Is the Bush Administration Using Blackwater Mercenaries in the DEA?

[WaVancouver]

i appologize for going off topic. i need to stick to the rules if i'm gonna enforce them. so no further talk of breasts unless they are somehow related to marijuana, dispensaries, the dea or blackwater. ok i guess technically they are dispensaries.

That might become a new quote signature for me. AHAHA! What if they made boobs that dispensed marijuana?

Hey since I can't post news stories on here, you should read this news article: Cops Return Medical-marijuana Files Taken in Raid ? But Not The Marijuana

 

[FreakNature]

...

 

[FreakNature]

i Appologize For Going Off Topic. I Need To Stick To The Rules If I'm Gonna Enforce Them. So No Further Talk Of Breasts Unless They Are Somehow Related To Marijuana, Dispensaries, The Dea Or Blackwater. ok I Guess Technically They Are Dispensaries.

 

[Boss]

The bottom line, Power, and 350 bucks a day while in the US, 500 a day in Iraq, and the taxpayers are charged 600 a day for each while they are here, and 900 a day while in iraq.

FYI- Last count, 120 in Louisiana, through texas, and 18,000 in iraq. Anyone wanna do that math ;-) If you do, don't tell your children or grandchildren, they will most likely off you for ruining thier ability to make any money due to paying off the tax bills in order to arrest medical cannabis users

 

[Jim Finnel]

Hey since I can't post news stories on here, you should read this news article: Cops Return Medical-marijuana Files Taken in Raid ? But Not The Marijuana

already got it 07-17-2008:
https://www.420magazine.com/forums/667686-post1.html

 

[Weed420]

Very good post biscanna. I'm sure there are lleo's that really want to do what they are hired for, to protect and serve, and its gotta be a hard choice to come forward when an officer does something unethical. But what do you do when you are told to enforce laws that are clearly unconstitional? My criteria would be if its not hurting anybody I would walk away. But is that ethical?

 

[RaggedEdge]

Very good post biscanna. I'm sure there are lleo's that really want to do what they are hired for, to protect and serve, and its gotta be a hard choice to come forward when an officer does something unethical. But what do you do when you are told to enforce laws that are clearly unconstitional? My criteria would be if its not hurting anybody I would walk away. But is that ethical?

Yes, it IS ethical. The cops have no duty to enforce the law. The Supreme Court ruled on that a while back. So cops can pick and choose what they feel like enforcing today.
Of course, it has always been that way throughout history, but the Supreme Court made it official (sorry I don't have the case #), and I think it is very clear that, if they are going to enforce the laws, the ones they should be enforcing should also be the ones that really protect people instead of uselessly and viciously oppressing them. That is more than ethical, it should be required, but not many cops out there seem to think that deep.

Ah, don't get me started. Jeez. I could go on for pages and pages about how cops these days are the worst we've ever had - if only because narrow-minded, frothing-at-the-mouth members of society keep trying to legislate morality. We've got more than enough laws against chewing gum in public, don't we? And more than enough laws about crap that's nobody else's business but our own.

You can't legislate morality. Morality doesn't work that way. And whose morality gets used? What about religious freedom? What if my moral values conflict with other people's? (and they do!) Well, there's the rub.
I've got my rights, or what's left of them. I'm only passing thru this screwed up world anyway. If I'm lucky, things will change for the better. If I'm not, well, I'm not in a very good position to change things, as I've found out over and over. But I'm doing what I can the best I can. I ask no more than that from anyone else when all's said and done.

Ramblin....!

 

[Trash]

Yes. And so is Aegis in the UK.

 

[Herb Fellow]

Blackwater is more than likely trying to rack up as many hours to bill as they can before the election. Hopefully our new president will work to at least return some of our liberties. I'm old enough to know that it probably won't happen, but I am also old enough to hope for better days.

 

[Weed420]

An update from NORML's site. Still sounds pretty fisky to me. If he was undercover, he won't be anymore.
C/P
I was able to speak today with Tami Abdollah, the Los Angeles Times (LAT) reporter who wrote the article associated with the photo of the agent wearing a Blackwater t-shirt. First, Abdollah explained that at the time of the raid (when the photo was taken) she had asked about whether the agent in question was a Blackwater employee, but was not given a straight answer. After the raid, and after the story had been published by the LAT, Abdollah was contacted by Sarah Pullen, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles office of the DEA. Pullen requested that the face of the agent wearing the Blackwater t-shirt be blurred because he was an undercover agent and the photo might jeopardize his apparent anonymity. At the same time, Pullen assured Abdollah that the “undercover” agent was in fact an employee of the Drug Enforcement Administration and has never been an employee of Blackwater. Pullen also felt it necessary to explain to Abdollah that the request to blur the agent’s face and the fact that he was wearing a Blackwater t-shirt was completely coincidental. In a subsequent conversation with the DEA, Abdollah was told that the agent was not undercover for the raid, but does routinely engage in undercover operations.

According to Abdollah, the Photo Desk at the LAT has a policy of not altering photos, so their response was simply to pull the photo from circulation. After I expressed concern that the sequence of events still seemed suspect, Abdollah assured me that she would continue to follow up on the matter.

In the meantime, certain questions that come to mind are: why would an undercover agent, concerned about maintaining anonymity, conduct a circus-like, paramilitary-style raid in broad daylight with media swarming around? Doesn’t the DEA realize that by censoring a controversial photo, it is ensuring greater exposure of it, thereby creating a greater identity risk for the agent? Is it not careless, to say the least, when police are supposed to be explicitly identified during such enforcement actions, to have one of the agents conducting the raid be identified as Blackwater?

And these guys tend to be sticklers for details. Look at all the time it would take them to get dressed alone - the body armor, the guns, the grenades, shields, batons, tasers, gas masks, thermal vision goggles, and all the other vehicles and equipment… and you’re telling me that Agent Steven Seagal here was allowed to show up to the pre-raid drill in a non-regulation uniform?