Earlier this month, federal officials arrested the founders of Neteller, an overseas online payment processor, while they were in the U.S. to switch planes. They were arrested because Neteller was allowing its U.S. customers to use the service with online gambling sites. It's the third time U.S. officials have arrested foreign citizens in a U.S. airport on online gambling charges, despite the fact that in all three cases, the suspects were citizens and residents of foreign countries where online gambling is perfectly legal.
The Justice Department is now investigating U.S. firms and/or investors for even doing business with overseas gambling operators.
Last week, federal officials raided several medical marijuana dispensaries in southern California, all legal under state law. Federal law enforcement seized marijuana plants and medical marijuana, but also the medical records of their clients, many of them cancer, AIDS, and multiple sclerosis patients. It's just the latest in a series of raids that have gone on since California legalized medical marijuana in the mid-1990s. This has been another law enforcement priority of the Bush administration: aggressively enforcing federal drug laws, even in states that have decided to give their citizens a bit more pharmacological freedom.
Perhaps the best example of the Bush administration's law enforcement priorities is Mary Beth Buchanan, formerly the U.S. attorney in the Pittsburgh area.
Buchanan's most famous case as attorney general was "operation pipe dreams," in which some 2,000 law enforcement officers spent $12 million in taxpayer dollars collaborating to arrest 55 people for selling glass-blown bongs over the internet. The trophy in those arrests was actor/comedian Tommy Chong. Despite having no criminal record, Buchanan went after Chong with zeal, because, she said, he had glamorized the use of marijuana in his movies. Chong received the harshest sentence of any of those arrested.
ie. send Sandy Burglar to jail.
Questioner: Ari, on medical marijuana, several times during the campaign early on President Bush said he was in favor of letting states decide for themselves about marijuana. Has he changed that position?
MR. FLEISCHER: No, the President's position is always on state referenda and things like that. That is a process question where the states have the right to follow their own processes.
Not surprised, the Peter Principle at work.
I believe that one of the first things Clinton did in ofiice was summarily replace ALL U.S. Attorneys, without a cause, of course. Including one in Kansas who was investigating Whitewater/Madison-related matter...