textfiles/drugs/ht-fyi93.txt

      Feds Open New Door to Forfeiture Abuse
         from High Times, December 1993


If you've ever lied on a loan application, you can lose your 
ass.  Precedent was recently set regarding a little-known 
section of the 1989 Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, 
and Enforcement Act (FIRREA), allowing for the forfeiture of 
any property derived from loans secured by those who knowingly 
made false statements on their applications.  The civil 
forfeiture section of FIRREA applies specifically to 
institutions protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance 
Corporation (FDIC).

The precedent was set in the case of the United States v. 403 
1/2 Skyline Drive, La Habra Heights, CA, a house which was 
seized by federal authorities after it was determined that the 
owner, Anthony Paul Feher, had misrepresented his employment at 
the Action Garage Door company in his mortgage application with 
Great Western Savings.  Feher had claimed he worked at Action 
for a period of two years prior to his mortgage application.  
Great Western had given him the loan based on that 
information.  Though he never missed a mortgage payment, 
forfeiture was initiated when it was discovered that Feher 
had, in fact, never worked for the Action Garage Door company.

While the intent of the civil forfeiture section of FIRREA was 
to protect lending institutions from the type of large-scale 
fraud which led to the savings-and-loan-crisis, the fact that 
precedent was set in such a small-scale case carries ominous 
implications for those familiar with the widespread abuse of 
forfeiture law.  According to a report published recently in 
the Los Angeles Times, fraudulent loan applications may account 
for as many as 10% of all loan applications nationwide.  Those 
prosecutors and agencies looking to profit from civil 
forfeiture may well see FIRREA as an open invitation to begin 
looking into banking transactions.  Once a single fraudulent 
application is discovered, turning that applicant into an 
informant may not be difficult;  in addition to having their 
own cases voided, informants stand to make up to 25% of any 
profits they generate in civil forfeiture cases - a difficult 
deal to turn down.

There is no statute of limitations on fraudulent loan 
applications, and the civil forfeiture statutes of FIRREA apply 
retroactively.
           Other Items, Same Issue (HT, Dec '93)
                    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Item: The *Boston Globe* reported last November 1 on Colombian 
officials' complaints that the US is violating US-Colombia 
treaties and Colombian sovereignty in anti-drug efforts.  US 
Drug Enforcement Administration agents routinely pick up 
1,000-pound loads of cocaine in Colombia without the knowledge 
or consent of Colombian officials.  This violates treaties on 
airspace and shoreline rights, as well as Colombian law.

Colombian officials also protested the US Supreme Court ruling 
okaying the DEA's abduction in Mexico of Dr. Humberto Machain, 
a suspect in the torture death of DEA agent Enrique Camarena.

Colombia has its own "Machain" case.  In 1991, Jorge Restrepo, 
son of a former Colombian interior minister, was abducted by 
the US Federal Bureau of Investigation in neighboring 
Venezuela.  He was lured across the border by undercover FBI 
agents with the promise of a lucrative money-laundering deal and 
private cruise.  Since the FBI has no jurisdiction to arrest in 
a foreign country, the Restrepo family calls this a 
kidnapping.  But the Machain decision bodes poorly for their 
chance to win redress in the US courts.

                    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Item: The Washington Post reported on February 10 that the 
Central Intelligence Agency is proposing a broadening of its 
powers to include a wide role in law enforcement.  Ironically, 
the fact that US intelligence agencies slept through the 
Iraqgate scandal is the rationale for this expansion of 
prowess: if the CIA had "strong and direct working 
relationships" with law enforcement agencies, money launderers 
and their ilk would be more readily apprehended.  Or so the 
argument goes.

CIA Inspector General Frederick P. Hitz made clear that this 
would go beyond the CIA's long-standing data exchanges with the 
FBI and DEA.  As a model, Hitz cited the CIA role in the 
abduction and prosecution of former Panamanian strongman Manuel 
Noriega, of course, was ousted by the US Christmas invasion of 
1989 and subsequently arrested on drug-smuggling charges by US 
forces in Panama.

The CIA's founding legislation, the 1947 National Security Act, 
states that "the agency shall have no police, subpoena, law 
enforcement powers, or internal security functions."

           Other Items, Same Issue (HT, Dec '93)
                    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Item: On May 9, the *New York Times* ran an op-ed piece by 
Federal Judge Whitman Knapp calling the Drug War a failure and 
calling on Congress to repeal *all* federal drug legislation.  
Judge Knapp subsequently announced that he would refuse to hear 
any drug cases involving the "mandatory minimum" laws, which he 
considers draconian and discriminatory.  Good news, no?  Get 
ready for the backlash.

On May 18, *Times* columnist Abe Rosenthal launched his attack on 
Knapp.  Without mentioning the veteran justice by name, 
Rosenthal wrote that judges who refuse mandatory minimum cases 
"should resign...or be asked to leave by Congress."  Demanding 
beefed-up enforcement and interdiction budgets, Rosenthal 
echoed the lurid rhetoric of paranoid American anti-Communism.  
"Before it is too late, Americans should realize that the war 
against drugs is in danger of being dismantled and the result 
will be creeping legalization."  Does this sound familiar?

The next to respond was then DEA chief Robert Bonner in a May 24 
letter to the *Times*.  Bonner warned that Colombia's Cali Cartel 
is "more powerful than ever," manipulating Colombian politics 
through "corruption, intimidation and murder," maintaining 
"the most effective clandestine distribution system in America 
for contraband and weapons."  Bonner warns that "a global drug 
cartel like Cali can only be weakened and incapacitated by 
global law-enforcement."  Otherwise, the Cartel "will export 
death and violence to America."  Therefore, "an isolationist 
counter-narcotics strategy would be a tragic mistake."  For 
those who recall the rhetoric hurled against those who opposed 
US military adventures in the Cold War era, this is deja vu all 
over again.

                    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Item: On July 18, the *New York Times* reported that US Air Force 
brass at North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD), the nation's 
most elaborate and sophisticated command-and-control bunker, 
have found a "new mission" since the decline of the Soviet 
threat.  Computer screens which once tracked Soviet missiles 
are now tracking "pesky Cessnas ferrying cocaine from Latin 
America."  Air Force generals "are trying to preserve their 
shrinking budgets by training some of their formidable weapons 
against new villains: drug smugglers."

Filling the interior of Mount Cheyenne in the Colorado Rockies, 
and actually built on springs to withstand nuclear attack, the 
ultra-elite NORAD is in danger of becoming an anachronism.  
Despite the fact that many smuggler planes fly too low to be 
detected by the massive NORAD air surveillance system, Congress 
voted to approve the complex's new anti-drug role four years 
ago.  Fifty percent of NORAD's mission now is tracking drug 
traffickers.