From 'The St. Petersburg Times', June 24th:
In return for sharing its passenger manifest with the Drug Enforcement Administration, Amtrak gets a bounty of 10 percent of any seizures made from its trains. DEA agents use the information provided by the railroad to determine which passengers fit a "drug courier profile." Riders unlucky enough to have paid for their tickets with cash or purchased tickets at the last minute are questioned by federal agents who board the train at the Albuquerque, N.M., stop. If one of these travelers is carrying a substantial amount of cash, DEA agents confiscate it as a drug asset and Amtrak takes 10 percent off the top.
After the $149,000 was found in the fanny pack, which [Hoang Thach] claimed were gambling proceeds, the bills were taken outside to a drug-sniffing dog. But the dog did not alert to the presence of drugs. So the agents tried again with a second dog. It finally provided the desired result. (Despite studies that show upwards of 96 percent of all money in circulation is contaminated with drug residue, police use drug-dog alerts as a basis to claim the money is part of the drug trade.) The DEA agents told Thach his money was suspected drug assets, took all but $1,000, enough so Thach could continue his trip home, and left him with a receipt. Thach was not charged with a crime, but he has had to post a $5,000 bond and hire an attorney to help him get his money back. The federal trial is set for October.
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico is in the process of investigating the potential for a lawsuit on behalf of a number of passengers, minorities mostly, who have been profiled as drug couriers on Amtrak and nothing was found. Peter Simonson, the organization's executive director, says by freely sharing information with the DEA, Amtrak may be breaking the Privacy Act of 1974, a law prohibiting federal agencies from exchanging identifying information without following certain protocols.
In return for sharing its passenger manifest with the Drug Enforcement Administration, Amtrak gets a bounty of 10 percent of any seizures made from its trains. DEA agents use the information provided by the railroad to determine which passengers fit a "drug courier profile." Riders unlucky enough to have paid for their tickets with cash or purchased tickets at the last minute are questioned by federal agents who board the train at the Albuquerque, N.M., stop. If one of these travelers is carrying a substantial amount of cash, DEA agents confiscate it as a drug asset and Amtrak takes 10 percent off the top.
After the $149,000 was found in the fanny pack, which [Hoang Thach] claimed were gambling proceeds, the bills were taken outside to a drug-sniffing dog. But the dog did not alert to the presence of drugs. So the agents tried again with a second dog. It finally provided the desired result. (Despite studies that show upwards of 96 percent of all money in circulation is contaminated with drug residue, police use drug-dog alerts as a basis to claim the money is part of the drug trade.) The DEA agents told Thach his money was suspected drug assets, took all but $1,000, enough so Thach could continue his trip home, and left him with a receipt. Thach was not charged with a crime, but he has had to post a $5,000 bond and hire an attorney to help him get his money back. The federal trial is set for October.
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico is in the process of investigating the potential for a lawsuit on behalf of a number of passengers, minorities mostly, who have been profiled as drug couriers on Amtrak and nothing was found. Peter Simonson, the organization's executive director, says by freely sharing information with the DEA, Amtrak may be breaking the Privacy Act of 1974, a law prohibiting federal agencies from exchanging identifying information without following certain protocols.
