FOIAed DEA Disciplinary Action Log Shows Very Little Discipline, Lots Of Inaction

from the cleaning-the-agency-up,-one-cautionary-letter-at-a-time dept

The DEA, like countless other law enforcement agencies across the nation, doesn't take employee misconduct too seriously. Perhaps upper management feels that drug warring is a tough, dangerous job and that any violations of policies/state/federal laws or other impropriety should be met with little more than a short, stern conversation and promises from agents that it won't happen again.

Brad Heath and Meghan Hoyer of USA Today have secured a log of DEA disciplinary actions via a FOIA request. What it shows is a lot of wrongdoing but very little discipline and/or action.

Lawmakers expressed dismay this year that the drug agency had not fired agents who investigators found attended “sex parties” with prostitutes paid with drug cartel money while they were on assignment in Colombia. The Justice Department also opened an inquiry into whether the DEA is able to adequately detect and punish wrongdoing by its agents.

Records from the DEA’s disciplinary files show that was hardly the only instance in which the DEA opted not to fire employees despite apparently serious misconduct.

Of the 50 employees the DEA's Board of Professional Conduct recommended be fired following misconduct investigations opened since 2010, only 13 were actually terminated, the records show. And the drug agency was forced to take some of them back after a federal appeals board intervened.

The DEA's history is littered with dirty deeds: warrantless surveillance, impersonation of medical professionals to gain access to patient records, a confidential informant program that runs with almost no oversight, concerted efforts to block internal investigations, etc. The document obtained by Heath shows its agents are perfectly capable of doing the wrong thing individually as well. And in most cases, they'll receive little more than the agency's lowest level of discipline (letters of caution) as punishment.

Recommendations for punishment are handed down by the DEA's Board of Professional Conduct. Its suggestions for suitable discipline are often ignored.













One of the most horrifying recent incidents of severe misconduct by DEA employees was met with the lightest of punishments.

This spring, the Justice Department said it had “serious concerns” about the discipline meted out to six agents who left a handcuffed college student in a holding cell for five days with no food or water. Two of the agents received brief suspensions; four others were given letters of reprimand.

The DEA, of course, has excuses for its unwillingness to mete out appropriate punishments for wrongdoing.

DEA spokesman Joseph Moses said that often happens because it's not until after the Board of Professional Conduct makes its recommendations that employees get to fully present their side of the story. That can prompt human resources officials ultimately to opt for lighter punishment.

And this, from former DEA internal affairs investigator Scott Ando, who apparently believes agent misconduct should be graded on a very generous curve.

"DEA agents should be held to a high standard, but not an unrealistically high standard."

From what's in this document, it appears agents aren't being held to any standard at all. Distribution of drugs and a refusal to cooperate with the resulting internal investigation netted one agent a two-week suspension. Another's DWI arrest resulted in two days without pay. Falsification of records and theft of government funds? Five-day suspension. Failed random drug test? Also a five-day suspension.

That's not a high standard. That doesn't even meet the standards of the private sector. The last one listed is particularly odious because in most companies, a failed drug test results in immediate termination. At the DEA -- home of the "Drugs Are Bad" brigade -- a failed drug test is one workweek off without pay.

And for those who like their bad news bundled with worse news, Scott Ando -- he of the "high but not too high standard" now heads up Chicago's Independent Police Review Authority, which investigates police misconduct complaints. Presumably, Chicago cops will be held to Ando's high expectations: a standard where all the slack is pre-cut and "Of A Doubt" is listed prominently under "Employee Benefits."

Filed Under: dea, discipline, foia, misconduct

Report On TSA Misconduct Finds 1 In 16 Employees Was Investigated Last Year

from the and-that's-just-the-beginning-of-the-bad-news dept

The TSA's security theater is now officially a substandard off-Broadway production. The Government Accountability Office has released a damning report* on the TSA's handling of employee misconduct. Not that the TSA doesn't have its hands full simply writing up the paperwork on ill-behaved employees. From 2010-2012, over 9,600 cases of employee misconduct were reported, with 3,408 of those coming in 2012, an increase of over 700 cases from the previous year.

* Honestly, the GAO doesn't seem to release any other kind of report than "damning." At this point, "all systems nominal" would be the government equivalent of receiving a third Michelin star.

A large percentage of these cases were of the banal, could-happen-at-any-workplace variety.

As with many jobs, the largest group of misconduct offenses involved “Attendance and Leave” issues — “Unexcused or excessive absences or tardiness, absence without leave, failure to follow leave procedures.” This accounted for nearly 1/3 of all investigations between 2010 and 2012.

The more shocking statistic is the number of cases related to the specifics of the job -- screening and security. 1,936 cases -- 20% of the total -- were violations like failing to follow standard operating procedures, bypassing security or sleeping on the job. Another 16% (1,548 cases) weren't any better -- insubordination, ignoring policies and disrespectful conduct.

Remember, these employees are the last line of defense between terrorists and planes, at least according to the narrative that's presented when infants and elementary school kids being detained and invasively searched. (Or when iPads go missing.) The TSA likes to brag about the weapons it's caught, but this data indicates there's still a good chance many weapons are making it through.

Then there's this:

4% -- 426 cases -- fell under this heading: "Inattention to duty resulting in a loss of property or life, careless inspection."

Adding it all up: nearly 40% of the misconduct cases fall under headings that could very conceivably undercut what little actual "security" the dog-and-pony-and-naked-scan show provides. As with any large government agency, most cases were handled with disciplinary triplicate (Letter of Reprimand). Hopefully, those were limited to non-security-breaching first offenses. But temper that hope with this dash of reality -- a mere 17% of violations resulted in termination.

Even these numbers fail to tell the whole story. Things could actually be worse than these stats make it appear. The GAO found the agency's recordkeeping skills to be as lax as its discipline.

Additionally, TSA is criticized for its failure to keep full documentation of misconduct cases, in spite of having a database in which all that info should be kept. GAO blames TSA leadership, which has not issued guidance requiring the recording of all misconduct investigation outcomes.

This brings to light the scariest deficiency of the TSA’s investigation and adjudication process — It lacks “procedures to follow up on completed misconduct investigations to ensure that the agency has identified cases requiring adjudication,” writes GAO.

I realize that private sector businesses usually only fire employees for egregious wrongdoing and that most infractions are "written up" rather than pink slipped. And I realize there are several companies who take a hands-off approach to employee discipline, allowing lousy staffers to stay employed long after they've outlived their usefulness.

But the TSA is no ordinary business. It's stated purpose is to ensure the safety of millions of travelers. It should hold itself to a much higher standard than companies and agencies not charged with protecting the lives of others. Instead, the agency slaps wrists, hands out suspensions and defers any charges from the court of public opinion to the passive-aggressive statements and quasi-apologies of Blogger Bob.

The government wants us to believe in the power of its security theater but the agency's failure to effectively police its own staff undercuts its own narrative.

Filed Under: abuse, misconduct, security, security theater, tsa

DOJ 'Streisands' Its Own Prosecutor By Requesting His Name Be Removed From An Unflattering Court Opinion

from the coverup:-ur-doing-it-wrong dept

No matter how many Streisands get hoisted by their internet-aided petard, there's always another person or entity who thinks he/she/it can somehow bury unflattering information/photos/Facebook status updates.

In what is the latest (but certainly not the last) example of how wielding a bigass shovel only makes people more aware of your desperate burial attempts, a prosecutor for the Department of Justice was called out by name in a judicial bench slap for telling a "half-truth" in the courtroom:

Albert was criticized by the court for telling "a half-truth" during the trial - specifically, misrepresenting testimony from a prior proceeding while cross-examining the defendant at trial.

This misrepresentation resulted in a mistrial. The question presented on appeal was whether the prohibition on double jeopardy prohibited a retrial (a question that the panel decided in the government's favor).

Well, the DOJ wasn't too pleased with having their boy (Jerry Albert) being called out in the court's opinion and requested his name be replaced with the more innocuous this-could-be-anybody term "the prosecutor."

[U]pon initial release of this opinion, the government filed a motion requesting that we remove Albert's name and replace it with references to "the prosecutor." The motion contended that naming Albert publicly is inappropriate given that we do not yet know the outcome of any potential investigations or disciplinary proceedings.

Much like jabbing at a alligator with a stick, this only served to make the presiding Judge righteously pissed. Judge Carlos Bea went "all in" on his amended opinion, smacking around the DOJ for its presumptuousness:

The mistake in judgment does not lie with AUSA Albert alone. We are also troubled by the government's continuing failure to acknowledge and take responsibility for Albert's error.

The Department of Justice has an obligation to its lawyers and to the public to prevent prosecutorial misconduct. Prosecutors, as servants of the law, are subject to constraints and responsibilities that do not apply to other lawyers; they must serve truth and justice first. Their job is not just to win, but to win fairly, staying within the rules. That did not happen here, and the district court swiftly and correctly declared a mistrial when Albert's misquotation was revealed.

Now, not only is Jerry Albert's name tied to such bad-for-business terms like "mistrial," "misconduct" and "misrepresentation," but by simply pressing this point, the Department of Justice turned a mere footnote of interest only to those directly involved in the trial into a rapidly expanding Google bomb that links the DOJ with these same bad-for-business terms, along with other unflattering terms like "coverup" and "benchslap."

And Judge Bea wasn't done yet, adding this crucial (and damning) paragraph to the benchslap/Streisandstorm:

We declined to adopt the government's suggestion and denied its motion. We have noticed that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona regularly makes public the names of prosecutors who do good work and win important victories. E.g., Press Release, U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Arizona, "Northern Arizona Man Sentenced to Federal Prison for Arson," (January 31, 2012).... If federal prosecutors receive public credit for their good works - as they should - they should not be able to hide behind the shield of anonymity when they make serious mistakes.

Hell. Yes. Government representatives are always so quick to grab credit for anything tangentially related to their work, but good lord, they still seem to think that screwing up should somehow be rewarded with swift coverups and plausible deniability.

Filed Under: carlos bea, doj, jerry albert, misconduct, streisand effect, us attorney

Rambus Loses Another Patent Ruling For Misconduct

from the and-so-it-goes dept

Rambus has had a ton of up and downs with its strategy of gathering patents, making sure industry chip standards are built around its patents and then demanding everyone pay up huge fees. There's been a back and forth over the questions concerning its questionable activities, but it had actually won the last few rounds. But, you can't keep reality down too long. Yet another judge has smacked down Rambus calling the company's actions "obstructive at best, misleading at worst," and saying that its patents were unenforceable. Rambus, of course, will appeal, so this is far from over.

Filed Under: misconduct, patents
Companies: micron, rambus