FEDERAL AGENCIES, POLICE KEEP PUBLIC RECORDS OUT OF REACH

How can you find out how much drug money law enforcement is keeping instead
of sending to Missouri schools?

By looking at public records called DAG-71 reports. There's only one
problem: You can't.

Law enforcement has constructed a neat Catch-22 to keep DAG-71s closed. It
works this way:

The Kansas City Police Department, the Missouri Highway Patrol and the
Platte County Sheriff's Department all refuse to release the reports. They
say the reports, which they must fill out to ask the Drug Enforcement
Administration to handle the drug money, belong to the federal agency.

So contact the DEA, they say.

But no, DEA officials say. They can't legally release the reports either,
because the files belong to the state and local law enforcement agencies.

Just check the back of the DAG-71, the DEA says. Who has to sign the
application?

The attorney for the local agency and a ranking officer.

Sandy Davidson, a First Amendment expert and lawyer who teaches at the
University of Missouri-Columbia, said state law required Missouri
governmental bodies to provide public records they retain.

"After all, we are talking about the public's business," Davidson said. "In
this case we are talking about funding for our schools."

Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon declined to comment on the records.

Continue to Part 5: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99/n013/a07.html