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Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)

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Encyclopedia of Big Data

Introduction

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is the lead US government agency in drug law enforcement. Its employees investigate, identify, disrupt, and dismantle major drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) and their accomplices, interdict illegal drugs before they reach their users, arrest criminals, and fight the diversion of licit drugs in the United States and abroad. Formally a part of the Department of Justice, the DEA is one of the largest federal law enforcement agencies with close to 10,000 employees working domestically and abroad. In recent years, the DEA has embraced the movement towards greater use of big data to support its missions.

Origins and Evolution

The US government efforts in the area of drug control date back to the early twentieth century when the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) actively sought to restrict the sale of opium following the passage of the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914. The emergence of a drug culture in the United States and the expansion...

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Further Readings

  • Gallagher, R. (2014). The surveillance engine: How the NSA built its own secret Google. The Intercept. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/25/icreach-nsa-cia-secret-google-crisscross-proton/. Accessed 5 Apr 2016.

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  • Lyman, M. (2006). Practical drug enforcement. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

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  • Van Puyvelde, D. (2015 online). Fusing drug enforcement: The El Paso intelligence center. Intelligence and National Security, 1–15.

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  • U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. (2009). Drug enforcement administration: A tradition of excellence, 1973–2008. San Bernardino: University of Michigan Library.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

    Damien Van Puyvelde

Authors
  1. Damien Van Puyvelde
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Correspondence to Damien Van Puyvelde .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Policy, Government and International Affairs, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    Laurie A. Schintler

  2. School of Policy, Government and International Affairs, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

    Connie L. McNeely

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Van Puyvelde, D. (2021). Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). In: Schintler, L.A., McNeely, C.L. (eds) Encyclopedia of Big Data. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32001-4_77-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32001-4_77-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-32001-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-32001-4

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