When congress declared the policy of the United States Government the creation of "a drug free America by 1995" with the passage of the Anti Drug Abuse Act of 1988, the bipartisans called in Washington's big guns for the task. They entitled it a "war on drugs" and charged the Department of Defense with "single lead agency responsibility" for the operation. Plans were drawn for deployment before the question was answered as to whether the elimination of selected narcotic and psychoactive substances from their place in U.S. culture is suited to the use of military force.

After the passage of the act, congress authorized DOD to plan a communications network using military and civilian intelligence assets to pursue drug interdiction. And when the National Defense Authorization and Appropriations Acts of 1989 funneled substantial increases in federal expenditures for drug law enforcement into the defense budget, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney reversed predecessors' rulings, accepting primary responsibility in detection and countering of production, trafficking and ugé of illegal drugs: "DOD is an enthusiastic participant in the nation's drug control effort," he said. "We have significant resources at our disposal," and "we can make a substantial contribution to our national effort."

Thus began what DOD calls its "general attack on the flow of illegal drugs at every phase of the flow, within the source countries, in transit from source countries to the U.S. and in the U.S." Since then, DOD personnel have been granted police powers while participating in foreign drug wars, most notable in South America. Much of the drug transit into the U.S. from source countries has been documented by the Christie Institute and other independent investigators, as undertaken by U.S.-backed, paramilitary forces. And National Guard, Reserve Armed Forces, and Special Forces pilots transport DEA personnel, and reportedly exchange gunfire with insurgents, in rebel-held territories from Guatemala to Peru under the guise of coca and poppy eradication. This report, however, will be limited to U.S. troops' domestic operations.

Federal law prohibits the assumption of police powers by United States armed forces personnel in the U.S. (the 'posse comitatus' law codified this limit as a result of Union Army excesses in disarming Confederate forces after the Civil War). Instead, DOD and National Guard forces defend their increasing domestic roles in the drug war as "support" for civilian law enforcement agencies. That is, they are limited to the performance of most traditional intelligence functions in order to protect civilians from using drugs. (Operations of National Guard troops are included here because their ultimate responsibility is not to their respective state governors, but to the U.S. Army, as determined by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 11, 1990).

"The War Against Drugs," announced Director of Central Intelligence William Webster, "cannot be won without good intelligence," and with this in mind, the list of domestic military operations to support drug law enforcement agencies with intelligence functions was compiled. Input to this list was derived from National Guard authorities on the state level, and from the DOD on the federal level, and approved by the pentagon. It includes: infiltration and spying in regions of intense interest; aerial surveillance; strategic planning and command control of urban arrests and seizures; searching cargo and citizens at points of entry into the United States; patrolling land borders in the Southwest; and gathering and disseminating information and propaganda.

Former Virginia Governor Gerald Baliles authorized National Guard units to do undercover surveillance against suspected drug dealers in rural areas. He explained that these Guard troops were unarmed, and were often students or unemployed workers recruited specifically for the detail. The New York State National Guard has approved ground surveillance at "locations suspected of being sites for drug operations" as well.

The Pentagon spent $130 million last year for aerostats, tethered blimps equipped with radar on the southern border, and National Guard forces have long been conducting ground and air searches for reconnaissance and burning of marijuana on private and public lands. Civil Air Patrol (Air Force auxiliary) pilots carry DEA and National Forest Service employees in such missions as well.

Drug Czar William Bennett began much of his overall, government-wide drug enforcement strategy in Washington, D.C., using the city as his "test case." D.C. Guard members have been involved in traditionally , civilian duties such as crowd control, and have lent the D.C. Metropolitan police force a hand in performing their administrative duties, in order to keep more police officers on the street. But the D.C. Guard's force of 21 helicopters is only the most visible evidence of its involvement in drug enforcement. Though the Guard has been given Pentagon approval to provide air transportation of police officers for command control for "crack house busts," they have had a difficult time drawing the line between pursuit and arrest measures. D.C. Guard spokeswoman Phyllis Barnes told of a Guardsman on detail to the Metro Police Department at one such scene who tripped a drug suspect escaping from the alleged crack house, to assist in his apprehension and arrest.

National Guard troops inspect cargo at border entry points across the country, with special attention given to New York, New Jersey, California, Florida, Texas and Arizona. But arbitrary limitations have been placed upon the troops to promote the impression that they are not becoming involved in law enforcement duties. They search, but cannot actually seize contraband, and have to call on a Customs official to apprehend suspicious cargo. Neither are troops authorized to detain individuals at border crossings, and Customs officials must order drivers and passengers out of vehicles while Guard personnel search it.

A disturbing new program is DOD's 'support' of search and border patrol responsibilities, which has sent armed troops and vehicles have been called into combat situations on several occasions. Troops dressed as cactuses infiltrate areas of suspected smuggling operations in the southwest in order to relay intelligence information back to federal authorities. The Coast Guard keeps a fleet of $180 million hydrofoils in Key West, equipped with the latest tracking and surveillance technology, banks of radar detectors and screening systems, in addition to harpoon and missile systems, and bow-mounted 76 millimeter lightweight guns capable of shooting 80 rounds per second. "Our task parallels war time assignment," said Lt. Colonel Michael Beck. The artillery is ready if we are called into any "chokepoint scenario." A Customs Service cook complained of being assigned to operate artillery during a chase in the Gulf of Mexico, last year. And marines exchanged gun fire with unidentified horsemen on the Arizona/Mexico border, in late 1989. Thus reconnaissance functions turn into combat situations quite easily.

Part of the informational responsibilities included in these intelligence functions is the dissemination of antidrug propaganda. Guardsmen are asked to bring "the antidrug message" to their communities, and a National
Guard program called "Guard Against Drugs" has ordered heavily armed Arizona Guardsmen to land their helicopters at selected grade schools in the Southwest to deliver anti-drug talks. This program provides to U.S. citizens what the CIA's Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare manual for Nicaraguan Contras terms "Armed Propaganda Teams."

U.S. Data Bases

But it is the intelligence gathering and dissemination responsibilities granted to DOD and shared with new and ongoing civilian programs which marks the most offensive intrusion of the Pentagon into civilian life. Much of the intelligence gathered by DOD is collected from domestic regulatory and law enforcement agencies, and agencies of international security. Intelligence hardware, such as secure telephone transmission and massive new computers with data base capabilities are being funded through DOD budget lines. Through these channels, otherwise classified sources such as FBI files and fugitive profiles, which may include hearsay and political data, are being made available to a wide range of civilian law enforcement offices through DOD and cooperating data banks.

The major data network responsible for collating civilian and military intelligence is the El Paso Intelligence Center, located near the DOD's Ft. Bliss installation. EPIC is hooked into DOD and civilian data banks and operated under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice/Drug Enforcement Administration. EPIC is considered drug enforcement's principal national archives and processing facility, with feeds from all available intelligence entities on U.S. soil. These include but are not limited to the FBI, the Department of the Treasury (including the Customs Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Controller of the Currency, and the Internal Revenue Service), the Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Department of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Federal Aviation Commission, and the Department of State.

Civilian enforcement agencies which feed EPIC includes the FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) "alert" system, used to recognize fugitives, track stolen cars, art, and those either under suspicion or under "inquiry" by local authorities. The Department of the Treasury's TECS system, which holds data useful for its primary enforcement arms, the Customs Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, for use in identifying convicted and suspected smugglers is fed to EPIC, as are certain data provided through Treasury's office of the Controller of Currency, the IRS, Immigration and Naturalization and Interpol and the department's own FINCEN financial intelligence data banks. Often, financial records provided to EPIC by the Department of the Treasury provide data on large transfers of funds suspected to be used in drug laundering, even if funds are those of private citizens who are not suspect to criminal activity.

FINCEN utilizes the data of federal law enforcement and regulatory agencies, and relies heavily on banking regulatory agencies, the SEC and the IRS. The bank secrecy act data and tax and census information are said to be off-limits to FINCEN. And information from private credit agencies is only available to FINCEN through a grand jury subpoenas or a court order signed by a judge.

The Washington-based National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) performs a "strategic analysis" function according to Harriet Kramer, a DOJ spokeswoman. She said that all federal law enforcement investigative agencies, including those of DOD, DEA, FBI, the U.S. Marshall's Service, Immigration Naturalization Services, Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, Customs, certain Internal Revenue Service, FINCEN and intelligence community (CIA, NSA, Defense Intelligence Agency) data are also available to NDIC.

DEA's Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Informations Systems (NADDIS) computer "reservoirs" operate out of DEA headquarters in Washington, indexing work-wide intelligence for use in domestic operations. The data base will include almost any law enforcement information that is "compiled in a report format." Therefore anonymous information from unidentified informants as well as undercover police reports "could be included in NADDIS." It "is an investigative tool and if someone is in NADDIS it doesn't mean one is necessarily a criminal," said DEA spokesman William Ruzzamenti.

The Central Intelligence Agency's Counternarcotics Center (CNC) makes its foreign intelligence assets, including analytical "threat assessments," spy-satellite relays, and international telephone intercepts gathered by the National Security Agency, available to EPIC as well. Though CIA spokesman Marc Mansfield categorized the agency's mission as limited to gathering foreign intelligence, the CIA has faced disciplinary actions from Congress in the past for delving into domestic counter intelligence operation.

EPIC alerts local enforcement units at the port of entry or air drop locations of suspected contraband shipments. "If the DEA says an individual will be entering Texas with marijuana concealed his body, and he's encountered (at the border) and the system is queried, it will set off bells and whistles," said DEA spokesman Ruzzamenti. Because entering the United States from a foreign country makes for probable cause, he explained, a search of the individual is considered reasonable. In fact, "EPIC may provide information to make someone suspect for secondary examination," added an EPIC spokesman. "All it is is an area that is an access and repository for information of a tactical or intelligence nature, that is collected by agencies which participate in drug law enforcement."

In this way, EPIC serves as a conduit for state and local law enforcement agencies to deliver and retrieve intelligence information, with EPIC administrators charged with processing data such as criminal records of people in vehicles, and pilots and passengers of aircraft coming across the border.

EPIC's tactical drug law enforcement information and strategies have been made available to federal drug agents, state police and even local police and sheriff's offices who request them. An EPIC spokesman could list no qualifications under which any of this information is distributed. Likewise, the FBI says that the local authorities needn't even suspect an individual of criminal activity in order to access one's NCIC records. What may be too broad an availability of legal and/or unsubstantiated data in databases like NCIC is best illustrated by former New York Yankee baseball club owner George Steinbrenner's access to the NCIC data base for background checks of prospective employees, made available to him in exchange for favors by the Tampa, Fla., office of the FBI.

In operation since 1977, EPIC now collates the largest range of intelligence material on drug traffic of all domestic U.S. data bases.

DOD Role in EPIC

Much of EPIC's border intelligence information is fed through DOD's so-called 'intelligence fusion centers' under the responsibility of the Commanders-In-Chief (CINCs) of the various joint task forces throughout the hemisphere. These include: Joint Task Force 4 in Miami, which reports to U.S.CINAtl, JTF5 in Alameda, Calif., reporting to U.S.CINCPac, U.S.CINCSo, (southern Command) in Panama, U.S.CINCNORAD in Colorado Springs, and JTF6 in El Paso, operating on the grounds of Fort Bliss. The Joint Task Forces denote operations on a multiservice level, utilizing both active and reserve forces and are under the ultimate command of the CommanderIn-Chief of Forces Command in Atlanta, Ga., Lieutenant General George Stottser, the commanding general of the Fifth U.S. Army, responsible for all land forces on U.S. Soil.

JTF 6 coordinates the provision of DOD resources (equipment, training, and units with specialized capability) to support federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. In addition, JTF 6 monitors the country's borders with Mexico. JTF 6 also participates as a member of "Operation Alliance."

Operation Alliance, another data collection and management center, was established in 1986 by then-drug czar George Bush, to coordinate counter-narcotic activities through federal state and local agencies. Alliance operates directly under the command of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Data for Alliance is gathered from Border Control, Customs, and the DEA.

Two Command, Control, Communication and Intelligence Centers feed coastal surveillance data to the Customs Service from Miami and Riverside, Calif., and a third, the National Aviation Center in Oklahoma City, uses the most advanced radar technology available to provide aerial tracking services. A Customs spokesperson explained that it was no longer necessary for Customs to rely on Federal Aviation Administration and DOD data since this C3Is' recent completion.

Concerns

It is the permanent data-basing of all sources of civilian and military, domestic and international intelligence which is of greatest concern to civil libertarians. "There is tremendous potential for abuse" says American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney Janlori Goldman. "Any time you create a database at the federal level that is going to contain such a great amount of sensitive personal information there is going to be a cause for concern. Investigative records and intelligence records are not open to the same kind of public scrutiny that many other records are. It is [especially] difficult for the public to monitor the collection of the information by the Department of Defense." The ACLU urges strict limits on the collection of the type of information being fed into EPIC and the other databases, and the eventual use of intelligence and investigative information which Goldman calls "inherently unreliable and often very shaky. Will it be around to haunt people even if it is found to be untrue?"

Within the military services, civilian laws and limits often do not apply. Secrecy is the rule, and the military hierarchy applies it. The Freedom of Information Act has not yet been tested in regard to many of the new data bases built for the drug war.

But limits on the armed forces engagement in civilian drug enforcement seem to coincide only with the limits of the minds of "drug czar" William Bennett (director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy) and leaders of the U.S. Congress. Bennett has called for the use of military judges and prosecutors to process the high number of drug offenders in Washington, D.C., and urges the use of ships and abandoned military stations to lock up sellers of narcotics. The latter proposal would add to the military jails and space on active and closed military bases DOD already provides to the federal Bureau of Prisons. Bennett has gone so far as to call for "increased vigilance" on college campuses, with the threat of loss of federal funding against schools who do not stop drug use on campus.

In Congress, Representative Larry Hopkins (R-Ky.) said of the military's erstwhile reluctance to enter the drug war, "they're going to have to lace up their combat boots and get involved." His wish has since come true at sections of the U.S.-Mexican border where the DOD has already seen combat. It is when this same footwear crosses the border that distinguishes civilian from military tasks, that the conflict no longer needs to be metaphorically call a war.

Matthew Reiss is a New York-based journalist, currently seeking a publisher for an unauthorized biography of Charles Rangel.