NCJ Number
107994
Journal
Hastings Law Journal Volume: 38 Issue: 5 Dated: (July 1987) Pages: 889-926
Date Published
1987
Length
38 pages
Annotation
This essay outlines the government's attack on protections afforded criminal defendants under the Bill of Rights and the rise of 'Big Brotherism' in relation to drug enforcement imperatives initiated by President Reagan's 1982 declaration of a war on drugs.
Abstract
The enforcement crackdown mentality penetrates the entire criminal justice system. In the 97th Congress' first year, three-quarters of over 100 criminal justice reform cases filed proposed harsher treatment for drug offenders. The 1984 Comprehensive Crime Control Act (CCC Act) denies pretrial release for controlled substance charges (if the court finds that no release conditions ensure community safety), greatly restricts postconviction bail, and allows application of criminal forfeiture provisions to defense counsel fees by claiming them as derivative contraband. The 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act threatens attorney-client relationships with new offenses of money-laundering and engaging in monetary transactions exceeding $10,000 derived from specified unlawful activity. Freedom from illegal search and seizure conflicts with the intrusiveness of surveillance and informants. The U.S. Supreme Court recently validated warrantless aerial surveillance of private property. Paid informants facilitate drug deals that allow agents to make arrests. 'Big Brotherism' in drug enforcement is evident in wiretapping, stopping cars on highways, monitoring students, and computer surveillance of the populace. Court-authorized wiretaps rose 60 percent in 1983, primarily in suspected drug-trafficking cases. Cars are stopped on public roads or in roadblocks and sniffed by dogs for drugs. Drug-detector dogs sniff public school students' lockers, and student informants participate in 'tipster' programs. The DEA's Narcotics and Dangerous Drug Information System (NADDIS) is a computer file of over 1.5 million persons, 95 percent of whom are not under active investigation, available to the FBI, Customs, and the IRS. Compulsory employee urine sampling in one-quarter of Fortune 500 companies and the Federal Government is the latest imperative in the war on drugs. 161 footnotes.