WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee and Caucus on International Narcotics Control, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota today introduced a bill that would close a loophole that is jeopardizing U.S. ability to designate individuals as international narcotics traffickers and impose sanctions on them.
“Designating individuals as overseas drug kingpins and freezing their U.S. assets is a key enforcement measure,” Grassley said. “But we need to ensure that this can be accomplished without jeopardizing the disclosure of classified information on which these designations can be based. Authorizing courts to review classified information that supports these designations without disclosing the information to the kingpin or the public is just common sense. It will help keep this enforcement tool strong and help prevent foreign drug traffickers from investing their ill-gotten profits in the United States.”
The Kingpin Designation Improvement Act of 2016 would harmonize the provisions of the Kingpin Act with those of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), through which the U.S. government sanctions overseas terrorists and other threats to national security. If a terrorist organization challenges such a designation under IEEPA, courts are already authorized to receive and review classified information supporting the designation without disclosing it to the terrorist organization or the public.
The House of Representatives today passed a companion bill. More details about the bill are available here.
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