Opinion Editorial By Myles Malman
August 29, 1993
Visions of Big Brother
A Proposal to Create a Single, All Purpose Central Federal Police Agency Would Imperil American Freedom
By Myles H. Malman[1]
In a Miami Herald article earlier this month, a significant question concerning the proposed merger of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI was asked: "Would a single unit fight drugs more effectively?" My question takes a slightly different turn: Would a single law enforcement agency best serve the American people? I think not; the result would be a tragedy to our free society.
Vice President Al Gore's National Performance Review, the government task force that seeks to tinker and putter with our freedoms, has generated a sweeping proposal that would consolidate all federal law enforcement activities into the Department of Justice under control of the attorney general.
This proposal would create a so-called "Directorate of Central Law Enforcement," effectively merging the Drug Enforcement Administration with the FBI and enforcement functions of the Secret Service, Customs Service, Internal Revenue Service, Postal Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms into one agency.
Is an all-powerful, centralized federal law enforcement entity really good government? A Directorate of Central Law Enforcement conjures up vivid imagery of a true Orwellian state. As the Panama experience of Operation Just Cause and the military's taking on addition law enforcement missions such as those in Bolivia and Peru have shown, a new "national" police army would grow even larger. Big Brother would not only be watching, but he would be watching us from every corner of the Pentagon, the CIA and the computers and television monitors of the "Directorate of Central Law Enforcement."
Our Constitution was devised to protect us from an imbalance of power in one branch of government. Checks and balances were carefully established in order to protect our citizenry from tyranny, abuse and mismanagement. Do we want an all-controlling Directorate of Central Law Enforcement, headed by an attorney general reporting to the president? We have fought so hard against an unfettered executive. Do we want to just throw that concept away in the name of bureaucratic fiscal tidiness?
Our current attorney general, Janet Reno, has certainly won the respect of the American people and, as Miamians know, her integrity and reputation are without question. The city, county and country are proud of her. But what does the future hold? What of other attorneys general? What if the reins of power are passed to someone less scrupulous? The era of J. Edgar Hoover and Watergate certainly illustrates what can happen when too much law enforcement power is placed in one person's hands. Those ghosts all haunt us today. Why seek a return?
Proponents of the merger cite cost savings as a benefit of this consolidation, particularly the merger of the DEA and the FBI. Democracy should never be sacrificed in the name of cost savings.
And what of the notion that the FBI, a multi-mission agency, can provide more resources and focus to the U.S. government's drug-control effort? The FBI already has significant commitments within its wide investigative jurisdiction. Where, then, will the drug program find its priority if it is just another division competing for priority and corresponding resources?
Drug enforcement is a proactive, specialized mission requiring investigators who know how to target and attack the drug kingpins of the world. Drug organizations, in order to stay in business, are mobile and fast-moving. Drug deals take place with lightning quickness. The drug investigators must be as fast moving and mobile as the criminals they pursue. If the drug enforcement mission is transferred to the FBI, layers of bureaucracy will immobilize the investigators rather than the drug criminals. The drug transaction would be over before the intricate FBI investigative review and approval process ever begins.
Drug enforcement must have the agility to move swiftly and without undue layers of management restraint. The DEA, a single-mission agency, should provide leadership to the federal drug enforcement effort. No federal agency is perfect; all can be improved. However, DEA agents have proven they are the experts when it comes to drug criminals.
I have firsthand knowledge of the results the DEA can bring to a prosecutor's table. It is a small agency, only 3,500 agents, but these investigators have perfected their investigative skills in order to fight a very sophisticated drug trade that is most visible and most serious in South Florida. The DEA currently has every major world drug trafficking kingpin either under indictment or investigation. The serious drug trafficking and drug violence that we face as a nation needs to be addressed forcefully and quickly by the DEA, without any loss of momentum or further distraction.
Law enforcement today needs a diversity of leadership to ensure a checks and balances of its own. Separate agencies with different missions is a critical step in ensuring the proper balance of resources. There must be not only an exchange of ideas, but also healthy competition. In a world of ever sophisticated criminal activity; we need creative thinkers, concentrating on specialized missions in order to ensure a safe future for the children of South Florida and across the nation.
In closing argument at the trial of Manuel Noriega, I told the jury that Noriega and the cartel put tons and tons of white powdery death in our community which kills and is killing our children. The DEA know how to stop the purveyors of this white powder.
An all-powerful, monolithic Directorate of Central Law Enforcement, difficult to manage and impossible to control, is not good government and would not serve the American people well. The proposed solution is overly simplistic and its consequences are, at least to this American, terrifying.
[1] Myles H. Malman was one of the lead prosecutors in the case against Panama's Manuel Noriega, who was convicted on drug-trafficking charges in Miami and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Over the past 18 years he has served as a state prosecutor in Manhattan and a federal prosecutor in Miami. Malman was deputy first U.S. attorney from 1989 to 1992. Now in private practice in Philadelphia, he wrote this article for The Herald.
