
U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans - wikiburner
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-dea-sod-20130805,0,5453047.story
======
zeteo
Secrecy in law enforcement is contagious precisely because it makes things so
much easier. Kafka's "Trial" was a nightmare for the accused, but think how
convenient it is for the authorities to not publicize charges or sentencing
and to do everything on their most expedient schedule. As soon as it was
decided that accusations of "terrorism" could be treated this way, the seed
was sown. The programs and procedures developed by the "anti-terrorist"
agencies will be readily used and copied by any other branches of law
enforcement that have the ability to do so; this case is a prime example. So,
if you thought Orwell was scary, say hello to Kafka now.

~~~
tptacek
Secrecy in law enforcement is problematic, but the secrecy here is less
pervasive than you imply. The crimes people are being charged with here are
public. The trials are public. Critically, the evidence is all public, and the
chain of custody of all evidence in these cases appears to be public as well.

Instead, what's alleged here is that the DEA is provided with enough
information from intercepts to "always be in the right place at the right
time".

This kind of evidence --- legit evidence traceable to illegit sources ---
would be excluded if it involved torture, but apparently the jurisprudence
hasn't caught up to its use in unlawful surveillance.

~~~
zeteo
There's something a bit unsettling about the future when you discover that
drug offenders have lately been tracked down and charged by the same means
used for terrorists. But let's talk about the present. Would you find the
scenario below possible in this context and, if so, somewhat worrying:

1\. There's nothing that special about drug crimes. It's reasonable to suspect
other enforcement agencies are plugged into the NSA databases as well.

2\. Let's say that, through complete surveillance of his communications, the
Anti-X agency discovers that John Smith has probably committed crime X.
However, there is no other way to obtain evidence on the matter.

3\. As many people in this country, John Smith also happens to be a drug
offender. Anti-X arranges for the DEA to be at precisely the right spot and
time where the offense occurs.

4\. John Smith is now in jail for interrogation, and there's a search warrant
for his home to (also) look for the evidence that Anti-X was missing before.

~~~
dylangs1030
I can see in principle why this isn't really justice. But in the example you
gave, I have a hard time siding with John Smith.

Anti-X was able to indict him because they found evidence by using another
agency - this seems intuitive and useful because they could not have
ordinarily found it. If he genuinely committed the crime, they're not
obstructing justice or even his privacy here, they're just being creative.

Strictly speaking, I don't really mind that agencies in the United States can
do that, because it opens avenues to evidence they would not otherwise have.
What I _would_ mind is if law enforcement decided they could find admissible
evidence by deliberately retrieving and opportunistically analyzing
_inadmissible evidence_ as a springboard.

I understand that those two can seem really similar, but I honestly believe
the latter case is a much more serious violation - it just seems like a much
more slippery slope to me.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
>I have a hard time siding with John Smith.

In principle, I don't care about John Smith[1] and I wouldn't advocate solely
for the lawbreaker's sake. I'm advocating for innocent people whose rights are
violated. Now, if this scheme were directed against a different class of
criminal like theiving bankers or corrupt policemen; I'd feel better about the
result, but not much. Along those lines, it is offensive to imagine that our
supposed inalienable rights are discarded for something as pedestrian as drug
offenses when it is clearly possible for some violent crimes to be stopped[2].
Note that I am not an advocate for that. But IMO it is an added insult that
we're here living a version of Orwell's nightmare, having just begun to suffer
its abuses, but because of the priorities of gov't don't receive the benefit
of pervasive gov't protection.

On the ZOMG! slippery-slope angle, imagine just how abusive and corrupt an
individual or small group of gov't agents can be when they are allowed to
conceal so much of an investigation. One person, or a small group can
completely frame an individual for a crime with relatively little opportunity
for the accused to defend themselves.

[1] Personally, I am an advocate from drug legalization, but that's a separate
issue.

[2] James Bamford alludes to the notion that NSA folk have had to observe some
pretty terrible things in the course of duty. I don't envy them for it.

------
mtgx
This is _exactly_ the nightmare scenario we were fearing - and lo and behold,
it has already happened: using mass spying data of the NSA to launch fishing
expeditions against Americans, and find them guilty of crimes.

You could say "yeah but that data can't be used in Court!". But they can very
_trivially_ skirt around that. They don't have to use _that data_. They just
need to use some of that data to show a judge "probable cause" \- and BAM: now
they have a warrant to _legally_ get access to anyone's data, and _that data_
they can use.

But in practice such process by the authorities makes the "limit" of a warrant
essentially useless. The warrant just becomes an extra beaurocratic step that
they have to take, but doesn't represent a limit on who they can investigate
and how anymore.

~~~
dragontamer
_Wiretap tips forwarded by the SOD usually come from foreign governments, U.S.
intelligence agencies or court-authorized domestic phone recordings. Because
warrantless eavesdropping on Americans is illegal, tips from intelligence
agencies are generally not forwarded to the SOD until a caller 's citizenship
can be verified, according to one senior law enforcement official and one
former U.S. military intelligence analyst._

Sounds like a pretty big limitation to me.

~~~
falk
The operative word being "generally". Political limitations are worthless. If
they have the capability, they will abuse it. We already know they don't care
about the constitution and that they have secret interpretations of laws.

~~~
dragontamer
Ignorance of the law and imagination can get you pretty far.

Lets be frank here, Political limitations are the only thing stopping
government agencies from shooting Laser Microphones half-a-mile away listening
to your entire house. (4th Amendment, Illegal Search) You have no idea of the
abuses that can be possible with law enforcement equipment, and are probably
just scared of a little bit of the possibilities or powers afforded to them.

Keep your wits about you, this can get much much worse before it may get
better. And hyperbole now will only harm your argument in the long run.

Reality is, intelligence agencies are under DoD. They aren't supposed to be
investigating Americans, period. If they manage to nab information about
American People (which includes legal immigrants btw), they are not allowed to
forward it to law enforcement.

We know that anything pulled out of the NSA system is recorded and checked by
the FISA courts, to ensure that Americans were not part of the targets.
(Edward Snowden admitted it himself, although he wanted more than just 5%
random checks on this log).

~~~
falk
"Lets be frank here, Political limitations are the only thing stopping
government agencies from shooting Laser Microphones half-a-mile away listening
to your entire house. (4th Amendment, Illegal Search)"

Why go through all the trouble when they can turn our cellphones into
listening devices?

[http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB1000142412788732399700...](http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887323997004578641993388259674-lMyQjAxMTAzMDAwMTEwNDEyWj.html)

"We know that anything pulled out of the NSA system is recorded and checked by
the FISA courts, to ensure that Americans were not part of the targets."

That is absolute bullshit! Have you not payed attention to the latest leaks on
XKeyscore?

------
beedogs
_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."_

Jesus fucking Christ. They were lying to prosecutors to get charges pressed
against people.

~~~
deveac
They weren't necessarily lying, -just omitting the cause prior to the traffic
violation. If the traffic violation as primary cause was never challenged,
they wouldn't technically be taking a position on the origin often. They'd
simply state the facts: "Vehicle X was driving southbound on I-94 and failed
to utilize a turn signal while switching lanes. I pulled car over and noticed
x,y,z..."

As a police officer friend of mine told me many years ago "If I want to pull
you over, there is nothing you can do to stop me. All I have to do is follow
you for one mile and you're going to violate _some_ portion of the traffic
code."

I'm not defending this _at all_ , as I think it is outrageous and that the
link to harvested NSA data is _beyond the pale_ . I'm just pointing out that
this is, as the article mentioned, de rigueur, and when a technically legal
starting point is provided, the defense likely almost never challenges that,
thus eliminating the need for the prosecution to take a formal stance on the
origin. Hopefully this begins to change.

~~~
300bps
_They weren 't necessarily lying, -just omitting the cause prior to the
traffic violation._

You seriously need to read this:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree)

 _Fruit of the poisonous tree is a legal metaphor in the United States used to
describe evidence that is obtained illegally.[1] The logic of the terminology
is that if the source of the evidence or evidence itself (the "tree") is
tainted, then anything gained from it (the "fruit") is tainted as well...Such
evidence is not generally admissible in court._

You cannot conceal the source of evidence that leads you to other evidence.

~~~
tptacek
I think (and hope) you're right that this is a straightforward application of
the poisonous tree doctrine, but you should be aware that the doctrine is not
quite a clean-cut as you make it out to be. One big exception to it is
"inevitable disclosure". If a traffic stop is otherwise lawful, and a normal
police officer acting in the lawful confines of their authority would have
otherwise discovered e.g. the drug stash in the car (for instance, because it
was in plain site in the back seat), the Poisonous Tree doctrine probably
doesn't exclude the evidence.

That's the tricky thing about the Reuters DEA revelation. Some drug offenders
probably are cavalier about displaying evidence in the cars because the
likelihood of their being stopped is low. Here, domestic surveillance is
allowing the police to drastically increase the odds that they'll make a
fortuitous traffic stop.

What would _not_ work, in my understanding of the story, is for an
intelligence intercept to establish the legal basis for stopping and searching
a car.

~~~
apalmer
I completely understand the technical distinction, however I find the argument
hypertechnical and completely violating the spirit of the law.

Honestly seems like the whole point of SOD is to get around the poison fruit
guideline.

~~~
tptacek
I agree, it really seems like they're trying to come as close to the line as
they can without obviously crossing it, and I think it's clear they did cross
it.

Also, I don't see any virtue to secrecy in this case; unlike organized Al
Qaeda terrorism prevention or foreign hostile adversaries or
counterproliferation, the tactics we're using in the "war on drugs" are a
public policy matter that benefit from public discussion.

------
gnosis

      First they came for the communists,
      and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
    
      Then they came for the trade unionists,
      and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
    
      Then they came for the Jews,
      and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
    
      Then they came for me,
      and there was no one left to speak for me.
    
    

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came%2E%2E%2E](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came%2E%2E%2E)

~~~
lukifer
We rightly vilify the Third Reich, but the lesson of history is not that the
Nazis were intrinsically evil; it's that any culture has the capacity to
normalize and systematize its own unique brand of evil, via a thousand baby
steps.

Just because America is not and never will be Nazi Germany, that's no reason
to accept or ignore the American flavor of fascism that has been quietly
brewing for decades.

~~~
dmix
I highly recommend this documentary on the Gestopo:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtgB4qiiWBI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtgB4qiiWBI)

The first thing the Nazis started doing when they got power was set up a
secret investigative unit. Where they started creating detailed records of all
of their enemy targets (starting w/ the communists and the competing political
party). This intelligence was then used by the SS/SA to harass, round up and
assassinate anyone who was a threat to their power.

The intelligence agencies were the foundation of Nazi fascism. The signs of
power abuses were present in these agencies _way_ before the Gestopo became
publicly infamous for targeting Jews.

~~~
lukifer
I've very much come to hate Godwin's Law. There are important lessons, perhaps
the most important, to draw from that dark time of history, and we won't see
them if we insist that the comparisons are only apt if every little thing is
exactly the same, or as 100% evil as the Nazis. There should have been far
more attention paid to the specific comparisons of the Patriot Act to pre-
conditions of Nazi Germany, rather than getting distracted by "BUSH=HITLER
LOL".

------
neilk
Just a couple of days ago somebody on HN speculated this was happening, and I
dismissed it as paranoia. Surely nobody is going to risk revealing the
existence of a universal surveillance program over a few drug convictions,
right? Twenty-eight of you agreed with me.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6134821](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6134821)

I give up. Apparently no speculation is out of bounds any more. If someone
says it's all due to Nazi reptoids, I'm going to give them the benefit of the
doubt.

~~~
Homunculiheaded
I've had similar experiences about many things I used to think were paranoid
becoming provable fact. However the other day the news about the google search
for back packs and pressure cookers I thought was completely false and it was.

What I've realized is that the things I thought were paranoid and came true
are things that I thought were paranoid because I had "trust" in various
organizations not to abuse power, not because the actions seemed out right
implausible.

With the backpacks and pressure cookers story, I was skeptical not because I
trusted the fbi, but because it seemed implausible given the way the fbi
typically acts and strongly against their interests.

So my updated rule is that 'trust' is no longer a valid reason to rule
something out as paranoid. This is an ethos that the security world has long
held as obvious, that many technical people formerly not particularly
interested in security are waking up to.

~~~
jivatmanx
"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be
to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty."

-John Adams

------
declan
This is a far bigger story than PRISM or XKEYSCORE. Both described databases
compiled through known processes (FAA orders and fiber taps) and used for
terrorism and foreign intelligence investigations -- not domestic criminal
investigations.

The Reuters report today shows significant abuse of intelligence intercepts
that should make all of us angry.

The NSA has been allowed to assemble its vast intelligence-gathering apparatus
on the theory that terrorists and foreign spies do not have Fourth Amendment
rights, and the executive's power to conduct surveillance is at its height
when non-Americans are the focus. Now we've learned that the Feds have engaged
in a bait and switch maneuver: databases are collected on the "terror spies"
pretext, and then they're used for domestic criminal prosecutions. This is
very dangerous.

It also shows that the Supreme Court justices who blessed the NSA's FAA
intercepts in February 2013 were fare too optimistic. They said if the Feds
used NSA intercepts to bring domestic criminal prosecutions, they "would be
required to make a disclosure":
[http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-1025_ihdj.pdf](http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-1025_ihdj.pdf)

FYI here's my article from last month on how the DEA's Special Operations
Division, cited in today's Reuters piece, does e-mail wiretaps:
[http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57593538-38/how-
the-u.s-fo...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57593538-38/how-
the-u.s-forces-net-firms-to-cooperate-on-surveillance/)

------
agilebyte
Greenwald now discussing it live here:
[http://www.democracynow.org/](http://www.democracynow.org/)

Edit 1: Has ended, will post a link when in archive.

Edit 2: The interview starts at 18:00 and a direct link to the MP4 file is
[http://dncdn.dvlabs.com/ipod/dn2013-0805.mp4](http://dncdn.dvlabs.com/ipod/dn2013-0805.mp4)

Edit 3: Starting 43:15 pertains to DEA SOD

------
falk
After hearing all of this stuff, I feel like the television show The Wire was
either way ahead of its time or had really great law enforcement consultants.
I'm leaning toward the latter.

~~~
objclxt
Before David Simon created The Wire he was a reporter on the Baltimore Sun,
covering the crime desk. He somehow managed to convince the Baltimore PD to
embed him in the homicide department for a year. Ed Burns (who co-wrote a lot
of the series) used to work as a Baltimore PD detective, and the technical
advisor for the first two seasons was a Baltimore police commander.

A _lot_ of the plots on The Wire are based on actual cases and occurrences. In
some cases quite loosely, in others not so much. It's a depressingly realistic
show.

~~~
InclinedPlane
[http://www.criminaljusticedegreesguide.com/features/10-real-...](http://www.criminaljusticedegreesguide.com/features/10-real-
people-that-inspired-characters-on-the-wire.html)

------
alphadenied
A government that hides its actions is a government that is overstepping its
bounds and needs to be slapped around a bit. I think we're decades behind in
the slapping around department.

Make everyone a criminal and spy on everyone so you can control them and
scared them to death. What a wonderful way to run the "land of the free"

I bet most people thought the spying was for terrorists.

~~~
chunkyslink
I've said it before and I'll say it again.

The USA is a tyranny, there is nothing you can do about these things.

~~~
api
One of the principal mechanisms used in the USA to maintain its system of
oligarchy / tyranny is distraction of the population via "culture war" issues
and identity politics.

As long as people vote based on who they'd rather have a beer with, or based
on issues like homosexuality and religion, they will _not_ vote based on
issues of social justice, economic well being, or against the politics of
corruption.

The culture war and identity politics are a classic divide and conquer
technique. It's used because it works.

~~~
cavilling_elite
I've long thought this, but never read someone say it so starkly. My heart
dropped with every sentence.

Any suggested reading?

------
w_t_payne
In light of the "Three Felonies a day" phenomenon, and given the sweeping
nature of the surveillance, it seems likely that the number of cases that are
prosecuted represents only a small fraction of the number of potential cases
that could possibly be taken to trial.

This gives the criminal justice system considerable latitude to select and
prioritise certain cases over others.

How are these decisions made?

Can we be sure that political considerations and/or racial / sexual / gender
biases, (conscious or unconscious) do not play a role in the decision making
process?

~~~
cheald
> How are these decisions made?

When it's convenient for the career of the person with their finger on the
button.

> Can we be sure that political considerations and/or racial / sexual / gender
> biases, (conscious or unconscious) do not play a role in the decision making
> process?

Quite the opposite, we can be sure that they _do_ play a role. When you get to
pick and choose your targets, it's a foregone conclusion that the targets you
pick will be selected because of some criteria beyond the fact that they are
merely in violation of the law.

------
flurie
_" It is one thing to create special rules for national security," Gertner
said. "Ordinary crime is entirely different. It sounds like they are phonying
up investigations."_

This implicit double standard plays a role in allowing this kind of thing to
happen. I wonder when we'll start reëvaluating it?

------
jusben1369
Imagine if you were listening in to communications on US citizens as part of
an NSA program and you came across what appeared to be the distinct planning
of a murder - one that had nothing to do with National Security now or in the
future. What do you do? This is part of the interesting range of unexpected
consequences when you stretch boundaries.

~~~
rdtsc
Before the leak -- nothing probably. It would have revealed the existence of
the program.

Now -- sure! They could just come knocking to the door. This is dark side of
the leaks in way. If they know we know, they they can expand the use of the
tool. (Or rather I should say this is the dark side of apathy to the
information in the leaks, now they now public doesn't care enough).

~~~
cavilling_elite
The apathy is the scary part. I fear it would take a _mass_ roundup of people
before the "we need this because of X" people might start questioning it.

OTOH, it may be mental (illness?) for people to blindly follow authority.

------
john_b
> _" As a practical matter, law enforcement agents said they usually don't
> worry that SOD's involvement will be exposed in court. That's because most
> drug-trafficking defendants plead guilty before trial and therefore never
> request to see the evidence against them. If cases did go to trial, current
> and former agents said, charges were sometimes dropped to avoid the risk of
> exposing SOD involvement."_

This is interesting, as it's basically an admission that Aaron Swartz-style
prosecutorial bullying is not limited to just computer-related cases.

~~~
mr_spothawk
>This is interesting, as it's basically an admission that Aaron Swartz-style
prosecutorial bullying is not limited to just computer-related cases.

I guess I always took it for granted that prosecutorial bullying is ever-
present. It's interesting to come face-to-face with the reality that it's not
part of everybody's worldview that the State is 'out to get you'. (no sarcasm)

------
ojbyrne
Here's hoping that everyone who was convicted via this method gets their
sentences overturned, because that's about the only way this will stop.

~~~
sophacles
I think it is less nefarious than that - it feels more like the problems that
arise from fixing bugs in code. We've all encountered this - you fix one bug
and it breaks 3 other things, because of unexpected/unintended consequences.
Something else was relying on the broken code to work right. Systems thinking
is just plain hard...

So how do we do unit tests for laws?

~~~
chiph
Lawyers are like _that guy_ in that complexity favors them and gives them job
security. Simplicity and clarity is not a virtue in law.

------
hughdbrown
So suppose this is true:

 _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._

How do you square that with the claim that the NSA is tracking only metadata?
I'd say you need the phone call contents to know where to stop a particular
truck.

~~~
mpyne
Because SOD has more investigative inputs than just the NSA, and also because
they are not required to track only metadata for foreigners.

More mundane (and perhaps more likely) is that the source data for that kind
of tip comes from wiretaps from existing open investigations. You might not
get probable cause for a search based on the wiretap data alone, so SOD gets
the local cops to alert on the car instead and "start" the follow-up
investigation.

~~~
walshemj
yes could be an informant or a undercover cop - back in ww2 the ultra decrypts
where disguised as coming from other sources.

You not going to tell some random cop this is from bob our inside man on the
crew in case the cop is corrupt and sells out your DEA agent

------
mb0
Something tells me we will soon learn that the judicial branch purposely
creates loopholes for the executive branch to exploit.

~~~
DamnYuppie
I will literally cry myself to sleep that evening if such a thing comes to
pass :(

~~~
cheald
I'd start hydrating now.

------
northwest
The next question: How come with all this, the cartels continue to exist?

~~~
falk
Because the U.S. government secretly loves to profit off of both the direct
selling/transportation/etc of drugs and the prison industrial complex.

I recommend you read the following for more details and proof:

The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Politics-Heroin-Complicity-
Global/...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Politics-Heroin-Complicity-
Global/dp/1556524838/)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_South...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Politics_of_Heroin_in_Southeast_Asia)

Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and
Beyond

[http://www.amazon.com/Acid-Dreams-Complete-History-
Sixties/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Acid-Dreams-Complete-History-
Sixties/dp/0802130623/)

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

[http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/1595586431](http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/1595586431)

~~~
aidos
Thanks for that list.

It feels like in a world where people were generally interested in solving the
issues with the drug trade the DEA wouldn't need to exist. It's something that
should be solvable.

People _will_ take recreational drugs, so obviously the solution is not to
create an organisation to fight that. There has to be a safe source for these
drugs that plays nicely with society and the political system. Do you have any
good recommendations for information regarding places where this has been
tried in earnest?

~~~
falk
You're welcome. I agree. Since the dawn of time humans have wanted to alter
their consciousness.

Glenn Greenwald has a great paper about drug decriminalization in Portugal.
Lots of shocking graphs and statistics. The digital version is legally
available online for free.

[http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/drug-
decriminal...](http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/drug-
decriminalization-portugal-lessons-creating-fair-successful-drug-policies)

[http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/greenwa...](http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/greenwald_whitepaper.pdf)

Unfortunately that's about the only resource I can think of when it comes to
drug legalization/decriminalization in an actual real world environment. I'm
hoping to see some papers in the next couple years about marijuana
legalization in Washington and Colorado.

This is only semi-related, but Vangard has a really fascinating documentary on
prescription drug abuse/doctor shopping in Florida you might find interesting.
It's called the Oxycontin Express. Basically people go down to Florida, get a
whole bunch of prescriptions for Oxycontin and then resell the pills in
Kentucky and other States at a ridiculous profit. Here's a link to an online
copy of it.

[http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/oxycontin-
express/](http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/oxycontin-express/)

~~~
gnosis
_" Unfortunately that's about the only resource I can think of when it comes
to drug legalization/decriminalization in an actual real world environment."_

Marijuana is effectively legal in the Netherlands. (Technically illegal, but
"tolerated")

~~~
JonnieCache
Due to a loophole, for a year you could legally buy psilocybin mushrooms in
the UK, in "head shops," on market stalls, online, anywhere, with zero
regulation. It was fine. The government eventually banned them out of
embarrassment. The public information posters announcing the upcoming ban had
a rainbow coloured fractal background. It was pretty funny.

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4692359.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4692359.stm)

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4691899.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4691899.stm)

------
uptown
Ties directly into this:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6154302](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6154302)

------
splrb
Mind blowing lack of sense of right and wrong from govt agents who think
laundering the trail of their investigation is the right thing to do. We
really are living in post-constitutional USA.

------
mpyne
Wow. Hadn't heard of this 'parallel construction' stuff before, and will have
to reserve judgment for now... but telling agents and investigators that they
can't so much as mention the provenance of the info to the prosecutors or the
court is rather beyond the pale.

------
gyepi
_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._

I live near a section of a federal highway that is well known to be used for
transporting drugs from New York to Vermont. For the past few years, I've been
struck by the number of arrests that always seemed to start with a traffic
stop. Given the daily traffic volume of 60-25K vehicles per day, I had always
wondered how the relatively few officers covering a wide area could be so
effective.

------
coldcode
The next agency I expect to hear about ... the IRS starts using this kind of
data.

~~~
c0ur7n3y
I'd bet tomorrow's lunch they already have.

~~~
LoganCale
Not long before the NSA story broke in June I recall a few quickly forgotten
stories about the IRS reading people's emails without warrants, and monitoring
transactions and social media to find people cheating on their taxes.

------
LoganCale
Why did both the headline _and_ the source article on this get changed? It was
initially a link to Yahoo News and is now the Chicago Tribune.

~~~
bgentry
Original headline mentioned the specific allegation that the DEA was using
this warrantless information to springboard investigations into previously
unsuspected persons.

------
ajarmst
Let's not get too carried away. Secrecy in law enforcement can be a valuable
tool: it allows things like protection and development of informants, lawful
surveillance, undercover operations, etc.

Prosecutors have never been required to turn over ALL evidence -- only
exculpatory evidence (and that does not include evidence that might be useful
in jury nullification, only evidence that would tend to prove the accused
innocent of the charges). Withholding evidence of guilt from the defence is
common: it is done to protect sources and ongoing investigations or even to
shorten a trial. If you have more than enough to convict, why trot everything
out?

The described "parallel" investigation is another common technique. If you
have a source of evidence you need to protect, then you develop different
evidence and instead use that to secure the conviction. Provided the evidence
used is real and is sufficient to prove guilt, no laws or moral codes have
been transgressed.

Law enforcement and prosecutors use inadmissible evidence all the time to
pursue an investigation. The point of an investigation is to secure sufficient
admissible evidence to successfully convict (prove guilt of) the perpetrator.
But the rules don't say you can't use all the information at your disposal --
only that some of it might not be useful for you at trial. (Full disclosure:
there are, and should be, rules governing what law enforcement and other state
and federal agencies can do in collecting evidence. But disclosure of all
information, evidence, and techniques to the defendant is definitely not one
of them.)

An interesting corollary is the so-called "fruit of the poisonous tree"
problem. If a critical piece of evidence is deemed inadmissible, it might take
with it a bunch of other evidence that was generated based upon it. Courts
frequently permit the prosecution to re-introduce some of the evidence if it
can be shown that it could have (not "was", "could have") been developed
without access to the inadmissible piece. This is precisely the parallel
development narrative described, and it is a very common tool.

I agree that this particular system seems well beyond the pale, but lets not
pretend that suddenly getting rid of secrecy in law enforcement and removing
prosecutorial discretion is a no-brainer solution. Lets also not pretend that
this isn't a clear extension of standard practice (albeit a pretty major and
troubling extension we might want to trim back a bit).

------
lubujackson
There needs to be a phrase for that moment when the wholesale discarding of
the law is so accepted within a government agency that it ends up embedded in
a tutorial Powerpoint slide, which eventually gets leaked to the press and
(hopefully) implodes the whole practice.

"PPTerrorism"? "PowerPointillism?"

Or maybe a wonderful German composite word.

------
osth
[http://www.archives.gov](http://www.archives.gov)

lynx -dump
[http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_tra...](http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html)
|sed '/The right of the people to be secure/,/be seized./s/ \\[ Redacted \\]/'

------
georgecmu
Off-topic, but still interesting in context of social networks as a leakage
vector:

 _Since its inception, the SOD 's mandate has expanded to include narco-
terrorism, organized crime and gangs. A DEA spokesman declined to comment on
the unit's annual budget. A recent _LinkedIn_ posting on the personal page of
a senior SOD official estimated it to be $125 million._

------
joshfraser
I was excited to see this story being broken by Reuters instead of the
Guardian. The US press have been sleeping on the job, but this article gives
me hope. I'm sure it doesn't hurt that the Guardian have been openly bragging
about the amount of traffic they've gotten from covering the NSA scandal.

------
dendory
I've thought about writing a program that would randomly send search queries
to Google, Facebook, etc for specific keywords like pressure cooker, drug,
bomb, etc. Just overwhelm them with traffic.

~~~
Wingman4l7
There have been some half-serious discussions about this elsewhere. The idea
is to start flooding the web with _encrypted_ traffic, which is supposedly
enough of a red flag in and of itself for the NSA to consider it worth
storing. The back-of-the-napkin math predicts that if you do enough of this,
they'll be unable to store all of it.

Or they'll just open a new datacenter.

------
btipling
The data-mining aspect could be troubling depending on the details, but the
parallel construction isn't. They're not planting the drugs on the suspects
when they stop stop them. But the hysteria here is thick so one can't even
begin to have a reasonable discourse in this comment thread. The paranoid one-
sidedness of the discussion is mind boggling.

Look at these downvotes for disagreements. There's nothing I've said that
warrants the downvotes.

~~~
MisterWebz
_There 's nothing I've said that warrants the downvotes._

Maybe you're getting downvoted because you're complaining about downvotes and
not actually contributing anything to the dicussion?

~~~
btipling
I did contribute something, the point that drugs are not being planted on
people. The parallel construction wouldn't work if the suspects were not
actually committing crimes. Nobody wants to talk about it I guess however, too
busy getting their fix on today's outrage porn.

~~~
gnosis
_" The parallel construction wouldn't work if the suspects were not actually
committing crimes."_

See "Three Felonies a Day"[1]

Also, note the following quote from the original article:

 _" most drug-trafficking defendants plead guilty before trial"_

In fact, something like 90% or more of people accused of crimes in the US
never get a trial, because they plead guilty. They plead guilty because
prosecutors pile on so many charges that the defendants are afraid to risk
life in jail if they happen to lose (in a judicial system that's usually
stacked against them). Defending a case in Federal court is also incredibly
expensive and traumatic. See the Aaron Swartz case for good examples of all of
the above.

[1] - [http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-
Innocent/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-
Innocent/dp/1594035229)

------
Canada
What a shock!

