Free Republic

Scandal: The truth about how and why Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata and hundreds of Mexican nationals were killed with weapons supplied by this administration may yet come out as a court lets a lawsuit proceed. The most transparent administration in history suffered a defeat Monday, when U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson turned down the Justice Department's request to dismiss a lawsuit seeking "Fast and Furious" documents hidden by Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department after President Obama invoked executive privilege. The lawsuit was brought by Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee after...

Federal agents will start targeting high-level drug traffickers in Puerto Rico with intelligence gathered during a three-month blitz on criminal activity in the U.S. territory, the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday. The campaign is part of a federal operation that began in July 2012 with help from local authorities that focuses on the smuggling of drugs, weapons, money and migrants. The agency says agents have seized a total of 53,000 pounds (24,000 kilograms) of drugs, confiscated hundreds of firearms and arrested more than 320 suspected criminals who will be prosecuted at federal and local levels. …

I was recently asked by my dentist to fill out an on-line patient history so they could go paperless. After spending a bunch of time filling out a bunch of very detailed information I get to the last page and read this: WARNING: 21 USC 843(d), states that any person knowingly or intentionally furnishes false or fraudulent information in the application is subject to term of inprisonment of not more than 4 years, and a fine under Title 18 of not more than $250,000 , or both.By typing my full name in the space below, I hereby certify that the...

Above: Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Chief Doug Jordan meet in Phoenix.- Unbelievable! The Grantville, Georgia Police Chief has been suspended for a week - without pay - merely for visiting Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio during his vacation. Chief Doug Jordan and his wife planned a recent trip to Arizona to celebrate their wedding anniversary. They had honeymooned there 31 years ago. They paid for the trip and its expenses themselves. While there, Jordan thought it would be a great idea to see if he could meet with Arpaio. He was honored when Arpaio agreed to do so.“I meet with...

This is how the New York Times describes a telephone surveillance program carried out by federal drug enforcement agencies: For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counternarcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans' phone calls -- parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency's hotly disputed collection of phone call logs. Sounds ominous, but is it? The Hemisphere Project, a partnership between federal and local drug officials and AT&T that has not previously been reported, involves an...

WASHINGTON – When Sen. John McCain spoke during an Armed Services Committee hearing last year on security issues in the Western Hemisphere, he relayed a stark warning about the spread of Mexican drug cartels in the United States. “The cartels,” the Arizona Republican said, “now maintain a presence in over 1,000 cities.” McCain based his remarks on a report by a now-defunct division of the Justice Department, the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), which had concluded in 2011 that Mexican criminal organizations, including seven major drug cartels, were operating in more than 1,000 U.S. cities. But the number, widely reported...

Earlier this month, Reuters revealed that a special division within the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has been using intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a mass database of telephone records to secretly identify targets for drug enforcement actions.In the wake of these revelations, a former prosecutor tells IPS he believes he and his colleagues may have been unwitting pawns in the federal government's effort to deceive defendants and the court system, thereby violating citizens' constitutional rights. "None of us had any idea whatsoever there was a secret DEA programme that instructed DEA agents to conceal the source," Patrick Nightingale, a...

Scandal after scandal, coupled with an ongoing contempt for the law and the Constitution, demonstrated by high-level officials and the president himself, point to one deeply troubling conclusion: the Obama administration may be the most corrupt administration ever inflicted on the American public. And while the mainstream media have done a remarkable job deflecting much of that reality, even they cannot keep up with the avalanche of disturbing revelations that arise, seemingly on a daily basis. We begin with yet another report about the Fast and Furious gunrunning operation, courtesy of Sharyl Attkisson, one of the few remaining reporters who...

Full title: NSA, DEA, IRS Lie About Fact That Americans Are Routinely Spied On By Our Government: Time For A Special Prosecutor It seems that every day brings a new revelation about the scope of the NSA’s heretofore secret warrantless mass surveillance programs. And as we learn more, the picture becomes increasingly alarming. Last week we discovered that the NSA shares information with a division of the Drug Enforcement Agency called the Special Operations Division (SOD). The DEA uses the information in drug investigations. But it also gives NSA data out to other agencies – in particular, the Internal Revenue...

U.S. law enforcement officials expressed outrage over the release from prison of Mexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero and vowed to continue efforts to bring to justice the man who ordered the killing of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent. Caro Quintero was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the 1985 kidnapping and killing of DEA agent Enrique Camarena, but a Mexican federal court ordered his release this week, saying he had been improperly tried in a federal court for state crimes. The 60-year-old walked out of a prison in the western state of Jalisco early Friday after serving...

In another exclusive about the investigatory practices of the executive branch, Reuters uncovered an IRS manual that instructed its agents to concoct phony investigative trails when using tips from the DEA’s Special Operations Division. The manual, found in an archive of Reuters’ parent company, mirrors the instructions given to DEA agents building cases for prosecution: Details of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration program that feeds tips to federal agents and then instructs them to alter the investigative trail were published in a manual used by agents of the Internal Revenue Service for two years.The practice of recreating the investigative trail,...

Reuters) - Details of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration program that feeds tips to federal agents and then instructs them to alter the investigative trail were published in a manual used by agents of the Internal Revenue Service for two years. The practice of recreating the investigative trail, highly criticized by former prosecutors and defence lawyers after Reuters reported it this week, is now under review by the Justice Department. Two high-profile Republicans have also raised questions about the procedure.A 350-word entry in the Internal Revenue Manual instructed agents of the U.S. tax agency to omit any reference to tips...

Details of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration program that feeds tips to federal agents and then instructs them to alter the investigative trail were published in a manual used by agents of the Internal Revenue Service for two years.

A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges. "It is one thing to create special rules for national security," Gertner said. "Ordinary crime is entirely different. It sounds like they are phonying up...

A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges. The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.

The Justice Department has agreed to pay $4.1 million to a California college student left in a Drug Enforcement Administration holding cell last year, according to two people familiar with the case. Daniel Chong was detained in an April 2012 drug raid in San Diego and left in a windowless holding cell for four days without food or water. He says he drank his own urine to stay alive. The people familiar with the case spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the settlement before it is officially announced. His attorney filed a $20 million claim against the government...

Student forgotten in DEA holding cell gets $4.1M SAN DIEGO — A UCSD student scooped up in a drug raid and left in a Drug Enforcement Administration holding cell for 4 1/2 days without food or water will get $4.1 million to settle his claims, his attorneys announced Tuesday. Daniel Chong, 25, was among seven people detained in an April 21, 2012, raid on a University City home. Chong, an student at UCSD, was handcuffed and put in 5-by-10-foot cell, by an officer who told him, “Hang tight. We’ll come get you in a minute,” his attorney Julia Yoo said....

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley has sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder reminding him that the Department of Justice has an obligation to inform Congress when Operation Fast and Furious weapons are found at crime scenes. Just last week, the Los Angeles Times reported Mexican Police Chief Luis Astorga and his body guard were killed by cartels using guns from the lethal operation. "Since the beginning of this investigation, we have followed the link between Fast and Furious weapons and crimes committed on both sides of the border. On numerous occasions we have asked the Department to keep us...

The Obama administration continues to ramp up its military-response capabilities in Africa, where it is now looking for contractor support to transport U.S. Africa Command troops, weaponry and explosives. The U.S. Transportation Command on behalf of AFRICOM is soliciting help from private aircraft providers who can move U.S. troops and supplies in the Central African nations of Uganda, Central Africa Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan. The development comes at a time when the Department of Defense simultaneously is strengthening its ability – also with contractor assistance – to retrieve soldiers trapped and injured in hot spots...