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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.
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!
Use my SEOChat.com and ChatButton.com services so i can install viruses on your users computers!
The courts have completely abdicated their responsibility to protect the people from the depredations of the Leviathan. The judicial branch of government is as complicit as the executive and legislative, and needs to shaken up pronto.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
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.
I agree that the surveillance issue is bad but it's much worse when the DEA creates false evidence trails to hide the surveillance links to their own programs and that of the NSA. This puts the basic principles of justice out the window when you have DEA agents lying on the witness stand about how they obtained their information. A judge could ostensibly throw out convictions or exclude evidence based on those facts, sanctioning prosecutors for knowingly allowing this to happen at trial. It's fucking stupid to expose the nation to this kind of risk.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
But when they purposefully lie to conceal where the evidence came from, how are they any better than the criminals they put away? You can't send someone to jail for years based on a lie.
Funny thing about that Canadian girlfriend, they've used her in 7 other cases as the alternative source for the evidence. Maybe she's the sysadmin for a database in Canada?
The government should not be able to cast its gaze without cause. Pen register is an abuse of this.
Good-bye
The government tells citizens "if you're not doing anything wrong, you shouldn't need to hide anything". We might as well say it right back to government. Also, since we are paying for everything they do, that information is ours. The government doing things it doesn't want us to know about is inherently immoral and dishonest. After all, they are doing all of those things "in our name".