http://www.forfeituresupport.com/

Forfeiture Support Associates (FSA) brings together two proven service providers—MPRI, an L-3 Communications Company, and AECOM Government Services (AECOM-GSI). FSA’s management approach leverages the resources and experience of MPRI and AECOM-GSI for a single purpose—continuous high-quality service delivery in a variety of labor catergories. Our core business focus is in providing key staffing support for Department of Justice (DOJ) agencies and offices, other Federal Law Enforcement prosecutorial venues, and the Federal Law Enforcement community in general. Our largest customers include the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), United States Marshals Service (USMS), Executive Office of the United States Attorney (EOUSA), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).

Business Division 1 – DOJ Asset Forfeiture Support

FSA’s primary business is generated from our Department of Justice (DOJ) Asset Forfeiture contract. This long-term contract provides the Federal Law Enforcement community with a wide variety of support, in 30+ labor categories. This contract vehicle has been in existence for decades and is administered by the Asset Forfeiture Management Staff (AFMS) at DOJ. Currently the contract provides nearly 1500 ordered positions in over 450 Federal Law Enforcement office locations throughout the United States, Puerto Rico and Guam. Click here for more information

Business Division 2 – GSA Schedule Support

FSA is currently in the process of becoming a GSA schedules contractor. Within the very near future FSA will be able to offer our Government customers the alternative of ordering our services directly from one of several GSA schedules.

Click here for more information

Business Division 3 – Commercial Support Contracts

FSA’s main business focus is in providing high quality labor support services to the Federal Law Enforcement community, or to other entities/companies that also provide like services. The FSA Commercial Services Division manages and supports all FSA business contract activities with US commercial companies.

Click here for more information

I wonder what their slogan is. “Helping the government steal your shit.”? “The paper pushers making sure your things end up in the forfeiture’s hands.”? Or something directed toward their clients? “Making sure they can’t get it back!” “Who wants a new gold watch?”

I wonder who’s buddy owns this company or it’s an ex DEA/FBI agent.

Next step full prohibition… because “we all pay for your unhealthiness.”

http://www.nytimes.com/…

Hoping to curb the increase in the number of young people who smoke small, inexpensive cigars, Baltimore plans to bar shops from the common practice of breaking open packages to sell them individually.

Baltimore would be the first city to impose such a regulation, said Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, the city’s health commissioner.

The city has put the proposal out for public comment until July 1 and expects to impose the ban, possibly with revisions, soon after, Dr. Sharfstein said. Under the city code, the commissioner has the power to regulate health hazards without legislation.

A ban on selling tobacco products to minors has had limited effect, Dr. Sharfstein said, and studies have shown that higher prices have a larger deterrent effect on youth smoking.

“This isn’t going to work but we’ll do it anyway.”

It’s frightening that the health commissioner has so much power.

This is a very long (5 day) weekend for me. So I’m trying to get a lot of work done. One job I’m working on involves straightening out a side wall on a garage a few blocks from my house. In return for working on the place, I get to rent it. Last summer I put a roof on it, this spring I’m replacing the damaged sill plate and straightening the wall.

Anyway I’m at the most critical point of the operation. I’ve got the entire corner of the garage supported by an eight foot 4×4 resting on the 2 inch square top of a bottle jack. Precarious is an understatement for this situation. Just as I go to slide the wall into place on the new sill plate two polish guys come down the road. The one, lets call him Drunk, asks me in broken english if his friend can sit in the garage and drink his beer. He says they are afraid of cops. “Sure”, I respond, “But it’s dangerous”. The one very drunk guy, lets call him Drunker, goes into the deathtrap garage and starts drinking his beer. The other guy looks at me uncomfortably and decides to start talking about… wait for it…. POLITICS! Of all the subjects. Anyway here is a breif idea of what went on:

Civil Liberties

Drunk: A friend of mine get $800 ticket for drinking beer on street. Stupid.

Drunker: mother <expletive> cops

Me: That is pretty stupid. Can you drink beer on the street in Poland.

Drunk: Yes, if you speak polish.

Drunk: My friend also get ticket for make pee on street.

Me: Bummer

Drunk: It stupid. You not have to go in an hour, you have to go now.

Me: I don’t think it’s a big issue if you do it behind a garage or something. Dogs do it all the time.

Drunker: <expletive> <expletive>

The upcoming election

Drunk: Who will be president of US?

Me: I think Obama. I certainly don’t think it will be McCain.

Drunk: But Obama is a… <n-word>

Me: People like him.

Drunk: But he’ll make us pay for other <n-word>s.

Me: I think either democrat will make us pay for other people.

Drunker: <expletive> democrats, crazy.

Drunk: Hillary would be good because of experience. Also economy good during Bill. All I care about is economy. You go to store and you see economy not good, even though CNN say different.

Me. I don’t think the economy is so hot.

Drunk: McCain no good, he from war. Crazy.

War

Drunk: I work for a guy from vietnam war. He say you have to do drugs to go in bush. He crazy

Drunker: <expletive> crazy

Me: War sucks.

Drunk: You need cocaine to fight war. It make you crazy

So there you have it. Two random polish guys talking about politics. Drunk launched into a diatribe about collectivism, basically him repeating that he only wants to pay for his cigarettes and his beer, but it was hard to make out a lot of what he said. It should be noted that when these guys dropped the n-bomb, they did so as if it was any other word. I think it’s the only way they know of for referring to black people.

http://www.fortmilltimes.com/…

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is dumping the “Always Think Forfeiture” motto it’s used for more than a decade to help combat crime.

U.S. Rep. Bill Sali, R-Idaho, and others complained that multipurpose tools engraved with the slogan could be seen as encouragement to seize property, including guns, of law-abiding citizens.

The pocket tools were to be given to federal, state and local law-enforcement agents participating in the agency’s asset forfeiture training programs, as a reminder of one way to disrupt or dismantle criminal organizations.

None of the engraved tools, stored in the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., have so far been distributed. And now they won’t be, at least until the engravings have been removed.

The agency will no longer use the slogan on materials given out during its training programs, said Robert Browning, chief of ATF public affairs in Washington, D.C., adding it was never intended to undermine lawful gun rights.

Sali had said that the ATF “through its engraved motto, sends a message that these rights are secondary to the government’s apparent goal to ‘always’ seek forfeit of private property.”

The tools also included the words “ATF - Asset Forfeiture.”

Sali’s outrage over the customized pocket tools is just the latest incident in which the ATF has been in the crosshairs of Idaho’s gun-rights lawmakers. U.S. Sens. Larry Craig and Mike Crapo placed separate holds on President Bush’s 2007 nomination of federal prosecutor Michael Sullivan to lead the agency, saying the ATF was being too tough with gun dealers, including a Twin Falls shop that was stripped of its license.

The ATF had revoked the gun dealer license at Red’s Trading Post in Twin Falls after record-keeping violations. A U.S. District Court judge then stayed sanctions after finding the agency had record-keeping problems of its own. That case is ongoing. Sullivan still hasn’t been confirmed to lead the ATF.

By law, the agency can seize firearms, ammunition, explosives, alcohol, tobacco, money and certain real property if such items are involved in breaking the law. Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies rely on asset forfeiture to break up criminal activity, on the contention some groups would continue to operate if the only thing officers could do was lock some leaders in prison.

ATF has used the “Always Think Forfeiture” slogan for more than a decade on materials for training classes it conducts across the United States to increase awareness for officers about forfeiture laws. This is the first time a complaint has been lodged, the agency said.

“We’ve had it brought to our attention from several different congressional members,” Browning said. “In hindsight, we certainly would not have used this slogan if we knew that it would cause so much concern among the public. Nothing in this program is intended to deprive the rights of law-abiding gun owners.”

Sali, who said a constituent brought the engraved tools to his attention, said he’s drafting legislation to prevent the agency from using similar slogans in future training campaigns.

“I’d hate to put a time on it,” Sali spokesman Wayne Hoffman said of the proposed bill. “It’s something we just started. It’s one of the congressman’s priorities.”

It’s a nice gesture but it’s not like they will stop using asset forfeiture just because they stop using the slogan. These people are above the law and will continue to steal from people as they desire.

Like how they make it out to be that primarily it’s gun owners effected by this? That means a good portion of the public who are anti-gun won’t pick up on the seriousness of this “tool.” Though if we throw in this story I’d bet those same people would get a bit upset but then the anti-immigrant, pro drug war crowd wouldn’t care.

http://arstechnica.com/…

The US last week released its 2007 wiretapping stats, and they show that such surveillance is up a full 20 percent over the year before. The number of non-secret wiretaps is higher than it has ever been in the last decade, and not a single application was denied in all of 2007. If you’re concerned about privacy, though, the report makes clear that you’re statistically unlikely to be targeted unless you use a cell phone to run drugs. Murder might also earn you a wiretap, but apart from that, the authorities don’t seem to use wiretaps in all but unusual cases.

2,208 wiretaps were requested last year, up from 1,839 the year before, and the vast majority of them were run by state authorities; only 457 wiretaps were executed by the feds. No applications for wiretap were denied, but this is hardly uncommon. Since 1997, some 15,000 wiretaps have been made, but only four applications were rejected in that entire time.

When we look at the prevalence of wiretaps, two trends stand out. One is that taps are almost exclusively used on “portable devices,” including digital pagers and portable phones. In fact, 94 percent of all taps authorized last year were for such devices. The second trend is that most wiretaps are used in narcotics cases. 81 percent of all taps were for drug-related crime, with murder and assault coming in a distant second (6 percent).

Wiretaps apparently have something in common with shopping at bulk retailers; when you buy more items at once, the price goes down. The cost per intercept has been dropping since 2003, when it peaked at $62,164. In 2007, that number had fallen to $48,477 per investigation. While that still sounds pricey, the report notes that drug intercepts have often been used to make big busts. One set of 2007 wiretaps in Morris County, New Jersey led to the arrest of 105 people; another, in New York, scooped up 51 people, 48 of whom were later convicted. Another 57-day wiretap in California led to the seizure of 40 pounds of methamphetamine, four kilograms of cocaine, and $700,000 in cash.Of course, those are just regular warrants. The Justice Department also released information this week on secret warrants issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. These numbers are also rising, and have been going up since 2001; the increase is a dramatic one. In 2001, the Court approved only 1,012 applications, but approved 2,370 last year.

I’m glad the government is getting a better rate at which to waste our money on rights infringement. Is it likely that these larger drug busts got guys who were actually harming people? Yes, but those people should be arrested for that harm and not providing a drug to another individual in a completely consensual act. This war on drugs is a war on the public. It’s a negative sum game. A drug addiction is a personal problem, a family problem, a community problem. It’s a medical problem. It should be treated as such. In the least I’d like to see some consistency. Alcohol and tobacco are the precursor to far more harm then marijuana or LSD.

And as for the privacy invasion. Wasn’t all this FISA enhancement requested for terrorism? Why are we catching NY governors paying for sex and people selling goods?