The Drug Enforcement Administration paid confidential informants millions of dollars without appropriate oversight and used sources in ways that might run afoul of the Constitution, the Justice Department inspector general found.
In one, according to the report, the DEA paid more than $469,000 over a five-year period to a source who had previously been deactivated for lying in trials and depositions. In another, the DEA paid an Amtrak employee hundreds of thousands of dollars "for information that was available at no cost to the government," the inspector general found.
Using confidential informants to uncover illegal drug activity is a critical part of DEA agents' work. According to the report, the agency had more than 18,000 active informants between October 2010 and September 2015, and more than 9,000 of those received about $237 million in payments.
The inspector general also criticized how the DEA used transportation and parcel service employees in ways that pushed the boundaries of agency guidelines and the Constitution. Instead of using employees as tipsters, DEA agents would request sources search proprietary databases, transfer packages to the DEA, or turn over suspicious travel itineraries. In some cases, according to the inspector general, agents would ask for passenger manifests almost daily. Aside from Amtrak, no company or airline is named in the report.
DEA abusing its power, whats new here....
In a perfect world we could have Drug Enjoyment Authority but no !!!!!!