). Its mission is to enlist the power of law enforcement “teamwork” to fight drug trafficking in key areas of the United States.

But this idyllic model of law enforcement camaraderie focused on disrupting the bad boys of the narco-trafficking world appears to have more than a few bad apples of its own — stemming from the same vice that fuels the illegal drug trade: the quest for the easy buck.

In fact, a federal whistleblower is alleging that some $300,000 in federal funds under the control of a HIDTA task force in Deming, N.M., has mysteriously disappeared.

Government documents obtained by Narco News reveal that this Deming-based task force is supposed to be overseen by federal agents but instead has been taken over by a group of state and local law enforcers who seem to play by their own rules. Those same documents reveal that this Deming-based HIDTA task force is linked to a disturbing trail of bookkeeping irregularities, multiple mysterious bank accounts and even claims of law enforcement corruption.

In March of this year, the problems with the HIDTA program in New Mexico appear to have come to a head as evidenced by the following press statement issued by the office of U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.:

    The ONDCP has suspended funding for the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program in New Mexico for repeatedly failing to comply with multiple federal guidelines over the past three years. These reportedly non-criminal infractions are related to not using HIDTA funding for core HIDTA purposes.

If we take the senator at his word, it would seem the New Mexico HIDTA funding was suspended due to some minor bureaucratic technical glitches. But what the senator seems to gloss over in his political speak is that some of the allegations involving the New Mexico HIDTA program are, in fact, extremely serious and do involve potential “criminal” violations related to waste, fraud, abuse and corruption.

Those allegations center on one particular initiative of the New Mexico HIDTA program that operates along the Mexican border in the southwestern corner of New Mexico: the Border Operations Task Force (BOTF) based in Deming. The BOTF-Deming is composed of some 25 individuals — including federal agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as well as state and local law enforcement officers from three participating New Mexico counties: Luna, Grant and Hidalgo.

Narco News recently obtained several hundred pages of documents through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that diagnose in some detail the symptoms of the BOTF-Deming dysfunction. The documents were obtained from the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), which is a quasi-judicial agency charged with adjudicating cases involving alleged retaliation against federal employee whistleblowers.

Among the documents released through the FOIA request is a February 2007 final report based on a review by the ONDCP of the entire New Mexico HIDTA program. In addition, the FOIA documents include a March 2007 report by ICE’s internal affairs unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), which last year conducted an investigation of the allegations of waste, fraud and abuse leveled at the BOTF-Deming.

(The ONDCP report can be found at this link; the ICE OPR report can be found at this link.)

Funding Freeze

On Feb. 8 of this year, less than two weeks before Sen. Domenici issued his press release about the HIDTA funds being frozen in New Mexico, the ONDCP sent a letter to the chairman of the Executive Committee of the New Mexico HIDTA program — a copy of which also was sent to the FBI.

The letter outlines the reason for the funding freeze:

From the letter:

    Attached is the final report of the on-site program review of the Southwest Border High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (SWB HIDTA)-New Mexico Region. It was conducted during the period January 22-26, 2007. … These findings detail a troubling pattern of mismanagement and are of concern because of the serious nature of the drug threat facing New Mexico.

    … As a result of the serious nature of these findings, ONDCP has no choice but to withhold FY07 grant funding to the New Mexico Region until these issues have been addressed. …

The ONDCP final report was attached to that letter. It cites the problems with the Deming-based BOTF as one of the major issues of concern with New Mexico’s HIDTA program.

From the ONDCP report:

    The following issues identified in the most recent OSR [on-site review] are factors supporting the OSR’s assertion of the NMREC’s [New Mexico Regional Executive Committee’s] loss of focus:

    … The NMREC’s not ensuring that all initiatives adhere to HIDTA fiscal reporting requirements. Also the fact that the NMREC has not completely followed-up regarding the fiscal situation in the BOTF–Deming Initiative to ensure that it has been totally resolved.

The ICE OPR report, which includes a cover letter dated March 8, 2007, paints a picture of a dysfunctional BOTF-Deming HIDTA “team” in which the state and local law enforcers have ignored the fact that ICE is supposed to act as the lead agency for the task force. It appears, based on a reading of the ICE OPR report, that the state and local cops assigned to the HIDTA task force have essentially set up a rouge operation within ICE’s Deming office — where the BOTF is located.

From the ICE OPR report:

    The first misperception is that ICE is the BOTF lead agency in name only and has resulted in the actual task force leadership being assumed by representatives from the Sixth Judicial District Attorney’s Office [covering Luna, Grant and Hidalgo counties in southwestern New Mexico], who have also assumed the position of “task force commander” while the RAC Deming is designated the Task Force Commander in name only.

    … As of March 2006, ICE management’s actions to assert their leadership role and correct the task force jurisdictional misperception at the Deming BOTF have been inadequate. The task force still functioned as two separate enforcement units. When asked who was the Task Force Commander, TFO [task force officer Larry] Lutonsky [a local detective with the Sixth Judicial District Attorney’s Office] told the OPR review team that he was in charge of the state and local officers and that the acting [ICE] RAC [Resident Agent in Charge] was in charge of the federal officers [even though all of them work out of the same ICE building in Deming].

Whistleblower Retaliation

The dysfunction of the BOTF-Deming surfaced as result of an act of whistleblowing by the head of the ICE office in Deming — Caroline Richardson.

Richardson was appointed as RAC in New Mexico after the former RAC, Gayle Sawyer, retired in September 2004. While in charge of the ICE Deming office, Richardson began to discover a pattern of financial and management irregularities with the BOTF. Those problems had gone unaddressed for years under Sawyer’s watch, Richardson alleges in an October 2005 complaint she filed with the U.S. Office of Special Council (OSC), which is charged with investigating complaints of whistleblower retaliation.

In her OSC complaint, Richardson explains that she reported her concerns to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General (DHS-OIG) in July 2005. However, after making an initial inquiry, DHS-OIG decided to turn the case over to ICE OPR. At that point, Richardson suspected the fix was in.

From her OSC complaint:

    I expressed concern that it would be a conflict of interest for [ICE] OPR to investigate a case in which [ICE] management was involved. The legacy Customs Service and now ICE has historically used what used to be Internal Affairs, and is now called OPR, as a stepping stone to positions in upper management; therefore, most of management came directly from OPR. Likewise, those still in OPR are hoping to be picked up as ASACs [Assistant Special Agents in Charge] by the SACs [Special Agents in Charge] when they complete their tour in OPR.

    … In El Paso, I know the two offices [ICE OPR and the investigative side of the agency] routinely socialize. This is why complaints of abuse of authority, harassment, gross mismanagement, and blatant disregard for agency policy and directives in order to reprise against employees who report wrongdoing just “disappear.”

In the wake of blowing the whistle on the BOTF-Deming, Richards was, in fact, demoted from RAC of the ICE Deming office to a lower-level group supervisor position and relocated to El Paso, Texas. (The El Paso ICE office oversees the ICE office in Deming, which is essentially a satellite office, as well as the BOTF-Deming.)

After demoting Richardson, her supervisors in El Paso attempted to paint her as an incompetent manager who had created friction between ICE and the state and local law enforcers assigned to the BOTF in Deming. Up until this point, Richardson had an unblemished record with ICE, according to her attorney, Ron Tonkin, who is a former federal prosecutor based in Houston.

The retaliation prompted Richardson to file a complaint with the OSC, which declined to take on her case. That is no surprise, since the OSC has been accused of being overtly hostile to whistleblowers under the leadership of Bush appointee Scott Bloch.

After the OSC slammed the door on her, Richardson filed a legal action with the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board.

Her case is still pending before the MSPB, with a decision expected in the next several weeks.

The ICE OPR report uncovered by Narco News through its FOIA request describes Richardson’s allegations concerning the operations of the BOTF-Deming, in part, as follows:

    [Richardson’s] allegations and [ICE OPR’s] findings concerned issues such as questionable spending, record keeping improprieties, imprudent management practices, noncompliance, insubordination, integrity [a police word for corruption] issues and internal control deficiencies.”

Richardson’s attorney, Tonkin, is much more direct in boiling down the ICE OPR report’s findings in a legal brief he filed on Richardson’s behalf with the MSPB:

    This [the ICE OPR report’s description of Richardson’s allegations against the BOTF-Deming] is bureaucratese for fraud, financial abuse, and mismanagement. In fact, the [ICE OPR] Report of March 8, 2007 found what appeared to be outright fraud and criminal conduct.
 

Shallow

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Re: Border violence pushes north
« Reply #22 on: August 30, 2007, 08:15:15 PM »
You're talking as a pothead right? lol.


Well if you're for drugs being legal good for you but theres no way you can convince me legalizing every drug is going to have a positive impact on the world.


I've never gotten high or drunk in my life, and never plan to. I also never plan on thinking it's okay to tell someone else how to live their life, so long as no one else is having their rights taken away.


How can you deny the positive effects it will have on the street gang culture and the surrounding communities?