McVeigh writes: "The US Department of Justice has launched an investigation into revelations that the Drug Enforcement Agency uses surveillance tactics - including wiretapping and massive databases of telephone records - to arrest Americans, amid growing concerns from lawyers and civil rights groups over its lack of transparency."
How much of the NSA domestic spying data is being shared with law enforcement? (illustration: TIME)
NSA, CIA Share Data on Americans With DEA
09 August 13
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Civil rights groups express concern after revelations that secret unit conceals use of wiretaps and telephone records
he US Department of Justice has launched an investigation into revelations that the Drug Enforcement Agency uses surveillance tactics - including wiretapping and massive databases of telephone records - to arrest Americans, amid growing concerns from lawyers and civil rights groups over its lack of transparency.
Reuters on Monday detailed how the Special Operative Division - a unit within the DEA comprising representatives of two dozen agencies including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security - passes tips from wiretaps, informants and a database of telephone records to field agents to investigate and arrest criminals. Reuters reports that, although such cases rarely involve national security issues, the DEA agents using the tips are trained to "recreate" the source of the criminal investigation to conceal its true origin from defence lawyers, prosecutors and judges.
The revelations, which follow the Guardian's recent disclosures of the National Security Agency's wholescale collection of US phone data, have raised concerns among judges, prosecutors and civil rights lawyers over a lack of transparency. Many said the SOD practice violates a defendant's constitutional right to a fair trial.
James Felman, vice-chair of criminal justice at the American Bar Association, said the DEA story "connects the dots" over the government's potential abuse of phone records collected by the NSA.
Felman, an attorney in Tampa, said: "By the sound of it, this is a routine practice of using masses of information on Americans, in an erosion of constitutional protections of our citizens. This is clear evidence of things that people have been saying they are not doing. Collecting data on ordinary citizens and then concealing it officially. It is indefensible."
"I don't think that most people would believe that our government would be using these measures and using this excuse when they want to investigate heavy offences," he said. "What is upsetting is that it appears to be policy and practice to consensually conceal information that should be disclosed."
While the NSA data collection is aimed at thwarting terrorists, the SOD programme is focused on criminals such as drug dealers and money launderers.
One former federal agent who received tips from the SOD described the process to Reuters. He told how he would instruct state police to find an excuse to stop a certain vehicle on which they had information, and then have drug dogs search it. After an arrest was made, agents would then pretend that the investigation began as a result of the traffic stop, and not because of the information the SOD had passed on.
A training document quoted by Reuters described the practice whereby agents would "recreate" the source of the investigation, as "parallel construction". A dozen current or former federal agents interviewed by Reuters confirmed they had relied on parallel construction.
Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor who served as a federal judge from 1994 to 2011, described the practice of "parallel construction" as "a fancy word for phonying up the course of the investigation". It was one thing, she said, to create special rules for national security, but creating rules for ordinary crime threatened to undermine the bill of rights, set up as a check against the power of the executive.
"The best way to describe it is the government is saying 'trust us'," said Gertner. "The bill of rights is clear that we don't."
Gertner said that defence attorneys had a right to know and examine the source of the information against their clients.
"Even if a judge approved a wiretap, it doesn't mean there wasn't exculpatory or tainted evidence," she said. "If the judge does not know the genesis of the information there cannot be judicial review. When the DEA is concealing what the source of the information is and pretending it came from one place rather than another, there can be no judicial review."
Gertner and other legal experts said that there was no need to conceal such information in court, as there are already procedures by which judges can examine sensitive information in private to determine whether it is relevant.
The implications for existing cases, Gertner said, were difficult to assess. "There needs to be an investigation and disclosure about the extent to which this information was used in previous investigations."
Civil rights campaigners said the latest revelations about surveillance programmes were an indictment of how easily the NSA data collection can be abused.
Ezekiel Edwards, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's criminal law reform project, said: "With the uncovering of this massive surveillance programme, the government are reassuring people that they are very selective, that they are not using it on ordinary citizens.
"The opposite case is one of our concerns.
"What you have here is the DEA tapping into the vast NSA spying programme and using it to launch criminal cases on Americans. Not in national security cases, but other cases."
Edwards said it was a case of "mission creep", after the shift in the balance between civil liberties and security that happened in the US in the aftermath of 9/11.
He said that the concealing of information about the source of an investigation was unconstitutional because it did not allow defendants their right to confront and examine the evidence the government has against them.
"Evidence can be flawed, people can lie, innocent people can be convicted," Edwards said. "The reason we have trials is to determine whether evidence is reliable, but if you don't know the source of that evidence - that email or that phone call, it is impossible to argue that it wasn't me on the phone or that person is an invalid witness."
In a statement, the NSA said: "If a law enforcement agency thinks they have a valid foreign intelligence requirement, they can pass that information to the [intelligence community], which treats it as they would any other nomination. NSA works closely with all intelligence community partners � This co-ordination frequently includes sanitising classified information so that it can be passed to personnel at lower clearance levels in order to meet their operational requirements."
The statement added: "If the intelligence community collects information pursuant to a valid foreign intelligence tasking that is recognised as being evidence of a crime, [it] can disseminate that information to law enforcement, as appropriate."
Henry Hockeimer, a former federal prosecutor, said: "For the system to work, criminal cases should be built with a high degree of transparency. Not built through covert means. To use this in cases not involving national security and in routine drug cases is troubling.
"Now it's getting into the realms of a law enforcement tool, which is not what the normal person would have any degree of tolerance for. What other cases could be potentially built in the dark?"
The Department of Justice confirmed it was looking into the revelations, but declined to provide details. In an email to the Guardian, a spokesman said they were "looking into the issues raised by this story. We'll decline to comment further at this time."
The SOD played a major role in a DEA sting in Thailand against Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in 2008. He was sentenced in 2011 to 25 years in prison on charges of conspiring to sell weapons to the Colombian rebel group Farc.
The SOD also recently coordinated Project Synergy, a crackdown against manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers of synthetic designer drugs that spanned 35 states and resulted in 227 arrests.
- This story was updated on 7 August 2013 to include a statement from the National Security Agency.
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N.
"We" ARE listening! It's the ones in Washington that are running around with their fingers jammed firmly in their ears, screaming, "I can't hear you"!
So, what do we do about it?
I went ahead and taped a paper on my bathroom mirror in large letters FEAR
Underneath it is written
1. A meaningless world engenders fear
2. I am determined to see
3. I am determined to see things
differently
4. Above all I am determined to peacefully and diligently create a meaningful world despite interferrence.
This may sound goofy and simple but looking at it daily affects the unconscious and enables one to get over
the fear we are intentionally pounded and indoctrinated with everyday. As each individual changes, mass consciousness slowly changes and recovers. Thoughts and the actions behind them(with intent) are things. Similiar to the Hundreth Monkey, a short and interesting read. http://www.wowzone.com/monkey.htm
target practice for the moment a hoodie or a woman you don't like appears? agh what a subtle distinction. i feel much safer knowing that.
If you have a point, please sharpen it, taking into account that the murder rate is higher now than in 1963, and that in every other year of the war one is claiming, until 2011, the murder rate was even higher, sometimes radically.
Note also that murder and mayhem are the least common uses of nuclear weapons (two occasions); they've mostly been used for demonstration, product improvement, range practice and intimidation. Want one?
You haven't said where your statistics come from, and neither have I. But I'll tell if you will.
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf (scroll down to page 2)
Perhaps you will quibble with the first two, but surely you will accept the findings of the Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics?
While I'm throwing fact out, here is another interesting one. Every year more people are murdered by "personal weapons" (hands and feet) than by long guns (shotguns,rifle s including so-called assault rifles. Ck the FBI UCR for that one.
And, the point is...if you are going to have a debate, you should first know the facts and not rely on someone's fevered imagination.
? 332,014 people DIED from guns between 2000 and 2010. That number is greater than the populations of U.S. cities such as St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati. iii
? 31,328 people died from gun violence in 2010, or roughly 1 every 17 minutes. iv
? A gun in the home makes homicide three times more likely, suicide up to five times as likely, and accidental death four times higher than in non-gun owning homes.
? Access to firearms increases the risk of intimate partner homicide more than 5 times than in instances where there are no weapons, according to a recent study. In addition, abusers who possess guns tend to inflict the most severe abuse on their partners.vi
Gun Violence & Women
? 94% of female murder victims killed by men are killed by a man they knew. In other words,
females are 16 times as likely to be killed by a male acquaintance than by a male stranger. In 2010, 1,017 women, almost three a day, were killed by their intimate partners. viii
? Of females killed by men with a firearm, more than two-thirds were killed by their intimate
partners.ix
? In 2010, 52 percent of female homicide victims killed by men were shot and killed with a gun.
Female intimate partners are more likely to be murdered with a firearm than all other means
combined.x
? Women suffering from domestic violence are eight times more likely to be killed if there are firearms in the home.xi Souurce: www.futureswithoutviolence.org
IN A SHELL
Big fat-asses, greedy and ignorant with
compassion only to themselves.
How can intelligent people live in
and raise their children in such a
stupid country.
I'm hoping to find help with my sailboat, getting it out of here. I'm going to Mexico first.
Anyone want to join me?
sonomacountyiskillingme.org if you are interested...
Also, the thought of leaving behind loved ones and friends seems pretty chicken. Who will stand with them?
I often consider what it must have been like in Germany when the 3rd Reich gained power. The fascist ranks swelled so quickly it became difficult to get out. To think that Germany and Austria were pretty much the center of the intellectual universe, yet were taken over by armed thugs who then tried to conquer the world, and all in less than two decades. Let's see now...how long has it been since these nutjob NRA extremists took over congress? You can see how quickly this happens, and why we need to be active and vigilant now.
First, my family abandoned me long before social workers and society did; and I lost all of my friends for the same reasons...
And those reasons are the second point: why stand with those who will not stand up for themselves and others? Why do you think it's reasonable to stand to protect those who do not act to protect themselves and who do not even consider for a moment the possibility that everything they understand, because it comes from someone else, might just be wrong?
Do you really want to stand and fight for people who will not stand and fight for themselves?
Would a better option not be to inspire your loved ones to follow you to freedom?
I can't leave alone, a mistake I should have foreseen. But then again, I can't survive alone, so my fate is tied to the hope that someone out there will wake up enough to see what is coming and that my ship is a damn find option for escaping it.
And I know just what to do.
I sell guns to the Arabs
and dynamite to the Jews."
I actually know the tune to that ditty and it was in my mind the whole time I was reading the article.
True...so do not vote for them! Get them OUT!
http://shop.jpfo.org/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=24
While it is certainly true that the top fraction of a per cent wealthy in America encourage the rest of us to fight one another, in order to prevent us from attacking them out of the feeling that our relative poverty is unfair, and while it is certainly true that the police are a) becoming militarized and b) in too many cases behaving as if they can kill and injure as they wish (see
http://www.copblock.org/
for details)
This is not the time to stop fighting.
We might, however, want to rethink who we should fight with, and how, and for or against what.
This article is a masterpiece. The argument is impeccable, the writing absolutely fluid and and eloquent.
So perfectly done is this one, and the argument *SO* vitally important for every breathing human to *understand* that this could become the very manifesto that proponents of rational gun control could be pasting up on every cork board, telephone pole, op-ed page and serious website in the country.
Primo, Sir, absolutely Primo.
Americans don't want to take responsibility. And in failing to take responsibility, they accept the consequences.
What's the next stage after this collective weariness? We haven't really tried to do anything different. I mean really different like developing a huge wave of action and stop paying the banks.
Shame on American loss of moral values proselytism to kill Islamists to promote just 8 of his 10 commandments. Forgetting "Vengeance is mine: he said Drone yourself and frack the rest yankees.
That was one of the best articles I've read in a hell of a long time.
You are absolutely right. And guess what? I've had war declared on me by Sonoma County, California; the same county that declared war on a 13 year old latino child with a toy gun - sold by another industry that profits from guns, even if indirectly.
It isn't just the crazy people who have guns, who use them to kill.
I blame my situation (sonomacountyis killingme.org) squarely on President Obama. He is our leader, he is THEIR leader too. And they, our governments, including county governments, look to our president for how to behave. And when Obama wants someone dead, he orders a Seal Team into action, or a drone flown by a CIA-led gamer in the desert of America somewhere.
Our president has skipped the whole due process thing; so why shouldn't the county do the same thing.
Why is this happening? You hit the nail on the head - because it is more profitable for us to be sick, mentally ill, shooting each other, afraid, stupid, ignorant, and wanting to be popular.
Television IS the cause; but not as people imagine (or rather, not as people were told by the television.)
Television is a cultural normalizer. If you don't watch television, you aren't "normal."
I say let's all have a truce, say, on July 10th. I think its appropriate to ask for this,, considering I was born a few days after Bobby died in the kitchen, and a couple months after King bled off that balcony.