d.e.a. paid amtrak secy for passenger lists

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Unbelievable!

Then again, maybe not considering that the DEA is the most corrupt and poorly run agency in the Govt! Amtrak Management @ the time doesn't look so good either, surely the Union didn't help this crook get off??!!!

This is the kind of stuff that gives right wing hacks ammunation to attack hard working, honest Civil Servants!
 
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Bribery and kickbacks appear to be standard practice in the DEA, dating back decades, so perhaps this isn't surprising.

DEA needs to be shut down.
 
Why did they "pay" for it ? A ten minute call to the No Such Agency and they could have gotten the passenger list, address, phone number, credit card number, start and end destinations, etc etc. What a waste of money.

Oh, NSA if you are reading this, kiss my - - - !!!!

NAVYBLUE
 
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Amtrak apparently missed out on revenue as a result of these shenanigans.
This is a bizarre story. But it does involve the DEA, which is an agency well known for shenanigans and operating as a isolated fiefdom. The CBS news story refers to the same aspect the gawker story does. That by paying the Amtrak secretary or employee for the data, the DEA would not have to share any "drug" money seized as a result of the information from Amtrak. This aspect I believe because this is exactly the sort of crap the DEA and other law enforcement agencies do all the time with regards to drug money or asset seizures.
As for the secretary being allowed to retire, if the employee was acting as an confidential informant to the DEA, that may supersede any written policy that Amtrak had about not sharing confidential corporate data. The DEA is a law enforcement agency, so the Amtrak employee has some protection from Amtrak taking actions against him or her.
 
Just another group of government employees that should be in jail. Until we punish corrupt bureaucrats with something more harsh than "paid leave," nothing will change.
 
I have said previously that I am not convinced that the Office of the Inspector General operates with correct information. Train and engine crews do not have secretaries. Their bosses might. The I.G.'s office is certainly guilty of imprecise language at a minimum, and possibly much worse. As for the D.E.A., nothing surprises me there, either.

Tom
 
I have said previously that I am not convinced that the Office of the Inspector General operates with correct information. Train and engine crews do not have secretaries. Their bosses might. The I.G.'s office is certainly guilty of imprecise language at a minimum, and possibly much worse. As for the D.E.A., nothing surprises me there, either.

Tom
I don't think they were saying the crews have secretaries. There are clerks, "secretaries", who work in the train and engine service crew offices. One of their duties is to print out train manifests. I would guess it might have been one of those clerks.
 
Why Did DEA Pay an Amtrak Employee for Passenger Records?

A bizarre revelation contained in a routine Amtrak inspector general report has caught the attention of the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, is pressing the Drug Enforcement Administration about why the agency paid $854, 460 over the course of almost two decades to an Amtrak employee to get passenger name record (PNR) information. As a member of the joint drug enforcement task force, the Amtrak Police Department should have been able to give information about passengers to DEA upon request.
 
The explanation was in the original article - If the DEA got the information by FOI or interdepartmental cooperation, it would have to share the loot picked off the criminals with Amtrak. Apparently $43k/year is a whole lot less than 10% of their take.

NOTE: Not to say it's OK. The Amtrak employee should have been terminated without benefits but has apparently quietly withdrawn from the company with full retirement. And an additional $850K.
 
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The explanation was in the original article - If the DEA got the information by FOI or interdepartmental cooperation, it would have to share the loot picked off the criminals with Amtrak. Apparently $43k/year is a whole lot less than 10% of their take.

NOTE: Not to say it's OK. The Amtrak employee should have been terminated without benefits but has apparently quietly withdrawn from the company with full retirement. And an additional $850K.
Amtrak has a policy of not allowing employees to accept money, gifts, trips, etc from any vendor or outside company. If this person was a "paid informant" of the DEA I would be quite surprised. I am amazed and actually sickened by the fact that this person took over $800k illegally and was then allowed to retire. If they were a management employee, I wonder if the pension was also allowed to be paid? There seems to be no punishment involved and that pisses me off!
 
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Amtrak has a policy of not allowing employees to accept money, gifts, trips, etc from any vendor or outside company. If this person was a "paid informant" of the DEA I would be quite surprised. I am amazed and actually sickened by the fact that this person took over $800k illegally and was then allowed to retire. If they were a management employee, I wonder if the pension was also allowed to be paid? There seems to be no punishment involved and that pisses me off!
But if the Amtrak employee was a confidential paid informant of the DEA, what the employee did may have been technically legal because the DEA has powers as a law enforcement agency that trump Amtrak internal corporate regulations. I don't know how the DEA or the FBI handle CI payments, but I would not be surprised if the DEA issued a annual 1099-Misc form for the payments to the Amtrak employee. The total payment was $854K over 19 years, so the average annual payment works out to $45K a year. Nice solid side income. :ph34r:

If the DEA has a senior US Senator ticked off at them, we may hear more about the story with additional details in the press.
 
Amtrak has a policy of not allowing employees to accept money, gifts, trips, etc from any vendor or outside company. If this person was a "paid informant" of the DEA I would be quite surprised. I am amazed and actually sickened by the fact that this person took over $800k illegally and was then allowed to retire. If they were a management employee, I wonder if the pension was also allowed to be paid? There seems to be no punishment involved and that pisses me off!
But if the Amtrak employee was a confidential paid informant of the DEA, what the employee did may have been technically legal because the DEA has powers as a law enforcement agency that trump Amtrak internal corporate regulations. I don't know how the DEA or the FBI handle CI payments, but I would not be surprised if the DEA issued a annual 1099-Misc form for the payments to the Amtrak employee. The total payment was $854K over 19 years, so the average annual payment works out to $45K a year. Nice solid side income. :ph34r:
If the DEA has a senior US Senator ticked off at them, we may hear more about the story with additional details in the press.
I would assume that even of the employee was a paid informant of the DEA, there would have been some communication with Amtrak senior management. If that would trump internal,policies, senior management would still need to be informed.
 
There should have been, but that communication with management would have tipped Amtrak off that they were due a share of the money that the DEA was raking in.

I'd bet that the DEA made the agreement contingent upon the CI not informing anyone.
 
We live in a country that has become surprisingly blind to white collar crime. Or maybe I should say white collar immorality since today's laws make actions that look all the world to be criminal perfectly legal anyhow. Add a war-on-drugs slush fund to the equation and it's just one big convoluted clusterfork. If I were Amtrak I'd be pissed at losing my money and having no means of preventing this from happening all over again. As a passenger I'm annoyed at being a pawn in yet another drug money shell game.
 
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I would assume that even of the employee was a paid informant of the DEA, there would have been some communication with Amtrak senior management. If that would trump internal,policies, senior management would still need to be informed.
Part of the controversy is that the DEA did not inform Amtrak senior management or the Amtrak Police Department. The DEA appears to have recruited the Amtrak employee as a CI in 1995 and did not tell Amtrak about it. At all. Quite possibly so the DEA would not have to share forfeited assets with the Amtrak PD.

There is a Washington Post report on this story which has links to the source documents: DEA paid an Amtrak secretary for confidential passenger information. I think this story may have some legs.

Senator Grassley's letter to the DEA Administrator.

The Amtrak Inspector General April 1 to June 30, 2014 Status Report with the info on the DEA payments. With the odd reference to "a secretary to a Train and Engine crew".
 
We live in a country that has become surprisingly blind to white collar crime. Or maybe I should say white collar immorality since today's laws make actions that look all the world to be criminal perfectly legal anyhow. Add a war-on-drugs slush fund to the equation and it's just one big convoluted clusterfork. If I were Amtrak I'd be pissed at losing my money and having no means of preventing this from happening all over again. As a passenger I'm annoyed at being a pawn in yet another drug money shell game.
Yes, this.
This is the kind of crap that comes from the War on (some) Drugs.
 
to me, the most repulsive aspect of what we know of the affair is that this little incident is not even a partial tip of the iceberg when viewed in light of what goes on in government and business in terms of general disregard for morality
 
Amtrak has a policy of not allowing employees to accept money, gifts, trips, etc from any vendor or outside company. If this person was a "paid informant" of the DEA I would be quite surprised. I am amazed and actually sickened by the fact that this person took over $800k illegally and was then allowed to retire. If they were a management employee, I wonder if the pension was also allowed to be paid? There seems to be no punishment involved and that pisses me off!
But if the Amtrak employee was a confidential paid informant of the DEA, what the employee did may have been technically legal because the DEA has powers as a law enforcement agency that trump Amtrak internal corporate regulations. I don't know how the DEA or the FBI handle CI payments, but I would not be surprised if the DEA issued a annual 1099-Misc form for the payments to the Amtrak employee. The total payment was $854K over 19 years, so the average annual payment works out to $45K a year. Nice solid side income. :ph34r:

If the DEA has a senior US Senator ticked off at them, we may hear more about the story with additional details in the press.
There are a lot of things that are legal but are prohibited by company policy. You can still be terminated for violation of that policy.

Think about legal medicines taken by athletes that are prohibited by the NCAA, AAU, NFL, Olympic Committee, etc. The perps lose their medals, pay, get suspensions and bans. Violating company policy can be a termination offense.
 
[sarcasm]Where is John Mica demanding that Amtrak sell the list to the DEA and recoupe costs?[/sarcasm]

The sad part is the loss of trust in the riding public who probably won't ever ride Amtrak again fearing their name be sold. Really, though, I think we can all agree that this also happens with Greyhound and every airliner.
 
[sarcasm]Where is John Mica demanding that Amtrak sell the list to the DEA and recoupe costs?[/sarcasm]

The sad part is the loss of trust in the riding public who probably won't ever ride Amtrak again fearing their name be sold. Really, though, I think we can all agree that this also happens with Greyhound and every airliner.
Totally true. Loss of trust -- true.

What totally annoys me -- I'm cleaner than -- totally clean. So I've got to be hassled now and forever because some DEA corrupt bozo wants to hassle me, or somebody ??

Well, like Hemingway said -- "I urinate in the milk of your kindness dea.

Me, i trust my sorry gun-carrying worrywart loser friends. They not shoot me. The few chem-dependent people I know will never hassle me, the few paranoid gun-toting friends won't likely hurt me.

I aint scared at all --
 
This has got to have been illegal, no?

It wasn't Amtrak that sold its passenger lists, but an Amtrak employee, and apparently, that employee kept the $850K for themselves. The Amtrak employee's only punishment, apparently, is to be allowed to retire with a rather nice pension.

Yea, I realize that the $850K is considered to be a "reward" for giving the DEA the private/personal passenger info, but still.....
 
It doesn't seem right, but the Amtrak employee was selling information to a law enforcement agency, so who would prosecute the employee? The head-scrating part is that the DEA didn't need to buy the information, Amtrak would have given it to them, but then if the DEA caught any drug dealers it would have to share any confiscated money or property with Amtrak. It's the DEA guys who should be brought to justice not some low-level Amtrak clerk who knew an opportunity when it was presented.
 
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