A potentially explosive scandal that no one's talking about...

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

This story may have been burried by the news of Bin Laden's death but in my opinion it still deserves attention.

In December of 2010 US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in a shoot out with Mexican Drug smugglers. The rifle used to kill him was registered to the US Bureau of Alcohal Tabocco and Firearms (ATF).

This was the first piece of physical evidence to support a nasty rumor that had been circulating for the last 6 months. Namely that the Pheonix Arizona Branch of the ATF was corrupt and actively aiding Mexican Drug Cartels. The ATF defended the actions of it's agents as being essential to the undercover infiltration (and supposed dismantling) of local smuggling rings.

I posted about this when the story first broke but things have gotten a lot more interesting in the last few days.

Since 2008 the escalating violence along the border has been used by the ATF to justify expanding it's budget and regulatory powers. Now it seems that a large portion of those guns did not come from US Gun-Shows or Gun-Dealers but from the US Government Itself. The Mexican Government is understandably pissed, and the National Rifle Association (NRA) is calling for the US Attorney General's Resignation. Further more, a Congressional ivestigation seems to have found evidence that the arming of Mexican Drug-runners was carried out with knowledge and approval of top officials in the Obama Administration.

Even discounting my posiition on the 2nd Ammendment I feel that this is a big deal as it calls the legitimacy of the whole US Department of Justice into question. The surest way to undermine law and order is to have one set of rules for the ruling class and another for the "proles". After all, if Goverment officials can openly participate in criminal enterprises why not common citizens?

CBS News covers the story here, and here.

Further reading

Edit:
ATF source confirms walking guns into mexico to pad statistics

Comments

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't surprise me if the ATF was corrupt, or any other enforcement agency for that matter.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Lots of money to be made in gun sales.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I must admit that in this particular case the DoJ's behavior is absolutely indefensible. At some point this ends up looking like the US equivalent to the Opium Wars. And the absolute last thing the USA needs is to be involved in another Mexican Civil War. >.<

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

There's part of me that can't help feeling that whacking Bin Laden is an attempt at "Wagging the dog". This situation has the potential to blow up in our faces spectacularly, and yet the official position of the DOJ and Obama Administration seems to be "Move along, nothing to see here".

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I'd agree with that except that this was already happening when Bush was President. After around 3 years of this without comment wagging the dog is not really necessary to smokescreen people.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

True, but it didn't hit the news-media until a few days ago so no smoke screen was needed.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Except you made a previous post about it some time ago, so it's one of those stories people have known about for a while to a deafening silence. Which is part of the problem with the USA in general at present, some of the worst excesses of both Administrations *are* known but nobody cares. Apathy for this very reason is much worse than malice.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Good point.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

I also linked to that prior post in the OP.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I noticed that, hence my comment. ;P I do think that one of the real problems with halting authoritarian tendencies on the part of government is not that it might suppress resistance but that people would have an attitude of "who cares, it's fucking drug dealers" as opposed to realizing "something is rotten in Denmark."

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

First they came for the Drug Dealers, and I did not speak out because I was not a Drug Dealer.

Then they came for the...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The thing with that is that there does need to be regulation of those substances, but there is a deep and profound differences between sensible regulation and this kind of thing, which is simultaneously criminal and the ability to get away with it indicating there are some aspects of statism nobody complains about which left to fester on their own are very, very troubling ones.

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

It shows how easy it is for even democracies to abuse their power in this way. Omnissiah help us if someone who knows how to build a maintain a dictatorship comes to power in the U.S.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

What makes it worse is that every other system structured like the USA's has already ended in dictatorship at some point. So far the USA's has not. No telling how long that would remain so.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

I was trying to to find the article, but I had seen and commented on this probably 6-8 months ago. I don't think that the timing here is suspect, it's just that it's only now that the news is getting involved.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Par for the course.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

There's part of me that can't help feeling that whacking Bin Laden is an attempt at "Wagging the dog"

Seriously? You don't think Bin Laden may have earned it? You don't think he should have been whacked? You don't think he was really whacked? I'm missing something.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

It doesn't prove anything in relation to the "nasty rumour" that the "ATF was corrupt and actively aiding Mexican Drug Cartels".

The articles all say very clearly that the accusation is that the ATF were PASSIVELY allowing guns to get to them, presumably as part of the known operations in effect designed to prove that licensed U.S. gun dealers were selling to the Mexican cartels.

Which has been an accusation all along from gun control advocates.

I'm not surprised the NRA is pissed about that.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Ah, but if you read amny of the links part of the issue is that many of those liscensed dealers had infact reported suspicious activity and refused to sell only to be told by ATF Agents to allow the sales to go through anyway.

Which of course raises the question of where is the line between "gathering evidence" and "accomplice"?.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Presumably the line is when it is done to further an investigation, rather than for profit.

I find it difficult to accept the conjecture that anyone at the ATF directly profited from this operation, or were motivated sufficiently by potential ATF budget increases.

This is opposed to attempting to further investigations which we know for a fact were taking place and could reasonably justify *something* along the lines of what is occuring. I'd agree it looks like magnitude of the operation has exceeded reasonableness, but I wouldn't say that it is any way clear or sensible to say this was due deliberate corrupt behaviour (i.e. personal gain), but an unseemly overeagerness to gather evidence with disregard for consequences.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Well, that and the fact that all sting operations look hinky just by their very nature. And the tried and true practice of letting little fish slide in favor of getting bigger fish.

The problem is when to pull up the line. Some operations keep looking for that bigger fish, and it never ends, and soon the operation becomes its own illegal activity.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Personally I would call having ATF agents bypass thier own safe-guards and escort smugglers through customs "actively aiding".

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

The chutzpah is that they were using the supposed high traffic volume that they helped to create as reason to have more gun control.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

Simple solution: legalize drugs.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately there's a lot of money and political capitol tied up in prolonging the problem.

[awful-jackass.livejournal.com]

Not exactly simple, but that is the long term solution.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Tax and Treat.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

There are two stories here, one appears to be a fairly standard intel/covert ops program to find out where guns are ending up via their serial numbers. The second one is that part of the Mexican government is corrupt; they sell guns legally sold to their government on the black market.

Then there is the "ATF source confirms walking guns into mexico to pad statistics" which is strictly conjecture, followed by the whacky conclusion that this effort is being done to justify the ATF budget.

As to law-breaking. Intelligence gathering, covert ops and military actions are all law-breaking, so yes, the government can do that, and does it all the time.

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

Always remember that the U.S. government is the biggest arms dealer in the world.

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

I feel that this is a big deal as it calls the legitimacy of the whole US Department of Justice into question

It's simple, really. They aren't trying to track the legal gun dealers. They are trying to track and build a case against the straw buyers and gun runners

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

This will sound like a stupid question but please bear with me...

Why is the ATF trying to track and build a case against the straw buyers and gun runners?

If the purpose is to prevent further smuggling, ordering dealers to ignore failed background checks, and preventing agents from arresting straw-purchasers would seem to be the exact opposite of "law enforcement".

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/03/eveningnews/main20039031.shtml

Likewise if it was a just a standard sting operation, why try to hide it from the congressional investigation?

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

ordering dealers to ignore failed background checks

I saw nothing in that story that said anything about failed background checks.

preventing agents from arresting straw-purchasers would seem to be the exact opposite of "law enforcement".

If your building a case against a gun running cartel, you aren't going to be able to do so by getting a couple isolated arrests.

why try to hide it from the congressional investigation?

Having a wide open Congressional investigation is just going to blow their efforts for a case wide open and destroy their ability to pursue and prosecute this case.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

The "walking" guns and ignoring background checks was in the linked CBS video. One of the straw purchasers being investigated ended up being flagged by local law enforcement. When the dealer called the ATF to report this the agent told the dealer he should allow the sale to go through.

If your building a case against a gun running cartel, you aren't going to be able to do so by getting a couple isolated arrests.

I'm not sure I buy this explanation. There is a line where "undercover operations" becomes "criminal enterprise" and I'm pretty they crossed it.

How many guns do you allow to "walk" before you make an arrest? 10, 100, 1000? How much collateral damage are you willing to accept?

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

When the dealer called the ATF to report this the agent told the dealer he should allow the sale to go through.

The CBS videos didn't say that. They said there were suspicious gun sales that were done above the objections of the gun dealers. They were suspicious because cash was used, not because they were illegal.

How many guns do you allow to "walk" before you make an arrest?

As many as it takes to get the job done thoroughly. If you just make some token arrests, like I said before, it isn't going to be effective in shutting down the cartel.

Also, I don't place much stock in whistle-blowers that go to news agencies because they disagree with their bosses. It's pretty much the job of news agencies to create stories that presented as inflammatory as they can make them.

One of the complaints of the CBS video you had posted in your prior comment complained that the murder of the border guard wasn't listed in the complaint. Murder is a state charge and the ATF is going for federal charges here.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

The CBS videos didn't say that.

Sorry, I should have been more specific.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/02/23/eveningnews/main20035609.shtml#ixzz1LXsKkEr9

"...In late 2009, ATF was alerted to suspicious buys at seven gun shops in the Phoenix area. Suspicious because the buyers paid cash, sometimes brought in paper bags. And they purchased classic "weapons of choice" used by Mexican drug traffickers - semi-automatic versions of military type rifles and pistols.

Sources tell CBS News that several gun shops wanted to stop the questionable sales, but ATF encouraged them to continue."

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

Suspicious because the buyers paid cash

But the gun sales were still legal. If the gun dealers would have denied the guns sales based on their instincts, gun advocates would be screaming that shop owners denied their Second Amendment rights.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

How many guns do you allow to "walk" before you make an arrest? 10, 100, 1000? How much collateral damage are you willing to accept?

One would think that the most definite line would be when the damage done approaches the damage that would have otherwise occurred.

i.e.. When the Mexican cartels would have as many guns from U.S. dealers as they would have otherwise been able to source from other places.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Seeing as a large portion seems to have come from government sanction sales (http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/large-portion-firearms-mexicos-violence-come-us-government), and not civillian dealers, I'd say that line got crossed pretty early on.

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

Seeing as a large portion seems to have come from government sanction sales

Which doesn't deny that these sales would have been done anyway.

and not civilian dealers

According to what you have posted, these were civilian gun shops that were cooperating with the ATF.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say it has been ignored. It was top story on NPR today.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

I was not aware of this.

Thank you for the good news.