WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press has learned that the Drug Enforcement Administration paid an Amtrak secretary $854,460 over nearly 20 years to obtain confidential information about train passengers. The DEA could have lawfully obtained for free through a law enforcement network.
The employee was not publicly identified except as a “secretary to a train and engine crew” in a one-paragraph summary of the incident by Amtrak’s inspector general. The secretary was allowed to retire, rather than face administrative discipline, after the discovery that the employee “regularly” sold private passenger information since 1995 without Amtrak’s approval.
On Monday, the office of Amtrak Inspector General Tom Howard declined to identify the secretary or say why it took so long to uncover the payments.
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Could have obtained for free, except for the fact that they would, I believe, have needed a search warrant. And since they did it this way, costing taxpayers nearly a million dollars, I think the DEA had doubts about getting the warrant.
This also close to a black-op for which they have no mandate and something that was capped back in the late 1970s with intelligence reform.
Awfully expensive fishing license I’d say.
Also, while Amtrak let her go without facing discipline, I think they ought to get as much of that money back from her as possible and apply it to Amtrak operating expenses.