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End the Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Here’s a piece I recently published in Roll Call about the disparity in sentences handed out for possessing powder versus crack cocaine.

End the Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity

Elena Kagan’s nomination for the Supreme Court has once again reminded America that fairness and equal treatment are fundamental to the success of the rule of law. One of the most important criminal justice debates in recent history centers on the substantial difference in prison sentences for crack versus powdered cocaine possession, a disparity that has not only encouraged a misapplication of limited law enforcement resources, but more importantly, has been the source of unequal punishment for basically identical crimes.

In March, the Senate unanimously approved the Fair Sentencing Act, legislation that reduces the disparity in sentences for crack and powdered cocaine possession, from 100 to 1, to 18 to 1. Now it is up to the House to approve the bill and rectify a sentencing mandate that is simply unjust.

Skyrocketing crack use in the 1980s brought with it a rise in violent crime and pervasive fears about the highly addictive narcotic’s long-term impact on society. At the time, crack was believed to chemically induce violent action and was seen as a society-crushing epidemic. The consequences for possessing the narcotic were therefore made severe; Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act in 1986, setting, among other things, stiff sentences for possessing crack.

But the amount of crack cocaine needed to trigger the five- and 10-year mandatory sentences is significantly less — 100 times less — than that for powder cocaine. Specifically, a conviction for possessing 5 grams of crack (equivalent to about the weight of two pennies) guarantees a five-year prison sentence. It takes 500 grams of powdered cocaine to trigger the same mandatory sentence.

I first came across this matter while a Member of Congress in the ’90s, serving on the House Judiciary Committee. In reviewing data on federal prosecutions and sentences from the 10 years since the Anti-Drug Abuse Act was enacted, it became apparent that the disparity between powdered and crack cocaine sentences was failing on two points.

First, it did not consistently lead to the prosecution of major drug traffickers and sellers; it led to increased prosecutions of small-time dealers and peripheral supporters, such as boyfriends or girlfriends.

Second, with a better understanding of crack — its chemical properties and effects on the body — it was becoming clear that the courts were giving different punishments for the same crime. Powdered and cooked cocaine are chemically the same. Further, crack does not inherently cause violence; rather, violence is a product of the drug trade and the historically violent trends in areas where crack is predominantly used and sold. Thus, giving substantially longer prison sentences for crack over powdered cocaine is as illogical as it is unfair.

While head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, I talked with front-line agents and drug task force officers who said the sentencing disparity was undermining community confidence in the fairness of the criminal justice system. This sense of inequity can have real impacts in the day-to-day fight against illegal narcotics; a perception of inequality makes it more difficult for agents to receive cooperation from informants and others. Yet another challenge resulting from the law — disparity harms rather than helps our federal anti-crime efforts.

This is not a partisan issue, though some have suggested that rectifying the disparity falls along party lines. Kagan has supported reducing the disparity for some time, though she second-guessed earlier efforts, believing such a reduction would not garner the needed Congressional Republican support. But this doesn’t hold across the board. There are Republicans who have supported rectifying the disparity for years (author case in point), including President Ronald Reagan, who proposed a 20-to-1 differential between the two forms of cocaine.

Now that Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) have led the Senate in passing legislation to reduce the sentencing disparity, the time has come to resolve this issue and provide citizens with fair justice. Approving the Fair Sentencing Act will support equal treatment for all under the law, a principle upon which our country is founded.

Posted in Congress, Politics & PR, Management & Administration, Narcotics | Comments

The New Face of Aviation Security?

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

The hunt for someone to lead the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) began in 2009, but it wasn’t until June this year that the Senate confirmed John Pistole as administrator. Pistole was the third nominee for the job, after two earlier hopefuls pulled out (see Southers and Harding). Security Debrief followed the confirmation process every step of the way and found the latest development in this week’s Air Cargo Week.

If you visit TSA’s website, you’ll find Pistole’s photo, which looks like this:

In Air Cargo Week’s Arrivals & Departures section, there is a note on Pistole’s confirmation (first bullet, right column). But the photo referenced is clearly not John Pistole.

Who is this man? Nominee #4? A hero cargo pilot? The publisher’s cousin?

It’s Chris Battle, Security Debrief’s founder and editor.

That’s some good PR.

Posted in Aviation and airport security, Congress, Politics & PR, Critical Infrastructure, Featured Feed, Homeland Security & the Internet; Gov't 2.0, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, International, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Maritime & Seaport Security, Military & Homeland Defense, Narcotics, counterterrorism | Comments

Look at me – I’m a crack addict!

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

There was a time when the memoir was a rare and valuable literary commodity. Writing a memoir required the personal observation powers of an essayist with the nuance and literary stamina of a novelist. Today, memoirs are the reality TV of the publishing world; they require only that you reveal personal, embarrassing and pathetic things — real or imagined (James Frey anyone?) — to the world.

After reading David Carr’s “Night of the Gun,” which chronicles his years as a drug addict and petty dealer, you have to wonder why the world needs another memoir by a one-time addict looking back back back to his inwardly glorified days on the mean streets of addiction.

Carr is a good writer. Well, he has a skill for stringing words together spiced up with a sardonic, tough-love tone. However, for all of the Raymond Chandler bravura of his prose, his writing at times comes off as empty and soulless as those early wasted years of which he is so proudly ashamed.

It is this pride thing that rings hallow in this memoir. The author flagellates himself with all the rigor of a medieval penitent, but like the penitent, he reveals a certain smugness in telling us how bad he had it. He was no small-time junkie, dammit. He was the real thing. He has street cred. You don’t know how bad he had it.

He doesn’t want to talk about those miserable times, mind you, but his readers, dammit, they will demand it of him — they “will want to scan past the tick-tock, looking for the yucky part so that they can feel better about themselves.”

So Carr graciously indulges with an entire book of his bona fides. Here’s a taste:

“When I got to detox for what I thought was the last time, they took one look at my arms and brought me a tub filled with lukewarm water and Dreft detergent to soak my scabrous, puss-filled track marks. They dropped pills into my mouth from several inches away as if feeding a baby bird, and even the wet-brain drunks wouldn’t come near me. See how that works?”

Even when we want him to shut up, he keeps on, like a kid pulling at his father’s coat sleeve. “My duplicity around woman was towering and chronic,” he immodestly tells us. “I conned and manipulated myself into their beds and then treated them as human jewelry, something to be worn for effect.”

Wow, drug addict and playa.

As a reporter and a former employee at the DEA, I’ve talked with a number of junkies. They all have the same pretentious habit of telling you just how bad they had it back in the day. They never tire of telling you that they once were lost before being found and, by god, nobody was a bigger badder sinner than they were.

The parts of Carr’s book that are alive with genuine reflection are those where the author looks to his children. He attributes his salvation to them, to the moment he realized that his decisions were not only destroying his life but also the lives of innocents as well. Then he shuts his eyes, daring not look too deeply into the lifelong damage he will have inflicted. Unfortunately, his narrative always eventually comes back to his own amazing transformation from a fat doper (his description) to a fashion-thin and highly successful New York literati (mine).

“Junkies and drunks frequently end up putting a megaphone to their own pratfalls in the form of memoir because they need to believe that all of the time they spent with the lips wrapped around glass, whether it was a bottle of vodka or a crack pipe, actually meant something,” he notes in his book filled with self-redemptive pratfalls. “That impulse suggests that I don’t regret the past — it brought me to this nice, happy place — but I’d also like to squeeze something more from it … I realized that I had achieved a measure of integration, not just between That Guy and This Guy but between my past and my present … You are always told to recover for yourself, but reproduction has an enormously simplifying effect on life: Are you willing to destroy others, including little babies, in order to feed the monster within?”

Carr’s book is worth the price of admission for the insight he provides in the quotation above: Are you willing to destroy others, including little babies, in order to feed the monster within?

Folks who want to ruin their lives have the right to do so, I guess. More of us have probably come closer than we’d like to admit. But we don’t have the right to ruin the lives of others — especially children, who aren’t given the chance to make their own decisions in life and must suffer the awful choices made by others.

Carr resolves his past by asserting that it made him a more complete man. Good for him. But what of his children? Perhaps they would have chosen a route with fewer scars, less fear. But they were never given the choice to participate in his dubious journey into “wholeness.” They were simply dragged along and must bear the scars he inflicted.

And that’s what the Legalization Lobby — comprised of those who want to legalize drugs in America — fails to understand. And it’s what Carr’s book touches ever so gingerly: There are others, others who didn’t ask for your misery, who get hurt.

There are too many cases of “junkies” who smoke crack and shoot meth while their infants lie dehydrated on the kitchen floor, unable to catch the attention of their stoned parents. Of children burned to the bone from spilled meth chemicals while their parents look on obliviously, lost in a haze of dope.

These folks prefer to be called Junkies. It makes them feel better about themselves. It’s not all their fault. It’s society’s fault. It’s the drug’s fault. It’s their parents’ fault. It’s anybody’s fault except their own, the ones who made the choice to stick needles into their arms.

I’m less interested in books like Carr’s that tout how bad he had it, how face down in the gutter he was before he pulled himself out of the muck, bloody fingernail by bloody fingernail. There are too many kids out there who think they can tough it out too. But can’t. We don’t hear their stories because they’re still out there, lost. We don’t hear the stories from the two-year-old little girls left baking in the choking heat of a car with the windows rolled up, abandoned and forgotten, while Mom’s unconscious inside. What choices would they have made if given the chance? We’ll never know.

Posted in Narcotics | Comments

Another Mexico Victim: Mission Trips

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

With summer quickly approaching, many church groups are making plans for the various mission trips that they sponsor for adults and youth. For the people who participate in these annual trips, they are more than a chance to get away. They present opportunities to engage communities in the United States and around the world and work on various service projects that help their fellow human beings. In the United States, places like post-Katrina New Orleans, Appalachia and other areas with economic challenges and post-disaster problems have benefited for years from the fellowship of many hands repairing old structures, building new ones and bringing faith into action.

Mexico has also been a place where many mission trips have taken place. For years, churches of all types have traveled south of the border to aid impoverished communities with irrigation systems for farming, building construction and repairs, and other projects. These Mission trips are often times in addition to the trips sponsored by churches and other charities that bring healthcare services to people who can not afford it or do not have access to it. All of these actions are emblematic of the human charity and decency that every religion preaches and that we are all capable of achieving. Unfortunately, such grace and generosity has now become another victim of the on-going violence in Mexico’s increasingly bloody drug cartel wars.

Like those at my own church, Heritage Presbyterian in Alexandria, VA, mission trips planned for this summer are being canceled on account of the unrest south of the border. While there have been no publicized or direct threats made to specific missionaries or charitable groups, the uncontrollable violence makes each visiting mission trip a prime target by the warring drug cartels for kidnapping, assault and murder. In short, anyone and everyone is a target in Mexico.

Not a day goes by when gruesome headlines about the ongoing Mexican violence are not available for us to see. Furthermore, when U.S. consulate officials and Mexican public officials, police officers, military personnel and regular citizens are daily targets, there is no chance that well-intentioned Mission groups will not find themselves in the crosshairs of violence.

In hearing my church make its announcement about canceling this summer’s mission trip to Mexico, there was genuine heartbreak and disappointment at being forced to make this difficult decision. For the past several years, Heritage members have traveled to repair homes and improve infrastructure in Mexican villages while also assisting with healthcare and educational services, which are few and far between. Their efforts, like those of other congregations around America, have been an incredible lifeline to people who desperately need help.

While the needs of many of these people remain ever-present in Mexico, the ongoing violence makes it next to impossible to support any type of humanitarian service operation in that country. To go there puts the well-intended in harm’s way and risks bringing further pain and hardship to those who already have it hard enough.

Needless to say, it is politically sensitive for anyone in the U.S. government, particularly the U.S. State Department, to advise against visiting Mexico. As one of our country’s leading trading partners and a destination for thousands of American tourists, it would cause a firestorm of controversy if the Secretary of State where to step in front of a bank of microphones and say, “Stay away from Mexico.”

While the Secretaries of State, Homeland Security, Defense, etc. have all made numerous public comments about the unrest raging in our southern neighbor, political diplomacy necessitates carefully worded statements of support and warning about what is happening there. Furthermore, a declarative statement of the kind mentioned above would communicate a complete lack of confidence in Mexican President Calderon’s ability to secure his country. No one from the Obama Administration would understandably want to do that, but when communities of faith cannot go into a community to perform public service projects that serve those in dire need because they are not safe, you know how fragile the situation has become.

History records that people of faith have long risked their lives to promote their respective religion’s views, but few if any churches are willing to risk the lives of their members in today’s Mexico. When comparing that decision to those early missionaries who indeed risked it all for their faith, some might call such actions cowardice. It’s not. Rather, it is a painful act of courage in recognizing that there are those times when stepping forward to do good may cause more harm.

Heritage’s decision and that of other congregations is an uncomfortable realization that by going to Mexico, they risk giving the drug cartels an even more lucrative target – do-gooder Americans who can be kidnapped, ransomed and even murdered. If that were to occur, an already uncontrollable situation would become even more so. Staying away is the safest and most sensible option any mission organization can make under the current circumstances.

It is also a difficult decision because people who need a hand will not be getting it. They remain trapped in a culture of violence that spares no one. Their victimization is only further multiplied while hands across the border, ready to serve, remain out of reach.

Until this situation is ultimately resolved, there is only one thing the hands on both sides of the border can do. Pray for it to end.

Posted in Border Security, Emergency Preparedness & Response, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, International, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Narcotics | Comments

Legalizing Marijuana Not Worth the Costs

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

I thought you might be interested in an editorial I wrote for a CNBC special report on marijuana, money and the issue of legalization.

Legalizing Marijuana Not Worth the Costs – CNBC

With the United States still struggling through the recession, state governments are exploring convenient fixes for overcoming massive debts burdening their states.

After years of heavy spending, California, for example, is facing a $42 billion deficit. To address this staggering shortfall, some legislators are proposing the legalization of marijuana to boost tax revenue.

Certainly some states are in dire economic straits; however, we cannot allow social and law enforcement policy to be determined simply by revenue needs. Put plainly, marijuana was made illegal because it is harmful; citing revenue gain as reason to legalize the drug emphasizes money over health and ignores the significant cost burdens that will inevitably arise as a result.

Posted in Homeland State & Local, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Narcotics | Comments

DEA Finally Gets Nominee for Administrator – Now We Just Need Senate Confirmation

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

When I worked at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Michele Leonhart was one of the top Special Agents in Charge (SAC). SACs were the heads of our field divisions. Leonhart was SAC for our Los Angeles office.

Then Administrator Asa Hutchinson tried several times to recruit Leonhart to come to DEA Headquarters to join the executive leadership, but as an agent’s agent, she resisted as best she could (without offending the boss) so that she could stay in the field, leading operations to go after the drug gangs peddling drugs on the street and the cartels running massive quantities of drugs through Mexico into California.

A star like Leonhart, however, is always a target for recruitment, and when Hutchinon’s successor, Karen Tandy, came on board, she too went after Leonhart. Eventually, she gave in and came to Washington to serve as the Deputy Administrator under Tandy.

After Tandy abruptly resigned to go into the private sector, Leonhart was put into the top spot as Acting Administrator. She remained in that position, as the acting chief, for a long time while the Obama Administration dithered on making an official nomination to lead the agency. Considering that we had no nominee for ATF or DEA, and the nominee for Customs and Border Protection at DHS sat in the wings for months and months without confirmation, one had to come to the conclusion that border security and drug enforcement were not exactly high on the president’s agenda – despite the unprecedented level of drug violence on the Mexican border. (I joined a State Department delegation to review the violence and seek ways to give voice to Mexican citizens who live in fear in the northern border states of Mexico. On the first day there, I awoke to the news that four people had been beheaded.)

Earlier this year, Obama finally nominated Leonhart to move from acting administrator to the permanent position. Why is this so important? The DEA is filled with dedicated and experienced special agents who continue to go after the bad guys, but in any government agency – and especially a law enforcement agency with its strict chain of command and adherence to rules – it is difficult for anyone in an acting role to implement bold innovative action that might not ultimately be in line with the new incoming boss.

Nobody wants to stick their neck out and have the new boss come in and cut it off. Moreover, in the acting role, there is an unspoken rule that nothing is permanent, leading the rank and file to be wary about the direction of the agency. They need to know that when they themselves take action, they won’t face any backlash should new leadership come into place and look for some potential heads to roll.

What’s the result? Ongoing professional work, executed by dedicated public servants, but a kind of hold-the-line and don’t-rock-the-boat mentality.

This is why President Obama finally giving the nod to Leonhart to become his choice to officially lead the agency is so important. She can begin to consider new strategies and reforms that may be necessary. I say “consider” because while she has been nominated she has not been confirmed by the Senate. Which means there is still the potential, for whatever reason, that she may not make it through the confirmation process. I suspect she will have no problems. She’s a stellar agent. But Washington is Washington, and Congress is Congress. We saw Obama’s nominee for the Transportation Security Administration get held up for months by senators who demanded that he publicly state he would not unionize TSA workers. Of course, that’s not the TSA chief’s call to make. Something as politically charged as that rises all the way to the White House, especially with this president who has shown a strong allegiance to unions.

So there is still some unknown factors that cloud Leonhart’s ability to lead the DEA the way it deserves to be led. It is unfortunate that Obama did not include Leonhart as one of his 15 recess appointments, as he did with Customs and Border Protection nominee Alan Bersin.

It’s curious as to why he did not. After all, if he was going to infuriate congressional Republicans by making an end run around the Senate’s role to confirm political appointees, why not go ahead and include the head of one of the most important federal law enforcement agencies.

It is equally curious why the White House selected Leonhart practically under the cover of night. There was no news release or public action to speak of. If you search Google News, you’ll find very little – if anything – about the announcement in the mainstream media. One has to suspect that the nomination was made so quietly because of the embarrassment that such a prominent federal agency had gone so long without a nominee.

Indeed, one suspects that drug enforcement simply isn’t something that interests this White House. After all, the Department of Justice issued new rules under Obama announcing that it would no longer pursue marijuana cases. This of course sent ripples of excitement through the Drug Legalization Lobby whose strategy is to start with legalizing marijuana (excuse me, “medical marijuana”) and then, with that precedent in place, move on to other drugs.

Whatever the President’s motives, he needs to push for Leonhart’s confirmation. She needs that if she is going to be able to push her agenda and implement a strategy for taking on the drug cartels. We’ve seen the horrific violence taking place in northern Mexico, especially Juarez City, which literally is a bridge away from the U.S. town of El Paso. We’ve seen the recent murders of American citizens there. We’ve seen the gun running, and we’ve seen the flow of drugs into the United States.

It’s time for this Administration to step up and act. The DEA needs official, Senate-confirmed leadership. Leonhart is the right choice. So let’s just do it.

Posted in Border Security, Congress, Politics & PR, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Narcotics | Comments

United States Sends Mixed Signals on Narcotics

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

The drug fueled violence along the Southwest Border, highlighted by the recent murder of two United States citizens in Ciudad Juarez, has again focused the White House on Plan Merida. It comes at a time when the US continues to send mixed signals on its narcotics enforcement position.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is leading a high level delegation to Mexico City this week to discuss the drug war and social issues that fuel the narcotics trade. Included in the delegation are DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Admiral Michael Mullen. Not included in the delegation is California Secretary of State Debra Bowen who announced this week that voters will decide in November whether to legalize marijuana use for Californians over 21 years of age. The last time I checked, a large area of California directly borders Mexico.

The delegation will arrive to hear complaints from the Mexican government that the Plan Merida aid is slow in arriving and has not done enough to help. Plan Merida is a $1.4 billion US initiative established in 2007 to provide direct support to the government of Mexico in its fight against the drug cartels. As of November of 2009, the US government has delivered $214 million of the $1.4 billion.

Not many will doubt that the Plan Merida assistance is warranted and necessary, as it is clearly in the best interest of the US to assist Mexico in its attempt to close the “pipeline” that ships over $40 billion in illegal drugs north each year. But how does the US government reconcile its pro-enforcement narcotics position in light of the emerging attempts to further legalize narcotics usage in the US.

Posted in Border Security, International, Law Enforcement, Narcotics | Comments

Murder in Juarez — And Still no Leader at DEA, CBP, or ATF

Monday, March 15th, 2010

I’ve written previously on the surge of drug violence in Mexico, especially along its border with the United States in cities like Juarez City. This week the latest atrocity occurred, this time on employees of the U.S. Government. Three people were gunned down in Juarez City, one of which was a pregnant woman and federal employee of the United States.

The Administration issued the standard boilerplate statement about being “saddened and outraged” over these murders. The president also vowed to “work tirelessly to bring their killers to justice.”

I wish these weren’t hollow clichés. Work tirelessly. Saddened and outraged. Bring to justice. We’ve heard it all before; it’s the standard response.

However, if this Administration were truly outraged and truly planned on working to bring justice to the border violence, it is doing so in an odd way: Practically the entire border security infrastructure of this Administration is leaderless.

More than a year into this Administration’s tenure, the President has failed to install permanent leadership at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Other than U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, there is absolutely no federal law enforcement leadership in place to deal with border violence, criminal and terrorist activity. What does that say about this Administration’s priorities that it can’t even bother to put people in place?

As for addressing drug violence in Juarez? As for “working tirelessly” to bring the killers to justice? Please. Let’s skip working tirelessly and start with something as simple as at least nominating somebody to run the DEA.

Posted in Border Security, International, Law Enforcement, Narcotics | Comments

To Address Border Security Issues, Administration Must Fill Vacancies at Top Agencies

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to discuss with USA Today the need for the Obama Administration to fill critical vacancies in top federal law enforcement and homeland security agencies.

With the spike in border violence, much of it associated with Mexican drug cartels battle with the Mexican government, we have a greater need than ever to fill the positions of the agencies responsible for protecting our borders — from the DEA and ATF to Customs and Border Protection.

Below is an excerpt of the interview:

Some key Obama administration jobs still unfilled – USATODAY.com

Concerned about illegal immigration? No one’s been confirmed to lead U.S. Customs and Border Protection. And as drugs and guns are flowing in from Mexico, the Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives still need bosses.

Nearly 200 top jobs in the administration remain vacant a year after Obama began planning his ascension to power, the result of stalled nominations, new ethics rules, lengthy background checks and delays in Senate confirmations. More than half the vacancies are at five departments: Justice, State, Treasury, Defense and Homeland Security.

“Those are pretty significant policy jobs, and ones that the public ought to be concerned about,” says New York University professor Paul Light, an expert on the federal bureaucracy. “Obama is well on pace right now to set a new record in terms of lateness.”

Empty chairs at key law enforcement agencies weaken their ability to work with international and national partners and get maximum production from employees, says Asa Hutchinson, who led the Drug Enforcement Administration and was undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security at the Department of Homeland Security.

“You can’t sit at the table with the same level of influence until you have the power of the president behind you,” he says. “Obviously, he’s got other issues on the plate. But these law enforcement positions are critically important.”

Asa Hutchinson is the former head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He is CEO of the Hutchinson Group, a homeland security consulting firm.

Posted in Border Security, Congress, Politics & PR, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Narcotics | Comments

Border Patrol Foundation Inaugural Event

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Last Friday, I had the opportunity to attend an intimate event that marked the launch of a long-overdue organization supporting federal law enforcement. The Border Patrol Foundation held its first annual recognition dinner in downtown D.C. to tout the creation of an organization whose mission is to “provide timely financial grants to the families of fallen” Border Patrol agents. The guest of honor was Rosalie Rosas, the wife of Border Patrol agent Robert Rosas who was killed in the line of duty on July 23.

Ms. Rosas spoke about the value of the Border Patrol as a family and the sense of mission her husband found while working alongside his fellow agents to protect our nation from criminals and terrorists in what must be one of the most challenging law enforcement jobs in America. Border Patrol agents often operate alone, in remote areas of our nation, many minutes and miles from backup or support. They regularly encounter unidentified bands of individuals in the desert who they pursue without knowing how large the group is or whether their targets are harmless illegal immigrants, well-armed drug smugglers or potentially murderous terrorists.

Since 1919, 108 Border Patrol agents have died in the line of duty. While these deaths often occur in remote places like Roseau, NM, Campo, CA, or Los Indios, TX, we should be thankful for the sacrifices of these dedicated agents and their families. Ms. Rosa’s remarks, as well as those of Chief of the Border Patrol David Aguilar and Deputy Chief Ronald Colburn, helped personalize these sacrifices, as well as others suffered by Border Patrol families during their loved one’s tours of duty.

I look forward to watching the work of the Border Patrol Foundation in supporting the men and women in uniform to whom many of us are grateful. Although the Border Patrol Foundation was launched just this year by committed friends and advocates of the U.S. Border Patrol, it appears to be off to a solid start, particularly given the impressive support shown by the Washington community at its inaugural event on Friday night.

Posted in Border Security, Law Enforcement, Military & Homeland Defense, Narcotics, Smuggling, counterterrorism | Comments

DEA Agents Killed in Afghanistan: Another Tragic Reminder

Friday, October 30th, 2009

The recent death of three DEA Special Agents in Afghanistan is a tragic reminder that the war on narcotics and terrorism cannot be separated in that part of the world. I doubt many heroin dealers and addicts in the U.S. make the connection between the two. I suspect they really do not care. But it must never be forgotten that they are threatening our national security when they participate in this activity.

It has been established beyond a doubt that the Taliban and Al Qaeda have financed their terrorist activities with proceeds from the heroin trade. Without this source of funding, their agenda would be greatly curtailed.

As we mourn the loss of these lives, let us not forget that we are fighting, as a nation, for our national security, both on the streets of America and Afghanistan. Separating the two does no justice to this loss.

Posted in Intelligence, International, Law Enforcement, Military & Homeland Defense, Narcotics, Terror Finance, counterterrorism | Comments

New Obama Policy on Medicinal Marijuana May Have Unintended Negative Consequences

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

A recent policy from the Obama Administration directs federal prosecutors not to prosecute medical marijuana cases in states where medicinal use of the drug has been approved. This means that even though federal law conflicts with some state laws, those who act in compliance with state laws will not be prosecuted. The advance announcement providing assurance of no prosecution to a select group of people weakens the foundation of our effort to reduce the use of illegal drugs.

This sets a dangerous precedent. For the first time, as far as I can recall, the chief federal law enforcement official stated that he will not enforce federal law when it conflicts with state law. This is truly the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause turned upside down. The federal drug enforcement agents in Arkansas (a state which does not authorize medical marijuana) will enforce the law differently from agents in California. This creates a situation with no overarching federal standard to which prosecutors can adhere.

But will the policy have any impact on federal prosecutors enforcing federal law? The memo authorizes federal prosecutors to use their discretion when deciding whether to use federal resources to pursue a marijuana case that does not break state law. But this is not new. Prosecutors have always had this discretion. They have never set a priority to make federal cases out of simple possession or medicinal use. Rather, the priority has always been targeting suppliers and major dealers. Under normal practice, a federal prosecutor would never pursue a true medical marijuana case. The memo is carefully worded to leave in place the historic discretion of prosecutors. The problem is not in the impact on prosecutors but rather the impression it leaves with the public that marijuana is somehow not a harmful substance despite the Attorney General’s statement that marijuana has not been decriminalized.

The new policy statement provides an even more confusing message to our teenagers. To a young person, there are two messages that come through loud and clear – marijuana may be good for you, and the federal government is not going to prosecute some cases. Teenage drug use may even increase under the new announcement. That is obviously not a good thing.

Further, the medical community is not in broad agreement on the benefits of medicinal marijuana. According to American Medical Association (AMA) findings, the medical community does not recognize smoking marijuana as a legitimate medical treatment. Is marijuana harmful or is it medicinal? Is it legal or illegal? Clarity of the laws is a necessary ingredient to successful enforcement of our laws. The new policy does not make it clear what is legal and what is illegal! This muddling of our prosecution policy cannot be beneficial to our efforts to reduce harmful drugs. Differing opinions on what drugs should be legal should be resolved by medical experts and by the old fashion way of passing and amending laws through elected representatives.

Overall, state laws authorizing medical marijuana have not proved workable. The sale of marijuana under the guise of treating patients has made it more difficult to prosecute anyone in the supply chain who claims the production, delivery and sale of marijuana is related to its medicinal use. Thus, whereas federal prosecutors previously did not focus on prosecuting people who fully comply with state law, now they will be even more pressed to enforce marijuana laws. Those who willfully break both state and federal laws will be that much more difficult to prosecute, for they can hide behind inconsistent laws and confused authority.

Posted in Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Narcotics | Comments

U.S. Counternarcotics Strategy in Afghanistan

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

Michael Braun, former Chief of Operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, testified before the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control regarding the Taliban’s involvement in drug production and trafficking.

Mr. Braun is now a Managing Partner with Spectre Group International, LLC. The company has offices in Alexandria, VA and Kabul, Afghanistan.

Statement for the Record

Chairman Feinstein, Co-Chairman Grassley, and Distinguished Members of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the threat posed by drug trafficking and related security issues in Afghanistan. The security challenges facing Afghanistan today, above and beyond drug trafficking and abuse are enormous. I believe you will agree with me that the Taliban is at the root of most of those security threats, and I believe it will be abundantly clear by the end of this hearing that most of the security threats emanating from the Afghan drug trade now fall squarely in the lap of the same malevolent thugs—the Taliban. What is even more ominous are the broader strategic threats, the by-product if you will, this activity has, and will continue to produce.

Madam Chairman let me say up front that each of you on this Caucus, and your colleagues throughout Congress, should be praised for all that you have done to support the multi-faceted counternarcotics efforts of our nation, and many other countries around the globe. I appreciate the fact that it is in that spirit you called us here today.

Before entering the private sector on November 1 of last year, I served for almost four years as the Assistant Administrator and Chief of Operations with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and for one year as the Agency’s Acting Chief of Intelligence. I also served in a number of DEA offices throughout the United States, including service on both our Southern and Northern borders, on both our East and West Coasts, in the Midwest, as well as approximately three years in various countries in Latin America and Iraq.

It is through my 34 years in law enforcement that I sit before you today, deeply concerned about drug trafficking and related security threats playing out in Afghanistan. You will receive a career, Federal narcotic agent’s perspective on the Afghan drug trade, and how the trade will continue to destabilize the country if we do not become more aggressively involved in countering this major threat. If left unchecked, funding from the Afghan drug trade will continue to fill the Taliban’s war chest in volumes unmatched by all other forms of illicit finance combined. I will also provide you with my views on the continued evolution of the Taliban—from an insurgent group, to a designated terrorist organization, to a ‘hybrid terrorist organization.’

The Continued Evolution of the Taliban, And 21st Century Global Organized Crime

The Taliban is following in the footsteps of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and at least 20 other terrorist groups designated by our nation, into a ‘hybrid terrorist organization.’ The Taliban was merely an insurgent group just a few short years ago, but they are now clearly one part designated terrorist organization—and one part global drug trafficking cartel.

Just like the FARC, the Taliban got its start in the global drug trade by simply taxing poor farmers, which is one of the world’s oldest forms of organized criminal extortion. They then began taxing the movement of drugs and precursor chemicals within Afghanistan, and across its borders. Like the FARC, the Taliban formed ever-closer relations with traditional traffickers as they grew more accustomed and comfortable with each other, and the Taliban eventually started providing security at the traditional traffickers’ clandestine laboratories and cache sites. In the private sector, it is called ‘outsourcing.’

About three years ago, the National Security Council asked the DEA to conduct a comparative analysis of the FARC and Taliban with respect to their evolution in the global drug trade. What the Agency reported as I recall, was that the Taliban was on the exact same path as the FARC, but the Taliban was seven to ten years behind the FARC’s evolutionary development in the global drug trade. What troubles me most about the study are not its findings; but the speed with which the Taliban is advancing their commitment and involvement in drug trafficking activity. They are closing the seven to ten year ‘evolutionary gap’ with the FARC at a speed far faster than most care to admit or acknowledge.

The DEA reestablished its presence in Afghanistan in early 2003, after being forced from the country by the Soviet Union’s invasion in 1979. By 2005, the DEA clearly identified the Taliban’s involvement in protecting clandestine laboratory and drug cache sites for traditional traffickers. Flash forward just four short years. The Agency has unmistakably determined that the Taliban is now managing and operating major clandestine laboratories, drug cache sites, and poppy bazaars. They have morphed; they have become the manufactures and traffickers of heroin, opium, hashish and marijuana.

As an example, just two weeks ago the Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan and Afghan Army Commandos, supported by the DEA and U.S. military Special Forces, raided a major laboratory in Southern Afghanistan and seized approximately 1.8 metric tons of opium and heroin—a major haul by anyone’s calculations. It doesn’t stop there. Sixteen Taliban were killed at the site, and the evidence clearly reveals the group was involved in the manufacture of heroin.

What is even more troubling is the fact that Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and IED bomb making materials were recovered at the scene, along with a host of other weapons and Taliban propaganda and training manuals. Thanks to strong support from our military, raids like this are now taking place weekly. IEDs and IED bomb making materials, suicide vests, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, other weapons, as well as Taliban propaganda and training manuals, are routinely located at these sites. Nearly all of those labs, cache sites and opium bazaars are directly linked to the DEA’s High Value Targets (HVTs) in Afghanistan, and they provide a treasure trove of evidence that support future prosecutions.

The DEA is usually focused on building prosecutable cases against 15 to 20 HVTs in Afghanistan. These are the ‘most wanted’ drug traffickers in the country and most, if not all, are members of the Taliban. Those who aren’t Taliban are closely linked to the Taliban. I am proud of the men and women of the DEA for their work with Afghan counterparts in bringing several of the most notorious Afghan traffickers to justice in the United States. Traffickers like Haji Bashir Noorzai, who was the world’s single largest heroin trafficker before being arrested by the DEA in an elaborately complex undercover sting operation. He was also one of the five original founding members of the Taliban Ruling Shura in Kabul, and was on Central Command’s ‘Top 10’ HVT list when we invaded Afghanistan and initially ousted the Taliban in 2002. Noorzai got a taste of American justice in the Southern District of New York, and is now serving a life sentence with no hope of parole. The DEA could not have successfully brought Noorzai or any of the other Afghan HVTs to justice without the powerful extraterritorial jurisdictions that you bestowed on the Agency when you passed legislation enacting the Title 21, 959 and 960(a) statutes. From a retired federal narcotics agent—thank you.

The money generated by the Afghan opium and heroin trade is staggering, and most experts usually fail to consider how much money the Taliban derives from the hashish trade. In June 2008, the Counternarcotics Police of Afghanistan and Afghan Army Commandos, supported by the DEA and U.S. military Special Forces, raided a Taliban hashish processing facility near Spin Boldak in Southern Afghanistan where they seized 235 metric tons of the drug—by far the largest drug seizure in world history. The estimated Western European value of the drugs was over $600 million dollars. If the Taliban’s profit was just 5 percent, which is being overly conservative, they stood to gain $30 million dollars from the stash. Around the same time, the DEA and Afghan counterparts raided a HVT’s compound in Eastern Afghanistan and seized his drug ledgers, which clearly showed that $169 million dollars had moved through the traffickers hands for the sale of 81 metric tons of heroin over just a 10-month period. He is unequivocally affiliated with the Taliban, and is facing American justice.

One important aspect of the Taliban’s involvement in the drug trade that I believe we are failing to exploit is their leadership’s growing level of greed. The Taliban’s ‘corporate office’ has acquired an insatiable appetite for easy money over the past few years. Just like the FARC, the Taliban leadership uses ideology as an effective means by which to recruit and indoctrinate the young warriors they rely on to do their dirty work, as well as the nasty fighting. However, the Taliban leadership’s core beliefs are going right out the window as greed replaces ideology as their principle motivator.

As we witness the continued evolution of the Taliban, we must also recognize we are witnessing the evolution of 21st Century global organized crime. It is becoming more and more difficult to distinguish the terrorist from the cartel member, because they are operationally and organizationally interbreeding and morphing into one and the same. The indisputable convergence of terrorism and international drug trafficking is playing out before our very eyes in Afghanistan, and in many other places around the globe.

U.S. Military Support to Law Enforcement An Important Aspect of the Afghan Counter Insurgency

Our military has conclusively realized over the past couple years that we will not win in Afghanistan until we get the country’s drug trade in check, and law enforcement cannot effectively conduct counter-narcotics operations without the support of our military. What was unsympathetically absent a few short years ago is now generously available—robust military support to counter-narcotics interdiction operations. The types of interdiction operations I mentioned earlier are now supported in myriad ways by our military and all are jointly planned, coordinated, de-conflicted and executed by military and law enforcement personnel.

In support of drug enforcement operations, our military routinely provides airborne medical evacuation capability, and they dedicate heavily armed close air support and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) aerial platforms to provide airborne force protection. They have purchased specialized field equipment for DEA and Afghan officers, such as night vision goggles, and they have purchased MI-17 heavy lift helicopters for dedicated vertical lift of agents and their equipment. Our military has purchased and issued to DEA portable Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for dedicated use on drug enforcement operations. They provide critically important encrypted communications equipment, and have purchased very costly telecommunications intercept equipment that Afghan police and DEA agents use to judicially tap traffickers communication devices. They have invested in ISR technology for DEA aircraft, and have built training academies and other facilities to support Afghan and DEA personnel. Moreover, our military has paid for virtually all aspects of the Interagency Operations Coordination Center, and the Afghan Threat Finance Cell, which is helping to identify and track the funds derived from the Afghanistan drug trade. Most important—almost all operations are now executed with U.S. Military Special Forces operators working shoulder-to-shoulder with law enforcement agents.

When you fuse the unparalleled tradecraft that seasoned DEA agents bring to the fight with the exclusive war fighting techniques of highly experienced Special Forces operators, you create a counter-insurgency capability that is second-to-none. More of this blend would definitely be better, and would be a wise investment of taxpayer dollars.

The Bottom Line

We are not going to win the fight in Afghanistan until we get the country’s drug production and trafficking activity in check, because it provides a limitless stream of funding directly into the Taliban’s war chest.

Professor James Fearon of Stanford University completed a study in 2002 entitled, “Why Some Wars Last Longer than Others.” The professor identified and studied 128 civil wars and insurgencies from 1945 to 2000, and found that on average they lasted about eight years. However, he identified and isolated 17 of the 128 that lasted on average about five times longer than the other 111—40 years or longer. The common thread between the 17 was that the anti-government forces involved in the conflicts generated their own contraband revenue, most of which was through their involvement in one or more aspects of the global drug trade.

Finally, the Taliban and traditional drug traffickers both thrive in what our military calls ‘ungoverned space.’ In Afghanistan, they share a truly symbiotic relationship. When traditional drug traffickers successfully destabilize government by corrupting officials—the Taliban benefits. When the Taliban successfully destabilizes government through attacks on government forces or by intimidating the populace—the drug traffickers benefit. They are both constantly working to destabilize government and create permissive environments in which to operate, because they flourish in areas of weak governance. Consequently, if you fight one with any less passion and vigor than you fight the other, you are most likely doomed to fail.

Posted in Critical Infrastructure, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Intelligence, International, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Narcotics, Radicalization, Smuggling, Terror Finance, Terror Strategic Analysis, counterterrorism | Comments

Sticks and Stones

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

Dear Congress:

Over the past year, you’ve made me (and the world) serve as unfortunate witnesses to the death of political civility. At a time when the economy is in the toilet, when we’re fighting (and perhaps losing) wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when healthcare is becoming a fading memory, and we’ve got to worry about Ahmadinejad trying to get his hands on a nuke with all the fervor of a Wall Street fat-cat chasing down a government bailout, you seem more concerned about finding ways to belittle one another than fulfilling the oath to serve.

For a group of soothe-saying silver-tongued pros, Congress has been diving so deep into the rudeness dumpster that you’re making Kanye West look like a southern gentleman. Gone are the days when elected officials understood that representing their constituents with dignity was part of the job; that in addition to serving as a voice for the people, you are supposed to be exemplifying what’s good about our nation.

After calling the President a liar, steamrolling the minority for no other reason than because you have the numbers to do it, cheering America’s loss from Olympic consideration, rolling your eyes when discussing a bipartisan solution to winning the war in Afghanistan, and booing the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to our national figurehead (despite the fact that he never even asked to be considered for it) the nation is awakening to a sad truth – nothing is getting done!

Stop your incessant need to do anything and everything possible to help “the party” get, add, control, or maintain a higher number of seats than the “other” side and start doing your job. To put it in terms you’ll understand, stop acting a bunch of bratty toddlers and get to work.

Sincerely,
America

Posted in Congress, Politics & PR, Critical Infrastructure, Homeland Security & the Internet; Gov't 2.0, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, Immigration & Visa Policy, Intelligence, International, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Narcotics, counterterrorism | Comments

Thai court considering ‘Merchant of Death’ release

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

Today, the Washington Times published my editorial piece on the potential release of Viktor Bout, also known as the “Merchant of Death,” from a Thai prison. Many US and international agencies believe Bout poses a significant threat to our national security, and I could agree more.

Washington Times Op-Ed: Thai court considering ‘Merchant of Death’ release

If Americans think we have problems with the recent disruption of a suspected terrorist cell in New York, they haven’t seen anything yet.

An appellate court in Thailand appears primed to uphold a recent lower court ruling that will unleash Viktor Bout, universally known as the “Merchant of Death,” back on the global community. To say that Bout is upset with the United States after spending more than a year in a Thai prison would be a gross understatement.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the National Security Council (NSC) and the Department of State, not to mention the United Nations, many other countries and several international human rights groups, had been tracking Bout for several years, and all believed he posed a formidable risk to our national security and the global community.

Bout, whose legendary character is the basis for the movie “Lord of War” and the subject of the highly successful book “Merchant of Death,” has been held in prison since his arrest by Thai authorities. Bout, who many intelligence experts think is a former KGB agent, fell for an extraordinarily complex DEA undercover operation that lured him from Russia to Thailand for the sake of consummating a major arms deal with undercover DEA operatives, who he thought were representing the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Read the full op-ed from Michael Braun at WashingtonTimes.com.

Posted in Aviation and airport security, Border Security, Critical Infrastructure, Homeland State & Local, Ideology & Public Diplomacy, Immigration & Visa Policy, Intelligence, International, Law Enforcement, Narcotics, counterterrorism | Comments

Cash In Clunkers – smuggling guns, drugs and money across the border

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

We are standing on the pavement watching inspections at the land border port of El Paso. Columns of pick-up trucks and 1970s vintage American-made cars inch toward the inspection points from Ciudad Juarez, drivers stopping briefly to converse with Customs and Border Protection officers who man the booths in blue uniforms looking for nervous eyes or lumped seat cushions. Somebody in our group asks our guide, a close-cropped CBP inspector, how they pick which vehicles to pull aside for secondary inspection.

“I can’t really get into all of that,” he says, suspiciously eyeballing one of the individuals in our group with the enviable capability of looking as if he has just come off a three-day binger no matter whether he’s dressed in jeans and a t-shirt or a suit and tie. “Mostly, though, we can tell by looking at them,” he says. “Our officers are trained to spot unusual behavior.”

He entertains the group with the weird ways in which smugglers try to move drugs and contraband across the border. There are the usual cocaine-filled balloons, swallowed like pigs-in-a-blanket and later emptied by what must be a painful process of defecation and sweating and praying. If any of the balloons were to break while still making their way through the intestines, it could be deadly. There are the panels removed from car-door interiors, filled with blocks of meth or pot or cash. The hollowed-out shoes. The ones dumb enough to simply throw the drugs in the trunk and cover them with an old jacket.

Things are getting weirder, though, with the increase in human smuggling. Rather than drugs, more and more people are being folded up and stuffed into tiny compartments, sometimes two, three, four at a time like midgets tumbling out of circus clown cars. “You get used to spotting the lumps in the seats and knowing you’ve got drugs there. You pop out a knife and jab it into seat and the evidence spills out,” our CBP guide says. “Now you’ve got to be careful. One of the times we were poking around with a knife in the backseat and we got a yelp and a por favor! por favor! Cut some poor guy in the hand.”

As more drugs and illegal aliens are being smuggled northbound, there has been a similar spike in guns and cash heading south. The same false dashboard compartments and hollowed suitcases that carry contraband into the United States are used to move the cash back into Mexico. That has always been the case – the drugs moving north and the drug money moving south. The guns, though, are a newer development, at least at this volume. Just as the Mexican cartels are only too happy to provide Americans with the meth they can inject into their veins, so are we only too happy to provide them with automatic machine guns they need to kill one another.

It’s illegal to bring guns into Mexico, isn’t it? somebody asks. The officer smiles, and though he doesn’t roll his eyes you know he wants to. It’s as if somebody had asked whether it’s illegal to smoke pot in college. “Yeah, it’s illegal,” he says, and jabs his thumb toward the line of American brand eighteen-wheelers waiting for passage south of the border. “They usually come in big shipments in those trucks.”

According to the Government Accountability Office, more than 90 percent of guns seized in Mexico with traceable origins are smuggled in from the United States.

With the flood of drugs heading north, and the flood of guns traveling south – and the illicit revenues flowing in both directions – it is disconcerting to realize that, nearly a year into the Obama Administration, there is still no nominee to lead the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. No nominee to take charge of the ATF – the law enforcement bureau responsible for enforcing gun and explosives laws. That the man nominated to head Customs and Border Protection still waits idly to be confirmed. The city of Juarez, literally a stone’s throw across the border from El Paso, plays host to the world’s most vicious drug cartels. The city just tallied its highest murder rate ever – a stunning feat considering that some 1,600 people were murdered in that city alone last year. Human smuggling and gun running is reaching unprecedented levels in contemporary law enforcement. Indeed, the president of Mexico all but accused the United States of arming the violent drug lords of Mexico by failing to staunch the flow of weapons. Kidnappings and carjackings are routine along the border. The State Department warns Americans that they travel in the vicinity of Juarez, the entire Mexican state of Chihuahua really, at their own peril. Yet, with the exception of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, practically the entire law enforcement and security infrastructure for the southern border of America is lacking in permanent leadership. The talk of meeting the “epidemic” of violence along the border seems almost bizarre under such circumstances.

We tour through the visa processing center inside the El Paso port’s main facility. Rows of simple aluminum-framed chairs fill the center of the room, like a convention for Bridge players, Mexican families and individual workers grasping tabs of paper with numbers, waiting for their turn to approach one of the many pexiglas windows, seeking work and redemption, or maybe just a better deal on some shoes, across the border. Behind the windows, CBP officers with glocks strapped to their belts review documents and interview applicants seeking to legally enter the United States. They pound plastic stamps with official seals on tedious reams of paper. Handcuffs hang from various chairbacks. It’s like the local DMV, only friendlier. The citizens of Juarez, and those who have traveled northbound from places south in Mexico, wait patiently in a way that most Americans could not bear. They are used to the waits.

Standing in the agricultural inspection area, we gaze upon a riot of fruits and vegetables and pigs feet and roosters. The walls are adorned with rows of jars filled with formaldehyde and small animal parts and agricultural byproducts, a mad scientist’s dusty laboratory. Everywhere there is evidence of the vehicles of foot-and-mouth disease and crop pestilence, all seized by Customs officers from Mexican citizens trying to cross the border. Perhaps we can stop the spread of Swine Flu if only we empty enough pockets and rummage through enough back seats. The desire to touch everything is overwhelming. An indigenous kind of Mr. Potato Head, pantyhose stuffed with some quick-growing Mexican plant, sits bodyless on the table, painted eyes leering. I poke at a severed pig’s foot, huge and faded and unreal looking. I expect Styrofoam or maybe even more stuffed pantyhose; it is solid, dull, meaty.

And, then, like the river breachers and desert scramblers caught every day sneaking into the United States along the southern border, we are delivered into the custody of the Border Patrol. We are going to tour the long wall being built across the southern border of the United States. The epicenter of the movement of drugs, laundered cash, hard weaponry and smuggled human beings. Ground zero in the nation’s heated debate over immigration reform.

Posted in Border Security, Featured Feed, Immigration & Visa Policy, Law Enforcement, Narcotics, Smuggling | Comments

The Small Boat Threat In the U.S. Is Real

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General recently released a report on DHS’ strategy to address small boat threats in U.S. waters. The report, “DHS’ Strategy and Plans to Counter Small Vessel Threats Need Improvement” (OIG-09-100), criticizes Customs & Border Protection (CBP), the Coast Guard and DHS policy for failing to write a complete strategy that includes measures of effectiveness and resource requirements. The criticism may be technically deserved, but there may be a good reason for its shortcomings.

The threat of a small boat attack in the U.S is real. Terrorist enemies are known to use means of attack that are tested and have proven effective in the past. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) guerrillas developed and perfected small boat attack methods that were emulated by terrorists around the globe. The USS Cole attack is an example. U.S. efforts to destroy al Qaeda and associated terrorist groups have prevented major attacks on the U.S. since 9/11 but the recent breakup of a domestic terrorist threat planning to use high explosives highlights the continuing danger. Past performance and the desire to use high explosives suggests that a small boat might be a preferred method of delivery for a terrorist attack in the U.S. The small boat could come from within the U.S., sail from a neighboring country or be launched from a mothership offshore. Current migrant and contraband smuggling activities to the U.S. using small boats prove that this avenue of attack is viable.

DHS leadership knows that understanding and control of small boat activity in and around the U.S. is key to addressing the small boat terrorism threat. But DHS leadership also understands that the small boating public is known for its vocal protection of privacy and independence, and the participation of the small boating public is absolutely critical to addressing the terrorist threat in our waterways. A top down grand strategy with draconian requirements would be strongly resisted by the small boating public and doomed to failure. Wisely, DHS leadership issued this first strategy as the first salvo in a long campaign to win the buy-in and participation of a group of loyal, but independent citizens desperately needed to be part of the solution. That is why the DHS Inspector General did not find many of the elements you might expect to find in a top-down strategy. The current DHS small boat threat strategy is the start of a bottom up solution. In the long run, this approach will have more success than a traditional top-down strategy. While this bottom up strategy begins to take shape, DHS must continue its aggressive implementation of Maritime Domain Awareness regimes and improve DHS operating agency coordination both internally and with State and local law enforcement to address the small boat attack threat.

Posted in Border Security, Critical Infrastructure, Homeland Security Industry & Private Sector, Immigration & Visa Policy, Intelligence, International, Law Enforcement, Military & Homeland Defense, Narcotics, Private and Physical Security, Smuggling, Transportation Security, counterterrorism | Comments

A New CBP Commissioner: What Took So Long?

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

On Tuesday, President Obama nominated Department of Homeland Security (DHS) “Border Czar” Alan Bersin as the next Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the 57,000 person strong frontline agency. This ends what was a seemingly lengthy gap in political leadership at one of the nation’s flagship law enforcement agencies, but opens the door to a series of questions about Mr. Bersin’s role in the promised Obama Administration efforts to address immigration reform.

To say that Mr. Bersin has enormous professional shoes to fill would be an understatement. Since 9/11, CBP has been led by Robert C. Bonner, Ralph W. Basham and Jayson P. Ahern. Bonner was a five-time Senate confirmed law enforcement advocate who shined in merging separate agencies into CBP after 9/11. Ralph Basham’s career as a U.S. Secret Service agent for 30 years and the head of three separate DHS agencies is, if anything, even more impressive than Commissioner Bonner’s. Jay Ahern, the current Acting Commissioner and one of the premier Senior Executives in the federal government, worked his way up through the ranks during a 30 year career at CBP, has receive the rank of Distinguished Executive from President Bush in 2005 and was awarded the DHS Secretary’s Gold Medal for service in 2008. These are no security and law enforcement novices.

I don’t dwell on the resumes of the prior leadership to disparage Mr. Bersin’s somewhat less conventional resume for a top law enforcement position; I do so only to stress how serious and challenging this job is for any nominee. While Mr. Bersin clearly has knowledge of the current situation at our nation’s borders – some would say his last six months as the “Border Czar” were a tutorial period – his operational experience is more limited. However, his current reputation at DHS is positive and given his outgoing nature, he could be a solid selection to lead what is often known as “the face of homeland security” given CBP’s daily interaction with many stakeholders.

This leads us to two pressing questions about this nomination. The first is: Why was this political position so difficult to fill and left empty for so long? CBP is an enormous agency with an $11 billion dollar budget and a noble mission. More importantly, the Commissioner has an expansive office at the Ronald Reagan Building and the largest law enforcement air force in the world at his disposal.

Why was the eventual nominee in an office at DHS policy for six months with the “Border Czar” title?

I imagine the Obama Administration had trouble filling the post for two reasons. First, the presence of the “Border Czar” at DHS headquarters diminished the real power of the eventual Commissioner. Who wants to be the Senate-confirmed head of one of the nation’s premiere federal law enforcement agencies with operational authority effectively reporting to a policy guy at HQ?

Second, the Obama Administration’s commitment to the agency’s immigration-enforcement mission could be suspect as it has already rolled back enforcement efforts at CBP’s sister (or is it brother?) agency, Immigration and Custom’s Enforcement (ICE), to appease core administration political supporters. No one wants to volunteer for failure.

This initial question is doubly important when considering my second inquiry: What role will the head of CBP play in the promised immigration reform proposals we expect from the Obama administration in the next year?

After the failure of immigration reform in 2007, the Bush administration attempted to earn credibility with the American people by increasing Border Patrol staffing, building a 600 mile-long fence and strictly enforcing the nation’s immigration laws. Has the Obama administration selected an official who – working with Secretary Napolitano – will continue to push for strict enforcement in an effort to win over the public to some form of immigration reform?

I don’t know, but I expect the new Commissioner to focus on border security as it relates to drugs and weapons smuggling – which is a greater concern for current and former border state officials like Bersin and Napolitano – than dealing with immigration enforcement. This would be unfortunate for the 10,000 Border Patrol agents who joined CBP under the last administration and were promised the resources and support to secure our borders; they are too close to success to have new leadership change course.

I wish the Commissioner nominee the best of luck in what I hope is a speedy confirmation process. (I worked with Commissioner Basham – a man nominated by President Bush and endorsed by the late Senator Ted Kennedy – on his confirmation, and if Americans only knew how screwed up Congressional oversight of DHS is that the confirmation of the head of the U.S. Secret Service to be the Commissioner took more than four months, they would not sleep more soundly at night.)

America wants strong leadership on our borders, not only to keep us safe from terrorists, drugs and criminals, but to also earn credibility with our citizens so we can eventually have the immigration reform we so desperately need. Whether Bersin can give deliver that credibility and pave the road to reform will be his legacy within in the agency. Here’s hoping he can.

Posted in Border Security, Congress, Politics & PR, Immigration & Visa Policy, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Maritime & Seaport Security, Narcotics, Smuggling, Supply Chain Security | Comments

Very Disturbing News: Are Mexico’s Drug Cartels Getting to U.S. Law Enforcement?

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

The arrest of Richard Cramer earlier this month is very disturbing news for many reasons. Personally disturbing to me, not only because I am a former ICE Special Agent and Supervisor, but also because of the damage incidents like this have on inter-agency cooperation, and in this case, international cooperation. It should remind all agents, officers, prosecutors, analysts, and staff of the importance and necessity to “compartmentalize” any and all information relating to sensitive investigations and law enforcement activities. It reinforces the necessity of operational security and the policy of controlling access to “on a need to know basis”.

Cramer was arrested by DEA on September 4th for his participation in a conspiracy to provide members of a Mexican drug cartel with information and background on U.S. narcotics enforcement activities. According to the criminal complaint filed by DEA, “Cramer was responsible for advising the drug traffickers how U.S. law enforcement works with warrants and record checks as well as how DEA conducts investigations to include “flipping” subjects or recruiting informants”. Cramer allegedly pulled files to help identify confidential sources, charging as much as $2000. for one document sent to a suspect in Miami.

Cramer was a ranking federal law enforcement official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) until he retired in January 2007. During his career he was employed in many very sensitive positions including a supervisory position in Nogales, Arizona, and as the ICE Attache in Guadalajara, Mexico. Cramer’s duties in Mexico included serving as liaison with the Mexican police, assisting investigations and collecting intelligence.

Cramer’s behavior is what we have come to associate with Mexico where the drug cartels have compromised Mexican politicians, police chiefs, judges and military components. We have not come to associate it with high-ranking members of U.S. anti-drug law enforcement agencies.

I do not personally know Richard Cramer but I am sure he is unable to justify this betrayal. It is a significant affront to all involved in the war on drugs on a daily basis. The damage done may never be measured, but if it reminds the personnel waging this “drug war” of the absolute necessity for operational security, it will a small positive in this very disturbing news.

Posted in Border Security, Congress, Politics & PR, Emergency Preparedness & Response, Homeland State & Local, Immigration & Visa Policy, Law Enforcement, Management & Administration, Narcotics, Radicalization, Smuggling, counterterrorism | Comments

Mexico’s Risky Drug Decriminalization Sends the Wrong Message

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009

Mexico recently took a dramatic step in the war on drugs, decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and heroin. In the midst of battling the drug cartels that grow fat on the profits of drug abuse and addiction, not to mention all of the violent crime that accompanies drug trafficking, the Mexican Government has sent a clear message. Unfortunately, it’s the wrong message. It is the message of surrender.

Mexican officials say the move will allow their law enforcement agencies to focus on fighting the big cartels, rather than small abusers. Predictably, drug legalization advocates cheered the move.

But other nations’ experiences with legalization have shown that these schemes rarely deliver on what they promise, while bringing with them significant new problems. Indeed it seems counter-productive in the extreme to be launching the nation’s most aggressive fight against the narcotraffickers while at the same time giving a wink and nod to drug use at home. It as if Mexico were trying to develop a stronger market for drug use at home.

The Mexican Government says that the new law is meant to allow law enforcement to focus on the major trafficking of drugs and not waste resources on small-time users. As the United States Government does with U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Mexico can focus its national resources on major traffickers without making a public proclamation that using drugs is okay.

When I headed the DEA in the early part of this decade, I toured a pilot legalization project in south London, where a local police commander launched an experimental program to de-emphasize small-time drug arrests. In the Lambeth borough, where the project was attempted, I saw drug dealers openly pushing hard drugs like heroin and crack. Residents of the working class neighborhood reported open drug use—indeed, I witnessed a young couple injecting heroin in an abandoned building—and significant increases in crime.

Legalization has even been tried in the United States, although most Americans may not realize it. In 1975, the Supreme Court of Alaska ruled that it was constitutional for adults to possess small amounts of marijuana for home consumption. The results were predictable enough: Drug use skyrocketed. A 1988 University of Alaska survey showed that the state’s teenagers used marijuana at a rate more than twice the national average for their age group. The report also showed a frequency of marijuana use that suggested it wasn’t experimental but was a well-incorporated practice for teens. Fed up with this dangerous experiment, Alaska’s residents voted in 1990 to recriminalize the possession of marijuana. A ballot proposal to legalize marijuana possession in Alaska in 2004 was also soundly defeated.

It’s also important to point out that legalizing (or “decriminalizing”) drug use won’t change the violent fight the Mexican Government is facing in going after criminal organizations trafficking drugs. It is still illegal to move distribute large quantities of drugs in Mexico, just as it is in the United States. But this is where the money is. The cartels will continue to bribe, kill and steal as necessary to traffick major shipments of drugs.

Some have suggested that we should therefore abandon the entire war on drugs. I disagree. It’s one of the great myths of our era that U.S. anti-drug efforts have not made a difference. Overall drug use in the United States is down from the levels of the 1970s, thanks to tough enforcement coupleed with effective drug education programs and drug treatment programs. In fact, while the use of illicit drugs has fluctuated over the years, the overall trend over the last three decades has been toward decreased usage. (To take the most recent good news, the 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, released just last week, shows that youth drug use has shown a significant drop since 2002.)

It’s important to note that this progress did not come from decriminalization or legalization. It stems from a program that integrates enforcement with innovative approaches like drug courts, drug testing in the workplace, community coalitions to fight drugs and enhanced investment in education and prevention. That’s the formula for reducing drug abuse and addiction. That’s the formula for saving lives.

The precedents are clear: Where legalization has been attempted, regrets soon followed as the costs became clear. I fear our neighbors to the south will soon relearn this tragic lesson.

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