COMMUNITIES SUE U.S. AGENCIES OVER LACK OF DRUG INTERDICTION

San Francisco-City residents who claim the federal government did nothing
to stop crack cocaine sales in their neighborhoods in the 1980s sued the
CIA and Justice Department on Monday.

The complaints were filed on behalf of residents - most of them black -
whose babies were born addicted to crack, whose relatives died in
drug-related drive-by shootings and whose communities were affected by
crowded emergency rooms and gutted business districts, the lawsuit said.

"This is not some sort of litigation lottery ticket," attorney Katya
Komisaruk said. "The government contributed to what happened to us, so now
we need the government to come and help us."

The federal civil-rights lawsuits, filed in Oakland and Los Angeles, were
partially prompted by last year's disclosure of a 1982 agreement between
the late CIA Director William Casey and former Attorney General William
French Smith that the spy agency had no duty to report drug crimes to the
Justice Department.

Komisaruk said she wants a judge to declare the agreement illegal, order
the CIA and Justice Department to report crimes they are aware of and issue
reparations to cities affected by cocaine sales.

The complaints are the latest result of a 1996 San Jose Mercury News series
that alleged that a drug ring funneled profits to the Nicaraguan Contra
rebels for the better part of a decade.

The executive editor of the Mercury News later acknowledged in a letter to
readers that the series had shortcomings.