The DEA Disinformation Campaign To Hide Surveillance Techniques

An anonymous reader writes: Ken White at Popehat explains how the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has been purposefully sowing disinformation to hide the extent of their surveillance powers. The agency appears to have used a vast database of telecommunications metadata, which they acquired via general (read: untargeted, dragnet-style) subpoenas. As they begin building cases against suspected criminals, they trawl the database for relevant information. Of course, this means the metadata of many innocent people is also being held and occasionally scanned. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a lawsuit to challenge this bulk data collection. The DEA database itself seems to have been shut down in 2013, but not before the government argued that it should be fine not only to engage in this collection, but to attempt to hide it during court cases. The courts agreed, which means this sort of surveillance could very well happen again — and the EFF is trying to prevent that.

Comments

everyone does this

[Darrin Ward PR]

i do the same thing to convince my users that i don't install viruses on their computers... but i still install viruses on their computers. disinformation is the best!

It's still there

[Anonymous Coward]

If sowing disinformation is legal and the courts agree, then the information that the DEA shutdown its database in 2013 is probably disinformation. Only the legislative branch can do something to investigate because the other two branches of government already have agreed that lies are A-OK. But if it's security-related, investigating members of Congress will be sworn to secrecy anyway -- which won't be a problem for most of them because they tend to prostrate themselves fawningly before the state instruments of control.

Thank heavens it's springtime.