DEA Agents Are Told To Cover Up Spying Program Used Against Americans

[xchrom]

http://www.businessinsider.com/dea-agents-cover-up-spying-program-2013-8


A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent marks a house after he searches it for survivors and victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana September 11, 2005.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.
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.

"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.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/dea-agents-cover-up-spying-program-2013-8#ixzz2b5rgTgIz

[WillyT]

1. K & R !!!

[nashville_brook]

2. that awkward moment when you see it's really worse than you'd imagined.

[Fumesucker]

3. The Minions will be here shortly to tell us all that this is actually a good thing

And not to listen to alarmist anti establishment types like retired Federal judges.

[nashville_brook]

4. i think they've worn themselves out on this one. lots of confusion that this isn't a fake scandal...

as we say around the house "everything is not just one thing."

[Fumesucker]

6. They have certainly worn out my tolerance for spin and bullshit

[nashville_brook]

61. [phone] - you and many others :)

[AnotherMcIntosh]

19. Maybe they are still off from the weekend.

[nashville_brook]

62. i was starting to wonder if they're on recess.

[AppleBottom]

67. OBEY!!! nt.

[davidn3600]

5. So any supporters here of the surveillance state want to continue defending this bullshit?

Seriously anyone that supports this is no progressive.

[tridim]

7. Your strawman doesn't exist on DU. nt

[Fumesucker]

11. Anything to say about the OP?

[Mojorabbit]

8. I agree. No progressive would defend this BS. nt

[zeemike]

10. Unless they are being re defined.

Which some are trying to do....progressive=party loyalist.

[Zorra]

15. Let the weasel speak begin. nt

[Vinnie From Indy]

9. It is beyond the realm of possibility that these programs will NOT be used

for the personal and political goals of those that wield them.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

12. That is certainly consistent with what we've learned in the Chicago area. We never have

a problem with our politicians or those closely connected with them. They look out for us.

[NoMoreWarNow]

13. it's all for the greater good, blah blah blah

nothing to see here. :/

[Pholus]

14. So creating alternate realities passes for justice now?

This is the point where I EXPECT the President of the United States I voted for to stand up, show some leadership and tell these guys that this is NOT right.

[midnight]

16. SOD program is another secret....

[AnotherMcIntosh]

17. Is this one of those super-secret programs whose details can be kept from Congress?

[randome]

18. They are undated documents and Reuters doesn't say how they obtained them.

And this is something that has been standard operating procedure for quite a while so I'm not sure why the sudden interest in it. So long as the evidence is strong enough, does it matter whether it came from route A or route B?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[Vinnie From Indy]

21. Why do you hate The Constitution?

"So long as the evidence is strong enough, does it matter whether it came from route A or route B?"

Yes! It does matter where evidence comes from.

[randome]

23. Isn't this the same thing when an organized crime boss is taken down?

They may not have the evidence to convict him outright but they might be able to get him with an alternate route using tax evasion or something.

I'm not clear why this is to be considered egregious. Again, the evidence needs to be solid for a conviction. Letting someone off on a technicality is to be avoided.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[NuclearDem]

70. No, it's not.

What you're describing--the Al Capone scenario--is locking a gangster up on a lesser charge the prosecution can prove in the absence of sufficient proof for the more serious crimes.

This is taking the evidence for one crime and concealing its origins, including any link to possible exculpatory evidence.

And yes, it does matter where evidence comes from. That's why there's such massive case law based on the acquisition and treatment of it.

[Pholus]

24. From TFA

"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."

And it's not like "metadata" based analyses are completely accurate:

"Current and former federal agents said SOD tips aren't always helpful - one estimated their accuracy at 60 percent. But current and former agents said tips have enabled them to catch drug smugglers who might have gotten away."

[randome]

32. "Some experts say". That's not much to go on regarding something that's been in use for decades now.

Evidence is evidence. And when it's evidence against a murderer, we all tend to give more weight to LE.

If you were on a jury, would you vote to throw out all evidence because it was obtained in a secondary manner instead of a primary?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[Pholus]

36. As the investigative process is part of the evidence,

finding problems with it destroys its credibility. So I guess you better not have me in a jury, if "the end justifies the means" techniques are what you value.

A few weeks back, this was only about "protecting us from the terrorists." I guess that was just another lie.

After the first couple, it apparently gets quite easy to continue.

[randome]

38. The DEA isn't so much protecting us from terrorists as from drug cartels.

We see the same process in TV cop shows all the time, don't we?

"We can't nail him on this but maybe if we..." And on it goes, trying to create the right evidentiary trail that will stand up in court.

Isn't this the same thing? (Not that TV cop shows are an accurate barometer of reality.)
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[Pholus]

40. No, it isn't.

This is NOT about figuring out which charge sticks based on the evidence.

This is about a magic box saying "check out so-and-so" and investigators subsequently fabricating a story about how it wasn't the magic box talking, that instead their awesome detective skillz had them notice something out of the ordinary.

You may be okay with institutionalized lying (oh sorry, "'recreating the evidence trail&quot sitting at the foundations of our legal system, but I'm not.

But perhaps I'm being too tough -- training law enforcement agents to write compelling fiction will eventually lead them to lucrative post-retirement jobs writing "TV cop shows."

[Fumesucker]

41. You really should be better informed by now

The cartels are a direct result of prohibition, every bit as inevitable as Al Capone was inevitable when the Volstead Act was passed.

The DEA is maintaining the existence of drug cartels, it cannot be any other way.

[randome]

43. Regarding marijuana, I mostly agree with you.

But cocaine and heroin? Sorry, I don't mind interdicting that at all. There may be no easy answer about drug use but I'd rather keep as much of the hard stuff out as possible.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[Fumesucker]

45. Alcohol is "hard stuff" by those standards

Seriously, it's right up there with heroin and cocaine, physically addictive, substantially mind altering, sometimes deadly and physically deteriorating in quantity over time.

If you want to continue the drug war even without pot there are going to be cartels and all the inevitable trappings of prohibition.

We were smart enough to get rid of alcohol prohibition in only thirteen years but the difference was immediately obvious, things got worse not better after the Volstead Act was passed and people could see it in their own neighborhoods.

ETA: One more point; Those other drugs are much more compact, value for value, than cannabis or alcohol and hence much easier to smuggle. This means that finding and stopping the use of those drugs is necessarily going to be even more intrusive than the search for pot.

[ProSense]

25. And it doesn't appear

"They are undated documents and Reuters doesn't say how they obtained them."

...to have anything to do with the NSA programs. It appears to be criminal investigations related to money laundering and other international crimes, and individual warrants are involved.

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.

<...>

"It's just like laundering money - you work it backwards to make it clean," said Finn Selander, a DEA agent from 1991 to 2008 and now a member of a group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which advocates legalizing and regulating narcotics.

<...>

The unit also played a major role in a 2008 DEA sting in Thailand against Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout; he was sentenced in 2011 to 25 years in prison on charges of conspiring to sell weapons to the Colombian rebel group FARC. The SOD also recently coordinated Project Synergy, a crackdown against manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers of synthetic designer drugs that spanned 35 states and resulted in 227 arrests.

<...>

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.

- more -

http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-u-directs-agents-cover-program-used-investigate-091643729.html

[Pholus]

27. Let me help you out a bit...

From a slightly more direct article about how NSA data gets shared for nonterrorism purposes.

Which FIRMLY brings into the argument the Constitutionality of this entire farce.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/us/other-agencies-clamor-for-data-nsa-compiles.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&

The money quote, with the good bit emphasized:

The security agency’s spy tools are attractive to other agencies for many reasons. Unlike traditional, narrowly tailored search warrants, those granted by the intelligence court often allow searches through records and data that are vast in scope. The standard of evidence needed to acquire them may be lower than in other courts, and the government may not be required to disclose for years, if ever, that someone was the focus of secret surveillance operations.

[ProSense]

29. What is that?

Let me help you out a bit...

From a slightly more direct article about how NSA data gets shared for nonterrorism purposes.

Which FIRMLY brings into the argument the Constitutionality of this entire farce.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/us/other-agencies-clamor-for-data-nsa-compiles.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&

The money quote, with the good bit emphasized:

The security agency’s spy tools are attractive to other agencies for many reasons. Unlike traditional, narrowly tailored search warrants, those granted by the intelligence court often allow searches through records and data that are vast in scope. The standard of evidence needed to acquire them may be lower than in other courts, and the government may not be required

That has nothing to do with my point, and the title of the article you linked to is: Other Agencies Clamor for Data N.S.A. Compiles

From the link:

Smaller intelligence units within the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Secret Service, the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security have sometimes been given access to the security agency’s surveillance tools for particular cases, intelligence officials say.

But more often, their requests have been rejected because the links to terrorism or foreign intelligence, usually required by law or policy, are considered tenuous. Officials at some agencies see another motive — protecting the security agency’s turf — and have grown resentful over what they see as a second-tier status that has undermined their own investigations into security matters.

Like I said, the Reuters piece, which is cited in the OP, indicates that this has nothing to do with NSA programs, and is about criminal investigations, including international crimes.

[Pholus]

31. From TFA, part 2.

CONCEALING A TIP

One current federal prosecutor learned how agents were using SOD tips after a drug agent misled him, the prosecutor told Reuters. In a Florida drug case he was handling, the prosecutor said, a DEA agent told him the investigation of a U.S. citizen began with a tip from an informant. When the prosecutor pressed for more information, he said, a DEA supervisor intervened and revealed that the tip had actually come through the SOD and from an NSA intercept.

[ProSense]

34. That still has nothing to do with the point.

You cited information about a prosecutor being mislead. The next paragraphs.

"I was pissed," the prosecutor said. "Lying about where the information came from is a bad start if you're trying to comply with the law because it can lead to all kinds of problems with discovery and candor to the court." The prosecutor never filed charges in the case because he lost confidence in the investigation, he said.

A senior DEA official said he was not aware of the case but said the agent should not have misled the prosecutor. How often such misdirection occurs is unknown, even to the government; the DEA official said the agency does not track what happens with tips after the SOD sends them to agents in the field.

That has nothing to do with the point about this not being NSA-related. This is about criminal investigations. The actions of the prosecutors has nothing to do with my point.

[Pholus]

42. Really. Your point seemed to be...

"And it doesn't appear ...to have anything to do with the NSA programs."

And yet it did in *that* case, one of only two discussed.

[ProSense]

48. Oh brother.

It isn't about the NSA programs. Conflating issues and creating a giant conspiracy isn't going to change anything.

Law enforcement agencies investigate criminal activity. The clarifications are in both the Reuters and NYT articles. By all means, ignore the facts.

[Pholus]

49. Why not? You're ignoring them.

[AppleBottom]

69. What does 2+2=?

Thanks in advance.

[Fumesucker]

28. The claim is that the DEA is lying even to prosecutors about where they get evidence

The standard official talking points don't apply in this case because it's the talking points that are in question.

[Rex]

30. Plus it is hard to miss this paragraph

'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.'

Hard to whitewash that bit of information imo.

[Mojorabbit]

33. What in the world are you talking about?

When has it been standard practice to do this?

[randome]

35. SOD has been in operation since 1994.

And yes, it has been standard practice when dealing with drug cartels and the like. If you are a LE officer who KNOWS someone killed someone else but you can't prove it, you look for a way to get the evidence that supports your knowledge then you present that evidence.

How many TV cop shows follow the same pattern?

The SOD helps that process along, apparently. I'm not saying it's necessarily a good thing, just that it doesn't sound too egregious, either.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[Mojorabbit]

37. It is egregious

from upthread
'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.'

[randome]

39. I agree that can be a very serious problem.

It's also possible the story is overstating things. Again, I see the TV cop show analogy where they can't nail someone because the evidence is tainted so they figure out a way to use the evidence an alternate way.

But the evidence better be damned solid all on its own.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[Marr]

44. "So long as the evidence is strong enough, does it matter whether it came from route A or route B?"

Wow.

I do wish you'd stated your position on unrestrained domestic surveillance earlier. Could've saved all that time that was wasted on the "national security" canard.

[morningfog]

66. Fuck yes it matters. My god, you are becoming more transparent.

Constitutional law and criminal procedure is built on how and when evidence is acquired.

[Rex]

20. And like good little fascist, the DEA does it without a second thought.

Another worthless organization created to punish the citizenry.

[Pholus]

22. At least some prosecutors "get it" based on the article...

CONCEALING A TIP
"I was pissed," the prosecutor said. "Lying about where the information came from is a bad start if you're trying to comply with the law because it can lead to all kinds of problems with discovery and candor to the court." The prosecutor never filed charges in the case because he lost confidence in the investigation, he said.

[LondonReign2]

26. Kick

Oh come all ye defenders...

[Catherina]

46. WAPO: "The NSA is giving your phone records to the DEA. And the DEA is covering it up."

The NSA is giving your phone records to the DEA. And the DEA is covering it up.
By Brian Fung, Published: August 5 at 10:06 am

A day after we learned of a draining turf battle between the NSA and other law enforcement agencies over bulk surveillance data, it now appears that those same agencies are working together to cover up when that data gets shared.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has been the recipient of multiple tips from the NSA. DEA officials in a highly secret office called the Special Operations Division are assigned to handle these incoming tips, according to Reuters. The information shared includes “intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records,” and it’s problematic because it appears to break down the barrier between foreign counter-terrorism investigations and ordinary domestic criminal investigations.

Because the SOD’s work is classified, DEA cases that began as NSA leads can’t be seen to have originated from a NSA source.

So what does the DEA do? It makes up the story of how the agency really came to the case in a process known as “parallel construction.”

...

Earlier this year, a federal court said that if law enforcement agencies wanted to use Section 702 phone records in court, they had to say so beforehand and give the defendant a chance to contest the legality of the surveillance. Lawyers for Adel Daoud, who was arrested in a federal sting operation and charged with trying to blow up a bomb, suspect that Daoud was identified using Section 702 records but was never told.

...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/05/the-nsa-is-giving-your-phone-records-to-the-dea-and-the-dea-is-covering-it-up/

[randome]

47. Funny how no one seems to ask the central question about NSA/DEA cooperation.

Does the information the NSA provides DEA relate to non-Americans only?

Funny how journalists don't seem to ask the pertinent questions these days.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[Fumesucker]

50. Has the DEA made that argument?

While the DEA has an international scope it's definitely an agency with a domestic policy agenda.

[randome]

52. No, the DEA has not said that.

But I think it's a very pertinent question to ask of an agency like the NSA that is supposed to primarily deal with non-American suspects.

That was the first question that occurred to me. I'm not sure why it doesn't occur to the writer of an article.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[Fumesucker]

53. Agendas differ

And everyone has one.

It seems to me if that is the defining line between what is legal and not legal and the DEA has been staying on the white hat side of that then it would be something they would be likely to emphasize in their communique.

[randome]

54. I think that's a good point.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[ProSense]

51. "report makes no explicit connection between the DEA and the earlier NSA bulk phone surveillance"

From the WaPo link.

The report makes no explicit connection between the DEA and the earlier NSA bulk phone surveillance uncovered by former Booz Allen Hamilton contractor Edward Snowden. In other words, we don’t know for sure if the DEA’s Special Operations Division is getting its tips from the same database that’s been the subject of multiple congressional hearings in recent months. We just know that the NSA sometimes grants DEA access to Section 702 phone records, and also, separately, that a special outfit within DEA sometimes gets tips from the NSA.

Again, this has nothing to do with the NSA programs. It appears to be criminal investigations related to money laundering and other international crimes, and individual warrants are involved. Reuters:

<...>

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 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.

<...>

The unit also played a major role in a 2008 DEA sting in Thailand against Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout; he was sentenced in 2011 to 25 years in prison on charges of conspiring to sell weapons to the Colombian rebel group FARC. The SOD also recently coordinated Project Synergy, a crackdown against manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers of synthetic designer drugs that spanned 35 states and resulted in 227 arrests.

<...>

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...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.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805

[Zorra]

55. The Problem of Ignorance: The Decline of Critical Thinking

In 2008 Rick Shenkman, the Editor-in-Chief of the History News Network, published a book entitled Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth about the American Voter (Basic Books). In it he demonstrated, among other things, that most Americans were: (1) ignorant about major international events, (2) knew little about how their own government runs and who runs it, (3) were nonetheless willing to accept government positions and policies even though a moderate amount of critical thought suggested they were bad for the country, and (4) were readily swayed by stereotyping, simplistic solutions, irrational fears, and public relations babble.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/05/the-decline-of-critical-thinking/

[ProSense]

57. Reuters: How DEA program differs from recent NSA revelations

Reuters: How DEA program differs from recent NSA revelations
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023407769


Go ahead, exercise some CT, "critical thinking" not conspiracy theory building.

[David Krout]

59. Make up your mind. "nothing to do" with the metadata program? or "we dont know"?

Last edited Mon Aug 5, 2013, 01:39 PM - Edit history (1)

Looks like you know.

[AppleBottom]

56. The person responsible for bring this information forward is a traitor!!!!

How dare they report on a government cover-up!!! Who wrote this article?! I bet they eat puppies or something heinous. Ignore the story a crime has been committed. Reporting on illegal activity that has been committed is a crime, you've harmed relations and endangered people. Who?! I'm not really sure of but it's bad! REAL BAD!!!!

[nadinbrzezinski]

58. And this kiddies, is how a *police state*

behaves

[friendly_iconoclast]

60. I rarely agree with you, nadin- but you are 100% correct on this one.

[nashville_brook]

64. what nadin said

!!

[malaise]

63. Rachel just covered this

frightening indeed. The Reuters guy said this has been going on from the 90s.

[nadinbrzezinski]

65. Continuity in policy

I did not watch it, hubby and I were watching local news...my mayor...1997-8 perhaps? (Will watch it later)

[AppleBottom]

68. Yep totally stopping the terrorist on American soil.

I'm sure glad that the NSA's illegal surveillance is only being used to stop terrorism. Yes indeeddy....