US suspends controversial asset-forfeiture program targeting airline travelers

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. deputy attorney general has suspended a controversial civil asset-forfeiture program by the Drug Enforcement Administration that targeted unsuspecting airline passengers and subjected them to potentially unlawful seizures of cash from their bags.

The Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, announced the suspension of the DEA’s program by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco in a new report released on Thursday that raised grave concerns about the program and questioned whether some of the searches were conducted legally.

“The DEA was not complying with its own policy on consensual encounters conducted at mass transportation facilities, resulting in personnel creating potentially significant operational and legal risks,” Horowitz wrote in a memo to Monaco and Anne Milgram, the DEA administrator.

Civil asset forfeiture has long been a controversial program that critics argue infringes on people’s constitutional rights against unlawful search and seizure.

It allows police to search and seize property from people who may be suspected of a crime, even if they are never charged. The proceeds from the seizure are typically split among the law enforcement agencies involved in the search, creating what some argue is a perverse financial incentive for federal, state and local police departments.

The property owner can recover the assets only if he or she can prove the seizure was not connected to any criminal activity, creating a legal burden that is costly and time-consuming.

Horowitz’s report on Thursday said that an ongoing investigation by his office uncovered a number of troubling revelations.

In one such example, a DEA office tapped an airline employee as a confidential source who tipped off agents any time a passenger purchased a plane ticket within 48 hours of departure.

Agents would use that last-minute purchase as a justification to then approach those passengers and try to get the passengers to agree to let them search their bags.

In cases where the agents searched and seized cash, the confidential source received a cut of the proceeds from the seizure, the report said.

One such search was caught on video by a passenger, and later made public by the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit devoted to defending people’s constitutional rights.

In the video, a DEA agent can be seen demanding to search the bag of a passenger identified only as “David C,” who became ill while on a business trip and was forced to re-book his flight from Cincinnati, Ohio, to New York to a new time at the last minute.

“Where’s your bag at?” a DEA agent can be seen asking him on camera. “I’m the DEA. I’m the government.”

In 2020, during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term in office, the Institute for Justice filed a class action against the DEA and the Transportation Security Administration, saying the agencies were unlawfully seizing cash from passengers without probable cause.

That case is still pending. The DEA and the TSA had no immediate comment on Thursday.

Dan Alban, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice and the lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the case, said he believes the report “confirms many of the allegations” in the lawsuit.

While he said the suspension of the program is a welcome development, he cautioned that without a permanent legal change, the directive by Deputy Attorney General Monaco could be rescinded.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington; Additional reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Matthew Lewis)

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