PERFECT COVER: WORKING FOR DEA OUGHT NOT GIVE CRIMINALS FREE REIGN

Drug crime investigators vigorously defend the use of criminals as
informants, arguing that they need small-time hustlers to nab the huge
crooks. But all it takes is a few discovered cases of drug informants
breaking the law with impunity to cast doubts on the entire system and
raise questions about how much abuse in the name of law enforcement is
going on.

Chronicle writer Mark Smith, in "Fighting crime with crime, Rampant use of
informants in drug cases coming under fire" in Aug. 7 editions, raised
serious questions about the wisdom of relying too heavily on informants in
drug busting. Among the concerns: federal drug enforcement agents who allow
informants to lie under oath, turn a blind eye to their continued
law-breaking and pay them huge retainers (in the last three years, at least
$260 million by the DEA, Customs Service, Internal Revenue Service, State
Department, U.S. Marshal's Service, Secret Service and FBI).

The necessarily secretive nature of the business means there is no
practical method for determining whether informants are being appropriately
employed. Law enforcement officials say abuses are rare and that cases made
against organized crime groups that are increasingly sophisticated make the
use of informants worthwhile overall.

Unfortunately, that claim is hard to swallow. Criminals, by definition, are
scofflaws. They are not inclined to follow guidelines of any sort, much
less those designed to prevent their abusing their status as informants.
And police who are dependent on information supplied by stools instead of
their own gumshoeing cannot know whether they're being led to small-timers
to shield the giant haulers with whom the informant may be in league.

When was the last time the government paid law-abiding citizens hundreds of
thousands of dollars for testifying in a criminal case, even when their
safety was at great risk? It strikes as patently unfair that police
agencies pay sleazy criminals for sometimes useful, sometimes downright
false information.

While it is true that the biggest and most sophisticated drug rings likely
can be broken only through rats ratting on rats, it is difficult to believe
that all or even most of the 4,500 documented informants acknowledged by
the DEA and the untold numbers with other federal agencies are working on
cracking the world's giant drug cartels. More probably, the informants are
receiving government compensation for making lots of petty cases.

Doing away with informants altogether is unrealistic. But certainly the
practice of basing agent promotions on number of cases made, the amount of
drugs seized and the number of informants recruited ought to be
de-emphasized. This practice creates a zeal for drug information that makes
agents vulnerable to fake tips and reluctant to pursue charges against
snitches who engage in their own drug sideline.

Do reasonable Americans really want federal narcotics agencies to allow one
set of drug dealers (informants) to continue their illegal activities in
order to bust another set of drug dealers? No. Frankly, a criminal
protected by the police can be more dangerous than the targets an informant
is supposed to help ensnare.

Law enforcement agents who allow criminals to continue committing crimes
while they inform on others have lost track of their responsibility to
citizens.