Amtrak riders: DEA improperly paid secretary nearly $900,000 for your confidential info

[unhappycamper]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/11/amtrak-riders-dea-improperly-paid-secretary-nearly-900000-for-your-confidential-info/



Amtrak riders: DEA improperly paid secretary nearly $900,000 for your confidential info
By Arturo Garcia
Monday, August 11, 2014 18:49 EDT

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has come under criticism for secretly paying an Amtrak employee more than $850,000 for train passenger information the agency could have obtained legally, the Associated Press reported.

Agency officials had allegedly been paying a woman identified only as a “secretary to a train and engine crew” $854,460 for the information since 1995. Amtrak Inspector General Tom Howard said in a report to the company that she was allowed to retire after Amtrak discovered what she had been doing, instead of being reprimanded.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) asked DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart in a letter sent on Monday for more information on the ongoing purchases, saying the discovery “raises some serious questions about the DEA’s practices and damages its credibility to cooperate with other law enforcement agencies.”

The information the DEA purchased from the secretary — which includes passengers’ identities, credit card numbers, emergency contacts and itineraries, among other details — was already available to the agency for free through its participation in a joint task force on drug-related offfenses with Amtrak’s internal police department.

[Demeter]

1. Nice work if you can get it

Should be in jail and paying restitution.

[Viva_Daddy]

2. Makes you wonder if the DEA is on drugs, doesn't it?