Jump to full article: New York Post, 2007-10-16
Author: MARTIN J. GOLDEN / State Sen. Martin J. Golden (R, C-Brooklyn) sits on the Senate's Crime & Corrections and Homeland Sec
Intro: A senior intelligence analyst with ATF, William Billingslea, wrote in Police Chief Magazine that "Because of the immense profit in the . . . trade, illicit cigarette trafficking now rivals drug trafficking as the method of choice to fill the bank accounts of terrorists and terrorist groups."
In New York, state tax agents have joined with the state Tax Department to establish the "First Alert Program," which has produced many of the leads resulting in arrests - including a Brooklyn husband and wife who smuggled cigarettes to fund the anti-American activities of a group of 200 terrorists.
Another part of the problem is Native American reservations across the state that insist their sovereignty gives them the right to sell tax-free cigarettes even to non-tribal members.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1994 that New York was within its constitutional right to tax those sales (tribe members can still escape the tax). But the state has refused to enforce the law. . . .
Both federal and state laws are already in place, and the courts have reaffirmed their constitutionality. What we need now is a governor with the guts to enforce them. The result of not enforcing the law has transcended the issue of Native American sovereignty into an issue of national security.
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