culty in acquiring information from witnesses or defendants.

Informants

expressed a reluctance or an unwillingness to cooperate with DEA Agents in

more than one-fourth of the enforcement investigations surveyed.

Table 4 indicates that these difficulties were also experienced to a lesser, though significant extent during the course of investigations conducted by joint DEA and state and local task forces. As distinct from enforcement and state and local task force investigations, a much smaller percentage of DEA's compliance investigations require the use of confidential sources. Nonetheless, in one-third of these investigations (six cases), witnesses or defendants were reluctant to cooperate with DEA.

Since the majority of DEA investigations do not go to trial, the nature of the cooperation provided by most confidential sources is never fully made known to the violators. However, since the enactment of the 1974

amendments to the FOIA, a significant number of persons possessing relevant information has expressed a fear that the details of their cooperating with DEA would be revealed.

It should be noted that the fear of merely being identified as a cooperating source is not always the inhibiting factor; the disclosure of DEA investigative reports often chronicle the precise nature and extent of the cooperation, information often deemed much more important by potential

sources.

Item The head of a large organization who was involved in the trafficking of multiton quantities of marihuana was indicted and arrested for income tax evasion. During plea bargaining negotiations with another member of the organization, the defendant/witness indicated that he had made a FOIA request to DEA in 1980, from which he was able to deduce the identity of the confidential informant. Although the name of the infor mant was expunged from the documents, Justice Department policy precluded DEA from withholding information relating to the undercover purchase of evidence involving a defendant/FOIA requester, a Special Agent, and an informant when all three participants were known to one another. The defendant/witness presented copies of excised DEA reports to the case agent, indicating that assurances of confidentiality were obviously insufficient.

Table 5 indicates that 15 percent of the witnesses or defendants and 31 percent of the informants who were reluctant to cooperate with DEA Agents attributed their reluctance to the FOIA.

TABLE 5

Percentage of Investigations in which Difficulty in Acquiring
Information is Attributed to the FOIA

Though these figures are highly significant, DEA Agents report that many more of those refusing to cooperate, but offering no explanation may in fact be intimidated by the FOIA. Approximately 60 percent of DEA's FOIA disclosures are made to the criminal element, which is the same population that supplies most of DEA's confidential sources. It is reasonable to assume that FOIA use by the criminal element is widely known by potential sources and contributes to their reluctance to cooperate to a greater extent than is actually reported.

The magnitude of the problem is evident when the sensitivity of investigations is analyzed. Figure 1 illustrates the significant difference that exists in the level of the cooperation of confidential sources when controlling for the sensitivity of the investigation. Difficulty was experienced in more than 60 percent of DEA's high-level investigations in acquiring information from witnesses or defendants--a problem evident in only 38 percent of the low-level investigations.

Figure 1 Percentage of Investigations in which Witnesses or
Defendants Were Reluctant or Unwilling to Fully Cooperate with DEA

Figure 1 also reveals that the percentage of investigations is significantly greater among DEA's high-level investigations. Twenty-one percent of the DEA Agents responding to the survey attributed difficulties in acquiring information from witnesses or defendants in high-level investigations to the FOIA, whereas this factor was identified in only 11 percent of the low-level investigations. More significantly, among those high

level investigations in which informants were reluctant to cooperate, DEA

Agents were able to attribute over 50 percent of these instances to the FOIA, while the law was identified as the cause of only 17 percent of the difficulties experienced in low-level investigations.

Similarly, Figure 2 shows that nearly 40 percent of DEA's high-level investigations involved recalcitrant informants, as compared to 20 percent for low-level investigations.

Figure 2- Percentage of Investigations in which Informants Were
Reluctant or Unwilling to Fully Cooperate with DEA

The data presented in Figure 2 indicates that the problems encountered in acquiring information from informants are nearly twice as common in DEA's most sensitive investigations, suggesting that both disclosure of the informant's identity and possible retaliation are perceived as more likely