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DEA Program "More Troubling" Than NSA
Rambo Tribble writes "Reuters is reporting on a secret effort by the Drug Enforcement Agency to collect data from wiretaps, informants, and other sources. Considered most troubling is a systematic campaign to hide this program from the courts, denying defendants their right to know how evidence against them was obtained. This agenda targets U.S. citizens directly, as it is mainly focused on drug trafficking. From the article: 'Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges. The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.'"
A former federal agent in the northeastern United States who received such tips from SOD described the process. "You'd be told only, ‘Be at a certain truck stop at a certain time and look for a certain vehicle.' And so we'd alert the state police to find an excuse to stop that vehicle, and then have a drug dog search it," the agent said. After an arrest was made, agents then pretended that their investigation began with the traffic stop, not with the SOD tip, the former agent said. The training document reviewed by Reuters refers to this process as "parallel construction."
Country without a consitution says what?
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
Has the money made by the prohibition industry exceeded that made by drug king pins yet? This is the kind of unchecked power that the cartels would love to have.
Can we use the word police state yet?
This "recreating the investigative trail" sounds like a fancy way to describe perjury.
The unit of the DEA that distributes the information is called the Special Operations Division, or SOD. Two dozen partner agencies comprise the unit, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security. It was created in 1994 to combat Latin American drug cartels and has grown from several dozen employees to several hundred.
Had I read for just a minute longer, I'd have found this. So it would seem I was correct.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
"I have never heard of anything like this at all," said Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor who served as a federal judge from 1994 to 2011. Gertner and other legal experts said the program sounds more troubling than recent disclosures that the National Security Agency has been collecting domestic phone records. The NSA effort is geared toward stopping terrorists; the DEA program targets common criminals, primarily drug dealers.
"That's outrageous," said Tampa attorney James Felman, a vice chairman of the criminal justice section of the American Bar Association. "It strikes me as indefensible."
"You can't game the system," said former federal prosecutor Henry E. Hockeimer Jr. "You can't create this subterfuge. These are drug crimes, not national security cases. If you don't draw the line here, where do you draw it?"
I suspected (or knew) most of what Snodden leaked. I did not knew the DEA was lying at trials and withholding evidence from pretrial discovery. That's different from taps, which everyone knows they can do with a warrant.
nothing to see here... only criminals are affected, you are not a criminal, Citizen, are you?
If they'd legalize drugs the bottom would fall out of the market and all the drug-funded gangs and their wars would fade away. (Or look for something else illegal to sell.)
Tax dope as high as you can without creating a black market, and use the revenue for prevention and rehab programs. And use all the money that's currently going to the DEA and prison-industrial complex for something useful.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Recreating the investigative trail sounds a LOT like fabrication.
We have DEA agents who swear to "tell the truth, the WHOLE truth, and nothing but the truth" knowingly omitting an important part of the truth.
I'm sure, all of the quoted gentlemen were Shocked. Shocked to discover "parallel reconstruction" was used here.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
But we now know that the DEA probably gets its info from the NSA, and hands it down further to your local sheriff.
Not probably; definitely. From TFA:
The unit of the DEA that distributes the information is called the Special Operations Division, or SOD. Two dozen partner agencies comprise the unit, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security.
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
What people don't seem to understand is that police lie. ALL. THE. TIME. They lie selfishly, indiscriminately and callously. They lie overly and omittingly. They lie to suspects, witnesses, passers-by, judges, and juries. They lie in public and under oath. They lie to deceive, coerce and intimidate.
And they get away with it. ALL. THE. TIME.
Go watch the ubiquitous Don't Talk to the Police video. I know you've already watched it. Watch it again. Especially the part where the police officer explicitly states that he and all police officers are "professional liars."
I admit, IANAL, but doesn't this give grounds for any convicted drug felon to try for a retroactive mistrial?
The jury has no idea that anything unconstitutional has happened. Not even the defendent, prosecutor, nor the judge are told that law enforcement was given a tip by the SOD. It's a complete coverup.
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
Parent has gotten low scores, but it happens more often than you would think. I personally know someone the FBI tried to plant drugs on because they had not found any on his friends (whom they had already arrested). He saw it in the police car before he got in and refused to do so until they swept it up.
They just have to pretend to smell marijuana, coerce the drug dog into faking a "hit" or claim there was an anonymous tip and they can go ape-shit on your house. Granted, I would be willing to be that a majority of the time they are right. But there is a reason why low-income communities hate cops.
If you want trust 100% of the time, you have to be fair 100% of the time
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
The U.S. government is EXTREMELY CORRUPT. This is no time for joking.
In some ways the U.S. government is the most violent that has ever existed. The U.S. government has invaded more countries than any other country in the history of the world. The U.S. government has more than 760 military bases worldwide. Taxpayers pay, but aren't allowed to know where there money goes.
Read the story about the US government's purchases of over one billion rounds of anti-personnel ammunition. Quote: "The ammunition is to be use domestically, not by the military."
Do you think it won't get worse?
What I find most troubling from the article is this:
"You'd be told only, ‘Be at a certain truck stop at a certain time and look for a certain vehicle.' And so we'd alert the state police to find an excuse to stop that vehicle, and then have a drug dog search it," the agent said.
(Bold emphasis mine.) The casual way that a law enforcement agent advocated violating laws relating to probable cause is astonishing. Subconciously I know that they do this but to actually come out in print and admit it is really sad.
Don Dugger
"Censeo Toto nos in Kansa esse decisse." - D. Gale
Good.
Maybe now you'll be as upset as we foreigners are about the NSA surveilling us.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.