War on Drugs - DEA to absorb the BATFE?

[Tejas]

With the Fast-and-Furious fiasco by the ATF of ENCOURAGING the SMUGGLING of guns to Mexico and possibly Honduras exploding in scope, there are rumors afoot that the DEA might take control of what's left of the ATF after the guilty go to prison. Any thoughts on what this would entail?

[MyrnaLoy]

1. any source

for this bullshit post?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. While I have not seen anything that would support the OP, reorganization is a classic tactic

for the government to use after a major embarrassment.

[saras]

4. Any source for the namecalling or the bullshit statistics in your sig?

It's a common enough search that Google knows about it. I can find reports of a considered merger, including Congressional reports, going back for decades.

Pierre Thomas; Stephen Barr. "Plan Would Merge DEA, ATF and FBI; Draft Document Cites `Overlap' of Agencies." The Washington Post. The Washington Post Company. 1993. HighBeam Research. 17 Jul. 2011 <http://www.highbeam.com>.

Jim Abrams, "" The Seattle Times, Feb 2, 2000

OurCampaigns.com has a news article - unnamed former ATF employees and Paul Hemke of the Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence are named. ANd that's just sixty seconds on Google.

http://www.ourcampaigns.com/NewsDetail.html?NewsID=75802

officer.com has a discussion of an ATF/ICE merger, definitely not conclusive


so yes, there are rumors of such, and have been for decades.
So far, no one in power is suggesting actual changes. The DEA is beyond pissed at the ATF, but doesn't make the decisions. So any current sources for the rumor - who's discussing it, who isn't - would be helpful.

[MyrnaLoy]

6. here's your source

be careful what you ask for, you may learn something. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/us/16guns.html?_r=2&smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto

Fast and Furious was part of Project Gunrunner, a broad A.T.F. program aimed at stemming the flow of guns to criminal groups in Mexico. Since it began in 2006, Gunrunner has seized more than 10,000 firearms and led to the arrests of more than 800 suspects.

[Upton]

12. You left out this part..

In 2009, A.T.F.’s Phoenix office began Fast and Furious, in which agents monitored but did not disrupt the sale of guns from American stores to suspected “straw purchasers,” people who obtain guns for criminal organizations.

Fast and Furious is not necessarily synonymous with Gunrunner...

[MyrnaLoy]

13. yeah and

that led to more than 10,000 firearms seized and more than 800 arrests. Smells like success to me.

[Abq_Sarah]

14. And who gives a shit

If a few "brown" people died when they walked those guns over the border.

Right? :sarcasm:

[jimmyflint]

3. I think it's a great plan.

Fold the ATF into the DEA, then take their guns away and fold them into the peace corps and meals on wheels.

[Ragnarok]

5. More rumors without sources.

It won't happen anyhow. We need an agency to kill off-the-grid families in Idaho over tax stamps on short barreled shotguns, and to exterminate communes in Texas over tax stamps on fully auto AR and AK sears.

[jmowreader]

7. It might help, though...

if the off-the-grid families in Idaho and the communes in Texas didn't greet the revenue agents by SHOOTING AT THEM!!!

[jimmyflint]

8. Rural folks have a bad habit of shooting back when attacked.

Hell, pick any rural ranch,farm,house and start shooting at it. I bet the odds of people shooting back are pretty darn high.

[Ragnarok]

9. Maybe, though it would also help...

...if the ATF didn't shoot first (at dogs no less). The first casualty at Ruby was the Weaver's son who was SHOT IN THE BACK.

[Tejas]

11. Justify innocent children and pregnant women dying much?

Janet, is that you?

[spin]

10. There are now rumors that the people buying the weapons were

paid FBI informants.

Gun-smuggling cartel figures possibly were paid FBI informants
By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau

July 17, 2011

Reporting from Washington—
Congressional investigators probing the controversial "Fast and Furious" anti-gun-trafficking operation on the border with Mexico believe at least six Mexican drug cartel figures involved in gun smuggling also were paid FBI informants, officials said Saturday.

***snip***

In a letter to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, the investigators asked why U.S. taxpayers' money apparently was paid to Mexican cartel members who have terrorized the border region for years in their efforts to smuggle drugs into this country, and to ship U.S. firearms into Mexico.

"We have learned of the possible involvement of paid FBI informants in Operation Fast and Furious," wrote Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The two have been the leading congressional critics of the program.

"At least one individual who is allegedly an FBI informant might have been in communication with, and was perhaps even conspiring with, at least one suspect whom ATF was monitoring," they wrote.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cartel-guns-20110717,0,6972222.story