
Prosecutors halt vast, likely illegal DEA wiretap operation - anon1385
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/02/25/dea-riverside-wiretaps-scaled-back/80891460/
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edc117
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see this was stopped, but how long until the
DEA is simply drinking from the same firehose the NSA is? We've already heard
all about parallel construction, and now there's talk about sharing the
information the NSA sucks up. Why isn't any of this going through Congress or
being given proper oversight?

~~~
italophil
Not very long before they get NSA data, Obama just took the first step:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/us/politics/obama-
administ...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/us/politics/obama-
administration-set-to-expand-sharing-of-data-that-nsa-intercepts.html)

~~~
thephyber
This is the worst case scenario from the NSA mass-surveillance debacle.

I could plausibly justify it when the NSA (a department of the DoD) was solely
focused on national security (assuming the NSA's self-imposed controls,
protocols, procedures, etc were implemented and executed as the NSA Director
claimed).

Now national security resources are being retasked to fight another failed
prohibition. The US Federal Government's failed drug policies are as much a
threat to US national security as foreign drug cartels are. Re-legalize
narcotics, redirect enforcement and imprisonment funding to rehab, education,
abd.

~~~
s_q_b
The DEA's Special Operations Division already shares data with the IC for
parallel construction purposes, and they have a $280,000,000 budget.

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rubyfan
Is it passed time that the federal government has overstepped its authority
here? We need to see some repercussions for directors when these departments
start breaking the law.

When I exceed the speed limit and get caught I get a speeding ticket. To
enforce the law we put police in strategic spots and give them the tools to
enforce the law. We should have similar policing of federal agencies.

~~~
rtpg
Well that's what the the courts are for. There are punishments like adding
oversight into the agency.

It's reactive, but hey you don't get a ticket for "conspiracy to speed".

There isn't a lot of piercing of the corporate veil happening in gov't
agencies though. As in people getting arrested.

But at the same time, if you work at the FBI, want to try something, and your
lawyers say it's legal... Should you go to jail? Should the lawyer?

Sending the person in jail doesn't really help much, but forcing the agency to
adopt new postures could help more. We could do both as well, but what does
throwing the person in jail really accomplish, apart from giving people a
sense of vindication?

~~~
dmix
I don't know about the US but in Canada a "Justice of the Peace" has a full-
time job to signs police warrants not regular judges who deal with criminal
cases. I've hear that Justices rarely deny police requests and they deal with
police all day... there is never a defense attorney present when wiretaps are
agreed upon. Oversight is always well after-the-fact.

They are only ever question way later into the legal process (sometimes over a
year afterwards) and always with a different judge and circumstances.

Law enforcement have a far easier job getting it approved than it is for
defendants to question it's legitamcy. And even if it is ruled illegal the
wiretap still happened and the defendants privacy was still unduly violated.
But there is almost never any repercussions outside of the potentially losing
a legal case against a defendant.

The chains of responsibility between where decision-making takes place and
scrutiny is made are very disconnected.

------
matt_wulfeck
Likely illegal doesn't mean anything. It's the judicial branch that decides
whether it is or is not legal. It's not until that point.

For some reason there's a lot of leeway for the government to push boundaries
in this regard. The running outcome is that if something was not expressly
illegal then there's no prosecution but a slap on the wrist. The judicial
branch should start taking a much harder line against overreach; they should
begin operating the other way: if it's a case of citizen rights and privacy
then it's not legal unless it's expressly legal.

~~~
x5n1
The entire common legal system is set up in a way that is the exact opposite
of this. Everyone is breaking the law all the time. It's suppose to be the
case that unless someone complains about something expressly, that the
government is suppose to mind its own business. This is no longer the case in
the United States. The State has created many different departments to go
after people when no reported crime has been committed. And then it continues
to overreach on this using totalitarian information systems. The logic of the
system keeps becoming more totalitarian.

It makes sense that if some harm keeps getting committed then someone should
do something about it. But if that's not the case, then it does not justify
any action from the government. Like in Mexico the drug war, sure go after the
major drug kingpins using totalitarian systems. But to put this on petty
criminals, small time crooks, etc. that's just horrible.

~~~
rayiner
> But to put this on petty criminals, small time crooks, etc. that's just
> horrible.

Petty criminals and small time crooks are often the ones that make life
hardest for people, especially the poor who live in the neighborhoods where
these guys operate.

When I lived in Wilmington, DE (a pretty run down post-industrial city), our
favorite restaurant was run by an elderly Indian couple. But it was in a
terrible neighborhood, and one day their house was broken into. These sweet,
hard-working people were violated, and by who? Not some kingpin. By some
"small time crook." Should he not be prosecuted to the full extent of the law?

~~~
x5n1
> unless someone complains about something expressly

Would cover your case.

~~~
rayiner
You don't think people complain about people dealing drugs out of their
neighborhood? 80-90% of people support keeping all drugs besides marijuana
illegal.

~~~
x5n1
I don't disagree with your assertion that people complain, and I don't
disagree that when people complain the police should look into it. I don't
agree on massive dragnets going after thousands of people in the name of
fighting crime who might be only peripherally involved with the situation.

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codys
The "prosecutors" of the title are the ones who were "authorizing" (along with
a "single state court judge").

This is a voluntary reduction. Neither the judge nor the prosecutors
authorizing the "likely illegal" wiretaps have been charged with any
wrongdoing.

There is nothing in place to prevent a similar thing from occurring again.

~~~
deelowe
Judges can't be charged with misinterpreting the law. They just get disbarred.

~~~
voxic11
And persecutors also have absolute immunity. They can only be charged for
things done entirely outside the scope of their duties.

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ipsin
So is there any legal recourse against the public servant who violates the
law, if the law itself provides no penalties?

In short, if this isn't punished, why won't it happen repeatedly?

~~~
dragonwriter
> So is there any legal recourse against the public servant who violates the
> law, if the law itself provides no penalties?

(1) By definition, if the law provides no remedy, there is no legal recourse;

(2) The law often provides remedies, either specific to the violation or more
general, but there may be difficulties in securing them (e.g., many violations
of people's rights are, in fact, crimes by government agents. However,
prosecutors are unlikely to pursue such crimes, especially if they were in
support of executive policy rather than a rogue -- with respect to the
leadership -- agent. Many also would generally open up civil liability under
generally-applicable principals of law, but public officers and the public
entities they work for may be able to assert various forms of governmental
immunity to such liability.)

Ultimately, the remedies for bad behavior by government often must be
political, rather than legal.

~~~
ipsin
_(1) By definition, if the law provides no remedy, there is no legal
recourse;_ I meant the law mandating the requirement, not "all law".

It's possible that there's another law dealing with the execution of duties,
similar to "honest services fraud".

I'm not saying that it exists, but I disagree that it's impossible by
definition.

I do take your second point, though.

~~~
dragonwriter
> It's possible that there's another law dealing with the execution of duties,
> similar to "honest services fraud".

I was taking that as a case of the law providing a remedy for the offense in
question, as part of some more general provision, so I think that our
disagreement here is mostly just semantics rather than substance.

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DonkeyChan
You don't stop things like this when they're legal or maybe legal. There is no
"Maybe it was illegal" It was, or it would have continued.

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pc2g4d
Shouldn't that Riverside County judge be under scrutiny here as well as the
prosecutors? Judges have to sign off on these things.

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lenova
Sounds like season 5 of The Wire...

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studentrob
It might get easier for law enforcement in the future.

A bill by US lawmakers, set for release in March, could require encrypted
devices to be able to give un-encrypted data to law enforcement. Feinstein
says the bill is "coming along ... some people are making it a lot harder than
we think it needs to be". An alternate proposal is also on the table

[http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-
cybersecurity/2016...](http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-
cybersecurity/2016/02/march-is-encryption-bill-month-hackers-going-after-
japans-infrastructure-a-mixed-final-2015-tally-212865)

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alistproducer2
I wonder how many people are sitting in a cell due to this?

~~~
kirykl
as many tobacco and fast food company CEOs are sitting on a beach

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the_watcher
I was extremely surprised to see the reporting done by my hometown paper, The
Desert Sun, as it's not exactly a nationally renowned paper.

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hackuser
If it was illegal, will anyone go to jail? Also, is it happening in any other
locales?

