DEA protecting us from matchbooks

[cantdog]

The DEA seems to be employed in a campaign against Sterno and matchbooks, now. The Georgia police seem to think that the real point should be to campaign against brown people who sell Sterno and matchbooks.

No shit.

from ACLU online:

A major police investigation into methamphetamine production unlawfully targeted South Asian convenience store owners and clerks based on race and national origin, according to evidence unveiled last week by the ACLU. The ACLU asked a federal court to dismiss all remaining charges related to the controversial investigation in northwest Georgia, dubbed "Operation Meth Merchant."

According to law enforcement's own records as well as testimony from former investigators and informants involved in Operation Meth Merchant, the investigation intentionally targeted South Asians without any evidence of wrongdoing, while ignoring known white suspects.

Undertaken by local and state police in partnership with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Operation Meth Merchant was purportedly aimed at convenience store owners and clerks selling legal household products, such as cold medicine, cooking fuel and matchbooks, which police claimed they knew would be used to make the illegal drug methamphetamine.

By the time Operation Meth Merchant was completed, almost 20 percent of the South-Asian-owned stores in the area were indicted, while only 0.2 percent of stores owned by whites or other ethnic groups were similarly accused. All in all, South-Asian-owned stores were nearly 100 times more likely to be targeted.

The charges arising from the investigation relied on the assumption that the South Asian store owners and clerks, most with limited English proficiency, understood slang terms used by police-directed informants during transactions, such as "cook," to mean that the products sold would be used to make methamphetamine.

"They only sent me to Indian stores…they wanted me to say things like ‘I need it to go cook' or ‘Hurry up, I've got to get home and finish a cook'," said an undercover informant in a sworn statement attached to the ACLU's legal papers. "The officers told me that the Indians' English wasn't good, and they wouldn't say a lot so it was important for me to make these kinds of statements."

 

[cantdog]

Easy to see why-- those people always seemed a little shifty.

The biggest drawback to a police state is that the police are such twits.

 

[Liar]

The biggest drawback to a police state is that the police are such twits.

Now, that's quotable.

 

[cloudy]

Ah, our fine Southern police force in action.

 

[Guest]

Ah, our fine Southern police force in action.

Just brings a tear to the eye, doesn't it, Cloudy?

 

[Guest]

Twits. My new favorite word.

I'd also like to know why cant seems so chipper this morning.

I have it on good authority that he was up pretty late . . .

 

[cantdog]

I was up late getting re-chippered, of course.

It's fine to roll the eyes at, this sort of shenanigan, but it's a big deal. A 'major' police operation, the thing says. Umpty undercover dudes, co-ordination across a region, between departments, and co-ordination with the Federal DEA dudes, besides. Funding for it has to have been substantial.

And all to combat the Menace of the Matchbooks! Bureaucrats all through state and federal and town government had to authorize and approve of these monies and this manpower being employed for this asinine purpose.

Clerks! Convenience store clerks! There is Sterno and there are matchbooks on the shelves, in the store's inventory. The clerk actually allows the customer to buy some. And this is a crime?

Plus it's a medium-big deal for the poor bastards who get arrested and charged in the zero tolerance war on matchbooks. Being arrested costs.

Clearly the Georgia people didn't see the sterno and matchbooks as a problem, though. Never let it be implied that rednecks are not shrewd. They didn't buy the DEA line, any more than I do. So they perverted it right away into yet another assault on brown people, something they could get behind.

 

[cantdog]

double post--

 

[Guest]

double post--

It was the re-chippering that did it.

 

[Boxlicker101]

That is really asinine. They can'r possibly get a conviction if the suspect fights it. A guy comes into the store and says he wants to buy Sterno for cooking. Well, duh, that's what it is always used for - for cooking.

And what's up with the matchbooks and cough medicine. Two very normal products that anybody would be liable to need.

 

[FallingToFly]

That is really asinine. They can'r possibly get a conviction if the suspect fights it. A guy comes into the store and says he wants to buy Sterno for cooking. Well, duh, that's what it is always used for - for cooking.

And what's up with the matchbooks and cough medicine. Two very normal products that anybody would be liable to need.

If I remember correctly: they use sulphur from the matches and the pseudophedrin (sp?) from the cough medicine in the process of cooking up meth. That's why they took all of the good cough/cold/allergy medicines off the shelf and gave us this crap that they say is just as good, but doesn't do... *coughs politely* much of anything.

 

[SeaCat]

LOLOLOLOL

Yet another case of our government agencies running amok.

Yep, they use the Pseudophedrine, or at least part of it when making Meth. Unfortunately those who have been making the laws forgot their high school chemistry and just don't realise just how much of this they can easily extract from something like Claritine D. What makes it even worse is the drug manufacturers are still running across the border and picking it up by the barrel in places like Mexico.

In other words it is a smoke screen by several groups. One of which is the government agencies who are involved in our well thought out and winnable war on drugs. (The other is the drug manufacturors themselves who are now losing money because these drugs are now over the counter and can be made and sold by other companies.)

Cat