Posted on 11/25/2003 12:41:19 PM PST by Calpernia
A network of Kennedy Airport baggage handlers smuggled tens of millions of dollars worth of cocaine and marijuana into the United States by exploiting its access to airplanes and cargo, federal officials charged Tuesday.
Twenty-five people, nearly all current or former employees at Kennedy, were arrested and faced arraignment at federal court in Brooklyn on Tuesday afternoon on charges of conspiring to import controlled substances, prosecutors said.
The defendants helped import hundreds of kilograms worth of cocaine and hundreds of pounds worth of marijuana in a scheme that one top investigator called "a potential threat to homeland security."
"A network of corrupt airport employees, motivated by greed, might just as well have been collaborating with terrorists," the investigator, Michael J. Garcia, acting assistant secretary of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a statement.
Those charged in the case are current or former baggage handlers or other ground crew members for American Airlines and at least three other smaller companies operating at Kennedy.
Federal agents who began conducting surveillance on flights from Guyana 14 months ago watched suspects unload drugs stashed in luggage, cargo and, in one case, under ice in a plane's galley, officials said.
The drugs were then diverted around border inspection areas and handed off for distribution inside the U.S., officials said.
In September, federal agents seized a pallet loaded with three boxes of cocaine weighing about 185 kilos and worth about $23 million, officials said.
And demand increases as price decreases (the result of increased supply). It is a dynamic relationship. The problem can be improved by reduction of both/either supply and/or demand.
That's kind of interesting considering that my bigotry against islam came from rational analysis of their book and simple observation of their culture and actions.
Islam sucks .... people that practice islam are deluded.
At least practice a religion whose tenets contribute to the fabric of society.
The other problem with your idea is that the demand for mind altering substances will always remain at levels unacceptable to warriors. You are focusing on just a few of those substances. New more dangerous substances have always filled the void left by your strategy. That's why we now have the scourges of PCP and the like. And kids huffing household cleaners and dying.
Is the murder rate acceptable? Armed robbery? Burglary? Assaults? Rapes?
Why should drug usage be any different?
If you think that any of those crimes will ever cease you are more out of touch than already evident.
I have struggled with this approach too. However, when I hear other Libertarians try to flesh out how this might look, they always seem to point to countries where people are "free" to use drugs, but then those who choose to live their lives responsibly are "obligated" to fund the inevitable medical costs.
Freedom needs to be commensurate with the responsibility born by the free.
"Rights violating"! Since when is THAT the standard?
Drug use is also unacceptable. As is prostitution. Gambling. Pornography. Suicide. Gay marriage. Unlimited immigration.
But I suppose you're in favor of all these activities, good Libertarian that you are. Or are you a libertarian? Or maybe you don't like labels?
I ask you -- What selfish, self-centered, immoral, hedonistic individualist wouldn't be in favor of these activities, huh?
Unacceptable to who?
Unacceptable to the vast majority of moral and religious people for whom the constitution was written.
Unacceptable to the productive, tax-paying, law-abiding members of our society trying to live their lives and raise our next generation in a world free from drugs and gambling and prostitution and pornography.
Unacceptable to people who are part of a community -- a community that values character, honesty, hard work, and personal responsibility.
Unacceptable to people who put the needs of neighborhood, community, and society over a selfish, self-centered, immoral, hedonistic, individualistic lifestyle.
That's who.
That has always been the standard for normal people. That leaves you out.
Or maybe you don't like labels?
I don't mind labels, I have one for you.
By your own standards, we are, as a nation, selfish, self-centered, individualistic hedonists. Except for you, maybe.
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