More details on the SOD program Anne Laurie mentioned yesterday, from 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.
“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.”
Some of this data comes from the NSA:
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.
“They do a pretty good job of screening, but it can be a struggle to know for sure whether the person on a wiretap is American,” the senior law enforcement official said.
Do you trust an agency that hid the origin of evidence from prosecutors and judges to be scrupulous about using only foreign intercepts? I don’t, especially when one of the techniques they use is to gather data and then make a targeted traffic stop to miraculously catch someone.
c u n d gulag
Why is it that I suspect that this is another “feature,” and not a “bug?”
They can now go to the people who have children and grandchildren, and say, “Not only are we out there to catch terrorists who want to kill us all – we’re also trying to catch people who will be selling drugs to the kids in your family!. See? WIN-WIN!!!”
And so, the drip, drip, drip, to a complete and total lack of privacy, continues…
Actually, never mind the dripping – I think it’s a flood.
OY!
LittlePig
Sure, that was the old trick Churchill insisted be used with ENIGMA and what the U.S. did with JN25 during WWII – a reconnaissance plane would just “happen by” before anything happened so that plausible deniability could be maintained.
If hundreds of thousands of white middle-class pot smokers get arrested, I’ll bet that the public concern over the NSA will broaden considerably
Betty Cracker
Nope. It’s shameful enough that we rolled over for the PATRIOT Act in our post-9/11 bed-wetting phase. To extend those extraordinary powers to garden-variety crime investigations is truly outrageous.
Linda Featheringill
So the real problem with Snowden is not what he actually revealed but what we might find when we, inspired by him, start looking closely at what is going on.
This is unsettling.
Mino
Just pull out that “retroactively legal” wand again.
AJS
see Spitzer
Baud
As I said in Anne’s thread yesterday, I think we’ve given more of our civil liberties away in the war on drugs than we have in the war on terror.
@Betty Cracker:
Not entirely clear. According to the article, the SOD started in 1994, and the NSA was involved, I presume, because they were used to go after foreign drug cartels pre-9/11. Also from the article:
So it appears that this program was already in place on 9/11. What’s not clear is how SOD changed after 9/11.
MomSense
Just for giggles I thought I would post this from 2008 about this topic. Bonus Greenwald content.
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/salons-glenn-greenwald-writes-the-field
But if you are truly interested in following the DEA and “drug war”, narconews.com has been covering this better than anyone else and consistently.
Keith G
@Linda Featheringill: Linda, you are awesome! Your summary here needs to be chiseled on a mountain or two.
The Manning/Snowden circus(s) are just one window in time shedding a little bit of light on an ongoing process. Those who want to reflexively defend or attack this administration seem to be missing the forest just because they are so damned intent on chopping down a tree or a few.
Forgive my brief histrionics, but this really is a battle we need to fight for future citizens.
Edit
@Baud:
I feel the you are correct, and it really doesn’t matter how the hole got put in the boat, we need to plug the hole and bail like hell.
Botsplainer
@MomSense:
That was classic Greenwald. To him, Barack Obama was clearly History’s Greatest Monster even in early 2008.
Baud
@Keith G:
I agree. I hope this stuff leads to real reforms. But it’s going to sustained push that’s not tied to a particular officeholder or news cycle. So many of our laws are out of date in so many ways that there isn’t going to be a comprehensive quick fix for all of it.
Keith G
@Baud:
Yet there is an office holder right now who would be able to step up this process and focus national attention is a constructive way.
Why he isn’t mystifiesI hope he demonstrates firm leadership on an important issue that can develop broad and deep bipartisan support.And it’s a populist issue that, if not defused, might be used against the administration in upcoming election cycles.
RobertDSC-PowerMac G5 Dual
SInce when will the domestic terrorists in the GOP cooperate with the President on anything?
Baud
@Keith G:
Not sure how much regular voters care about the issue, and Democrats have been stronger in privacy concerns than Republicans.
And on a meta level, the office holder who will be held responsible for security failures should not be the one making the decisions on the right balance between security and privacy.
Mino
I think Diane F. should be measuring the drapes for her retirement home. She thinks all this stuff is just fine.
Hawes
This is the missing piece. If the NSA has been cooperating with domestic law enforcement, then this moves from policy dispute to something closer to “scandal”. Storing phone records, access capabilities… I consider that all somewhat understandable, if liable to abuse.
But direct coordination between the NSA and DEA would be a real problem (though it’s unclear whether this is coordinated or somewhat accidental).
boatboy_srq
@Baud: It does seem that it’s a cart-and-horse situation, where DEA snooping was facilitated by PATRIOT data rather than the other way around.
What I find interesting is that anyone should actually be surprised by this. Scope creep is a natural behavior in intelligence and law enforcement. And there’s been insufficient turnover among rank-and-file intel agencies to change the mindset on the ground from the War on Drugs and the GWoT, so a lot of the old bad behaviors are undoubtedly still in place.
The one trouble with a reasonable oppostion to this is that any resistance to this will be met from the Reichwing with the “if you’re not doing anything wrong…” arguments that the data is being used against [gasp] drug dealers and FSM forbid we give those types a break. Yet every time there’s a discussion of public budgets, ordinary law enforcement is on the chopping block along with other emergency services because “we’re broke” (see Detroit, Chicago, Charleston etc). It sucks that we can’t enforce TXTnDRV laws (which save lives, thank you very much) because we can’t “afford” the patrols, but we can spend billions leveraging intel originally intended for Teh Turrrrist Threat to learn who’s smoking what. Because Freedom!™, I guess.
Keith G
@RobertDSC-PowerMac G5 Dual: Having the government so invasively assert it’s various noses into it’s citizens daily lives will rankle many in the grass roots of all partisan groups. It’s an issue that can bypass the elected officials as it bounces around the noggins of Greenpeacers and NRAers alike.
It’s an issue begging for a little enlightened and creative leadership. Do we have that?
danielx
@Linda Featheringill:
Unsettling is the word, all right, and – going way out on a limb – DEA isn’t the only agency that has what they view as excellent reasons for wanting access to all that data, right down to the local cops. And the more people who have access to it, the greater the likelihood (approaching certainty) that NSA’s capabilities will be used for purely political ends. To blackmail, let’s say, someone who is thinking of running for office, to track everyone who attends a certain completely lawful meeting…and so forth.
Official Washington lived in fear of J. Edgar Hoover’s files for decades, and what NSA can do makes the Hoover files look like child’s play.
Keith G
@Baud:
Isn’t this the only process we have? How else can a democracy-based government function? One of my criteria in supporting a candidate is figuring out who can make the hard choices about long term vs short term trade offs.
Omnes Omnibus
This one is going to piss off federal judges. Federal prosecutors will also be pissed – either because they have been sent into court with phony info or because a shitload of resolved case suddenly became suspect. This will have legs. As it should.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: The WaPo piece AL linked yesterday says:
So you’re right, it’s unclear. But if people are obscuring the source of the tips, that’s worrisome. To invert wingnut guilt-innocence logic, if you’re not doing anything wrong, why cover it up?
As with the NSA surveillance info dumped by Snowden that set off the latest round of discussions about what is legitimate scrutiny and what is overreach, I’m not particularly interested in when it started or assigning blame to any particular administration. I think it’s more important to identify abuses or the potential for abuse and have an intelligent discussion about the best path forward. A pipe dream, I realize.
Baud
@Keith G:
I meant it’s ultimately Congress’s responsibility to set the rules.
Omnes Omnibus
@Keith G: No president is going to take that risk voluntarily. The downsides are too high. If we want a change, it must be pushed from below or come from the courts.
shortstop
@Betty Cracker:
Precisely. And they can can the predictable “You can’t handle the truth!” bullshit right now.
Having a Democratic president in office may actually help this situation — not because he’s going to do anything about it, but because hatred of Obama mobilizes wingers who otherwise have no problem giving law enforcement unlimited powers. So we may have a better chance of getting public opinion against this than we would with a Republican prez.
But it will be the courts and the legal profession that lead the charge against this crap — it’s not going to come from any legislators or executives of either party.
Keith G
@Omnes Omnibus: Certainly our Chief Executive can not make these changes by fiat. My view is that presidents can (and should) identify issues and press the debate forward. Some of our more highly regarded leaders have taken substantial leadership risks by, in essence, getting out in front of where conventional opinion was sitting .
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@Keith G:
The process we have is that the legislative branch writes the laws and the executive branch enforces them. What it sounds like you want is for the executive to decide what the laws should be and then enforce them.
Congress is supposed to rein in the executive branch. Unfortunately, they’ve decided to abdicate their oversight responsibilities. As Baud said, if the same people are put in charge of making the rules AND enforcing those rules, human nature says they will make the rules favor law enforcement.
Citizen_X
@Keith G:
I thought the courts were the backstop.
Keith G
@shortstop: Coincidently, I was just thinking about that…
It’s never a bad time for a little Jack.
mrmcd
Yes but Glenn Greenwald is rude and Snowden used to post on a message board about anime and Ron Paul.
Just move along! All of you!
burnspbesq
@Omnes Omnibus:
Bingo. If you have any spare cash looking for a good home, think about The Innocence Project. Its caseload is about to grow exponentially.
EconWatcher
The truth is, the drug war has always been fought dirty, and always will be. How do you enforce a law that prohibits transactions between consenting adults, where there is no victim to complain to authorities? Answer: with snitches, wiretaps, coerced cooperation, and all manner of police-state tactics. If you charge law enforcement with this function, they will find a way to get it done, but you really don’t want to ask how they did it.
I used to favor across-the-board legalization. When I became a dad, I got a little more cautious. But can’t we just legalize pot, see how it goes, and take it from there?
shortstop
@Keith G: I thought that was the perfect role for him — because I’ve never been able to stick him at any price.
shortstop
@EconWatcher:
No, I do. I really, really do.
Keith G
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Oh bullshit…Stop putting words in my mouth (Is this my 10th or 50th such request?)
But as I review time stamps, maybe I can cut you a bit of slack, maybe.
Yes they have. So what do we do? Do we wait for the decade or so it will take to maybe change gerrymandered district lines so we constantly get better Congresses?
Do we pray that some bigger, maybe cataclysmic, breach of power is uncovered so that there is a tsunami of public pressure? The new Watergate?
Maybe those and a few other eruptions have to occur before we wise up, but it would sure be nice, in the interim, if we could encourage progressive leadership from the executive to get the ball rolling. Yes it is chancy, but great (and even some good) leaders take chances. They….(what’s the word)….”lead”.
Let me go back to this…
Are you stipulating that the only way that a president will do what’s right is if he is reigned in?
Edit
My votes for Obama were not conditional that there would be a vigilant Congress on hand to keep him in line.
RaflW
I have generally been an Obama supporter. This is an outrage and puts a massive dent in my support for a man who taught constitutional law.
ericblair
@EconWatcher:
As my kids get to the relevant age, I’m less concerned with my kids’ lives being ruined by drugs than being ruined by getting in trouble with the law about drugs. Although we’re white middle class professionals who can toss money at lawyers, so that’s less of a problem than it is for others.
And agreed, if it takes hatred of Obama to start untangling the mess of minimum sentencing, rampant testilying, prison snitches, and forcing kids into life-threatening informant roles to avoid spending their best years in prison, then go for it. Although that’s probably not enough to actually do it, it may fracture the gooper factions some more.
FlipYrWhig
@RaflW: how does a program that goes back to the 1990s affect your support for Obama? Because he didn’t stop it? Seems like a thin reed, unless it comes out that he was aware of this or, worse, encouraged it. Frankly, Obama has more to do with the IRS stuff, seeing as the policy has to do with coping with a Supreme Court ruling during his term, and which no one on the side of the light pins to Obama at all anymore, than this, which the stories say was going on before he got there and has continued. See Baud‘s comment above.
Miki
@Linda Featheringill:
(My additions in bold.)
This was bound to happen as a consequence of Congress taking down the “wall” back in October 2001.
And no – I am not surprised.
kindness
The IRS doesn’t bother me but I would sure support the dismantling of the DEA. They are what George Orwell wrote about.
Villago Delenda Est
It’s amazing that all this effort can be expended to chase after some drug dealers, while assholes in suits can walk off with fucking billions and nothing, nothing can be done about it.
Villago Delenda Est
@shortstop:
The INSTANT a Rethug gets into the Oval Office, the wingers will forget any of this ever happened.
They are fascists, they are authoritarians, they are scum. Period.
Ted & Hellen
@Omnes Omnibus:
But hope and change.
Your president is pathetic.
Ted & Hellen
@Keith G:
Why are you racist?
Ted & Hellen
@RaflW:
It is Obama’s job to abuse his power as much as he possibly can unless congress enacts laws to stop him, you racist.
Ted & Hellen
@Villago Delenda Est:
Bingo.
cvstoner
As I said before, there can be no effective oversight of this data. Once the agencies have it, they will want to use it any way they see fit.
Betty Cracker
@cvstoner: I’m sure you are right that they will WANT to use it, but I’m not convinced there can be no effective oversight. Wouldn’t it be possible to set and enforce strict parameters around legitimate data use (with court oversight where appropriate) and put hefty penalties in place for violations?
Of course, before that could happen, there would have to be consensus on what constitutes legitimate scrutiny and appropriate oversight. Which ain’t gonna happen, given our dysfunctional politics. It’s impossible to have a rational discussion of it on this one fucking blog populated almost exclusively by Democrats without setting off an avalanche of stupid, so never mind.
Ella in New Mexico
On one hand my government can literally just work backwards to try and find SOMETHING, anything in my electronic past to investigate or charge me for a crime I may not even know I have committed.
On the other hand, my son can’t get New Mexico to reinstate his (erroneously! due to delayed posting of payment of a traffic ticket) suspended license because he is locked in an alternative hell dimension in which NM–NOT living in the computer age–says it needs a written letter of release from the State of Arizona, but Arizona–which could solve this problem in ten seconds on its online system for its residents— says it doesn’t provide any such letters it only reports to a national data base that NM can look at, but NM says even so they need a letter they don’t use the database to reissue licenses but they apparently DID use the database when they impounded his car and confiscated his license after being pulled over for driving in the left lane of a two lane highway “too long” oh, and the one human in that AZ that could POSSIBLY assist him has not answered her voice mail in two weeks.
If that was a run on sentence it is only due to the stress and worry from being the parent of an underemployed, newly graduated wildlife biologist who is between temp jobs that require a driver’s license and who quite possibly will NEVER be able to afford to be financially independent in this frigging economy.
F. M. L. :-)
AnonPhenom
@mrmcd:
… and you know Google and Apple have been collecting data on you forever anyways!
Omnes Omnibus
@Ted & Hellen: He is your president too.
Further, I am not really defending Obama here. I am suggesting that this is how any and all presidents work. This is not an area where anyone in the Oval Office has ever been a profile in courage. I doubt it ever will be. Elizabeth Warren would be little different on this if she were President.
Change will come from public pressure and/or the courts.
Ted & Hellen
@Omnes Omnibus:
No…he is president of the united states and I happen to have been born here.
But just as with GWB before him, I do not claim this individual as my president in any sense of the heart/head. I have no loyalty to him or respect for him. All of that nonsense is a very immature game played by the same people who hide behind the American flag while doing their dirty work.
Anyway, I disagree with the rest of your comment as well. I don’t know what EW would do or not do, as you claim to. But if she behaved as BO has behaved since his election, I’d not respect her either.
People like you seemed to have been so beaten down by the same old, same old, that you expect next to nothing from your leaders. Which works out very well for them if you hadn’t noticed…
Lurking Canadian
@Villago Delenda Est: If they let the drug dealers write the laws about drug dealing, probably they’d have an easier time of it, too.
Sad_Dem
I just read about a two-year-old girl who was abused to death by a foster parent. The girl was in a foster home because her father got arrested for smoking pot.
mclaren
Your post of course omits the most remarkable and terrifying feature of the NSA’s SOD liaison with the DEA: the fact that DEA 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.”
Source: Bruce Schneier’s blog (for those of you who don’t know, Schneier is one of the most widely respected security experts in the U.S.).
Schneier’s takeaway?
“This is really bad. The surveillance state is closer than most of us think.”
In other news, “T.S.A. Expands Duties Beyond Airport Security,” The New York Times, 5 August 2013.
Count down to the usual list of kooks and cranks and crackpots (burnspbesq, mnemosyne, eemom) claiming that the New York Times and Bruce Schneier are “ranting” and “raving” and “hallucinating” and “off their meds” in…3…2…1…
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
Obama has repeatedly and willfully violated his oath of office, to wit “to preserve, protect, and defend the consitution of the united states.” Obama has in fact ripped up the constitution at every opportunity and wiped his ass with it.
What Obama actually is, is an unindicted co-conspirator in violating amendments 1, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 14 of the constitution of the united states.
Oh, and he’s your unindicted co-conspirator too. Obama is a co-conspirator in treason, high crimes and misdemeanors with anyone who acquiesces in and apologizes for and tries to defend Obama’s ongoing indefensible demolition of the fundamental rule of law that has underpinned Western civilization since the Magna Carta.