BROWNSVILLE – A lawsuit alleging Federal Express Corp. employees knowingly loaded 800 pounds of marijuana onto a truck may be moved to federal court in Brownsville.

A Nueces County man’s lawsuit against the company could be moved to federal court if plaintiff Reynaldo Garza does not contest the action, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

Garza alleges that while he was working as a driver for a company contracted by Federal Express, employees of Federal Express loaded 800 pounds of marijuana into the cargo area of his truck even though they smelled the odor of the illicit drug coming from the boxes.

The loading of the truck occurred in June 2007 at the Harlingen airport, said Garza’s Corpus Christi attorney, Robert Zamora.

Narcotics detector dogs sniffed out the load of drugs when Garza reached the U.S. Border Patrol’s Sarita checkpoint, Zamora said. Garza was arrested and charged with drug offenses.

Zamora said his client simply thought he was delivering boxes.

via Man challenges Federal Express in marijuana case | federal, express, garza – Local News – Valley Morning Star.

So many questions:

How does Garza know the eight hundred pounds of marijuana were so easy to smell unless he smelled it himself?

How are Federal Express employees expected to know what a box of marijuana smells like?  Is this part of orientation training?

Who in the world is shipping 800 lbs. of marijuana via FedEx?  And was it really 800 lbs., or was that what was left after the FedEx employees loaded it into the truck and kept some for themselves?

How does one get a job loading trucks for Federal Express?

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96% of BEST drug seizures at the Mexican border are marijuana

(Counterpunch.org) DHS says the new initiative will be based on a “risk-based decision-making process.” All the various DHS initiatives that are part of its SBI umbrella program contend that they are “risk-based.” DHS contends it is protecting the homeland against “dangerous goods and people.”

In practice, however, its array of border control and immigration enforcement programs casts a wide net—with most of the arrests being immigration violators and drug law offenders rather than dangerous criminals. Marijuana leads, by far, the list of illegal drugs seized, even though there is widening consensus, even in the criminal justice community, that marijuana is not a “dangerous good,” especially when compared with cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines.

The achievements of the existing [Border Enforcement Security Taskforce] BEST teams don’t support ICE declarations that their investigation and prosecutions are “risk-based.” The existing 95 members of BEST teams in the Southwest were responsible for 1,000 criminal arrests in 2008, but most of its arrests—1,256—were for administrative violations, presumably transgressions of immigration law. Marijuana seizures topped the list of drugs confiscated. BEST seized 42,400 lbs. of marijuana, 1,803 lbs. of cocaine, and 66 lbs. of heroin.

Do you feel safer now?  When President Nixon declared the war on drugs, one of the first programs on the Mexican border was “Operation Intercept“.  Then, too, the idea was that we’d stop those Mexicans from supplying weed to our youth.  The massive crackdown was called off after Mexican officials complained about how badly this backed up legitimate business traffic at the border.

In this case, it’s not just business traffic inconveniences to worry about, it’s potential terrorists and explosive or radioactive materials we’re worried about.  Every time border cops have to spend time busting truckloads of pot is an opportunity for a terrorist to go unnoticed.

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A young man – a Baptist preacher – stopped by Border Patrol.  Cops demand to search his car.  Preacher invokes 4th amendment rights.  Cops allege the K-9 unit alerted on drugs or humans secreted in the preacher’s car, though preacher doesn’t see dog react at all.  Cops claim dog equals probable cause and invoke hammers to smash preacher’s windows out, tasers used repeatedly on preacher, preacher’s face torn up into bloody mess as cops smash his face into broken glass.

Don’t forget these Border Patrol thugs are now conducting operations within 100 miles of the border.  This is how our government is going to protect us from the scourge of Mexican trafficking of marijuana that Americans want to smoke and cheap labor that Americans want to hire.  Is this how President Obama plans to “crack down” on drug use in America?

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Mexico is in danger of a “rapid and sudden collapse” due to criminal gangs and drug cartels, according to a troubling new report by the U.S. Joint Forces Command on worldwide security threats.

“In terms of worst-case scenarios for the Joint Forces and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico,” the report states.

“The Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels.”

As Newsmax reported last week, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the U.S. has developed plans for a “surge” in crime fighters if the drug wars in Mexico should spread across the border.

The plans call for aircraft, armored vehicles and special teams to converge on trouble spots along the border. Military forces would be used if civilian agencies like the Border Patrol and local law enforcement were unable to control the violence.

Criminal activity in Mexico has killed more than 5,300 people in the past year, including members of warring drug cartels, law enforcement officials and bystanders, many of them slain close to the U.S. border.

via Newsmax.com – U.S. Military: Mexico Could Collapse Under Drug Violence, Corruption.

Where, pray tell, are you getting these extra aircraft, armored vehicles, and military forces?  Last I read, there was a shortage of troops for Afghanistan, a service-wide shortage of officers, a shortage of guns for soldiers in Iraq, and basically a shortage of everything the Army needs to maintain its mission.

“It will take end of war plus two years to work off the backlog,” Gen. Peter Pace told the House Appropriations defense subcommittee [in 2007].  Pace said that 40 percent of Army and Marine Corps equipment is deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan or being repaired in depots, with the remainder spread out among the other forces.

This all costs a lot of money as well, which seems to be in short supply these days.  Do you really think you can maintain a hot war in Iraq and Afghanistan, respond to another hot war on our southern border and keep an eye on Pakistan, bin Laden, and North Korea?

If only we could think of a swift and effective policy change that would cost these warring cartels 70% of their business and bankrupt them overnight.

Well, we did think of one, but Congressman Reyes and President-elect Barack Obama keep telling us to shut up about it.

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7,300 pounds of marijuana seized at SD entry ports – San Jose Mercury News
SAN DIEGO—More than 7,300 pounds of marijuana have been seized at ports of entry near San Diego, and a driver in a federal trusted-traveler program is accused of smuggling in some of the drugs.

Federal officials say the marijuana was seized Tuesday in three busts—two at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry and the other at the San Ysidro Port of Entry.

Officials say a van at Otay Mesa was holding about 4,400 pounds of marijuana, and another van waiting in line nearby had more than 2,900 pounds. The drivers—both Mexicans—were arrested.

The bust in San Ysidro involved a driver in the trusted traveler program SENTRI. Officials say the driver, a 30-year-old U.S. citizen who lives in Tijuana, was driving a truck with nearly 255 pounds of marijuana valued at $115,000.

This SENTRI system, or Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection, was first instituted at Otay Mesa in 1995 to speed up the process of checking the trucks coming through the border. You have to go through a lengthy process to get into this program:

SENTRI provides expedited CBP processing for pre-approved, low-risk travelers. Applicants must voluntarily undergo a thorough biographical background check against criminal, law enforcement, customs, immigration, and terrorist indices; a 10-fingerprint law enforcement check; and a personal interview with a CBP Officer.

This costs at least $122, more if you’re registering multiple drivers and multiple vehicles.  Then you get a special ID card with a radio chip and your vehicle gets a special scannable sticker, and you get to go through the border checkpoint in a special express lane that takes about 10 seconds instead of about 35 seconds.

Who would’ve thought that marijuana smugglers from Mexico would take advantage of that system?  And if smugglers can get through these background checks, fingerprinting, and an interview, why couldn’t terrorists?

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