Out Of Control Cops: Two Reports You May Have Missed

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice's Inspector General released two reports that, in the pre-Trump era, would've sparked outrage and at least public Congressional hearings. Like so many other stories of rights abuses, these two will likely be casualties of the myopic 2024 election cycle madness.

Institutional, bureaucracy-driven constitutional or international law rights violations are the day-to-day threat most people are at risk of facing. Two Department of Justice Inspector General (DoJ IG) reports issued on October 1, 2024, illustrate the phenomenon.

The Feds "Special Deputation Authority": FISA Abuse Edition

One of the scarier powers the Attorney General of the United States has at his or her disposal is the ability to deputize state or local law enforcement officers to act as federal agents. The most recent DoJ IG report to look at how this authority has been used, or in this case, misused, was released on October 1 and dealt with the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS).

And what did the DoJ IG find wrong with how the USMS handled such "special deputations"? Allowing people without the training or inherent authority to use surveillance powers of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

I think it necessary to quote the key DoJ IG finding in full (pp. 6-7 of the report):

We also found that the USMS granted special deputations for another DOJ component that specified that the deputation was “valid while executing [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)] applications and to appear in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.” Because FISA matters are not included within Title 18 authority, we believe these requests should have been elevated to ODAG due to the sensitive nature of the requests and the policy concerns they present. When we spoke with ODAG personnel, they stated that they would have expected the USMS to provide ODAG with such FISA-related requests, yet the USMS could not provide evidence that this occurred. USMS officials were unable to provide details for how or why the USMS would approve deputations that involve authority outside of Title 18 and stated that the individuals who approved these deputations were no longer in SDP. The deputations that referenced FISA were active for various points of time between July 2018 to February 2024 and not renewed.

The DoJ IG did not explain whether these likely unlawful FISA applications resulted in surveillance of U.S. Persons, which is something that the House and Senate Judiciary Committees should be all over. The entire DoJ IG report on the USMS "special deputation" mess is well worth the read.

Nothing To See Here: The DEA and Foreign Partner Gross Human Rights Violations

Another DoJ IG action on October 1 was the release of what's known as a "Management Advisory Memorandum"--a kind of urgent, heads-up warning to the leadership of a particular DoJ law enforcement component that they have a burgeoning scandal on their hands. In this case, it was the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) failing to report gross human rights violations (GHRV) episodes by foreign law enforcement agencies (LEAs) with whom the DEA partnered. The episodes in the report appear to have involved LEAs in Central or South America. Some excerpts from the report (p. 3):

Episode 1:

The foreign law enforcement officer’s admissions included hitting, kicking, and beating detained suspects with a rifle and witnessing other foreign law enforcement officers torturing suspects by placing plastic bags over their heads to suffocate them and shocking them with tasers until the suspects passed out or vomited. Based on the admissions made, the foreign law enforcement officer was not allowed to participate on the DEA’s VU (vetting unit)

Episode 2:

During the examinations, the individuals made admissions to water boarding and suffocating arrestees by placing plastic bags over their heads to obtain information, kicking suspects in custody, and beating suspects with batons while they were held at the police station. Based on their admissions, the foreign law enforcement officers were not allowed to participate on the DEA’s VU.

Episode 3:

During the examination, the foreign law enforcement officer admitted to beating a detained suspect handcuffed to a chair to obtain information while executing a search warrant with the SIU [Sensitive Investigations Unit]. The day after the polygraph examination, the DEA notified the SIU Commander about the admissions and the individual was removed from the DEA’s SIU. However, we determined that the DEA did not make notification of the incident to officials at the State Department and U.S. Embassy until October 6, 2023, 51 days later.

The good news: when DEA figured out they were working with torturers, they got rid of them. The bad news: the DEA let the torturers in the door in the first place.

Both of these episodes speak to major rule-of-law organizational culture problems that should be the focus of full-blown Congressional investigations sooner rather than later.

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