Posted on 08/05/2013 8:54:26 AM PDT by xzins
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.
"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."
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.
Today, much of the SOD's work is classified, and officials asked that its precise location in Virginia not be revealed. The documents reviewed by Reuters are marked "Law Enforcement Sensitive," a government categorization that is meant to keep them confidential.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at preview.reuters.com ...
This means the NSA is collecting, listening, analyzing, and distributing.
SOD the NSA!
Crikes, this stuff needs a stop put to it ASAP. We is outta time I think.
Yep, and with this latest revelation just out, I wonder how many thousands of drug convictions will now be tossed out because the chain of evidence was fabricated from its inception?
This is a nightmare scenario because it confirms the US will collect everything, analyze it, and then pretend it was "an informant" rather than their own NSA collection scheme.
It means that Eric Holder's "Zimmerman tip line" was asking for "a tip from an informant." That was probably a signal to the NSA to search everything it had ever recorded for dirt on George Zimmerman.
It's not a wise idea to lie to a Federal Judge (ie: perjury), especially if you may have to appear again before him !
At least we aren't getting "the least untruthful answer " as offered to Congress by the head of NSA ../s
The real question is : When is the Government telling the truth , .. and when is it lying ?
In this instance, it was drug related ,
what if next time it is politcally motivated ?
“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.”
Well that makes complete sense.
Freegards
That’s wonderful! Lindsey Graham says it is!
This is worse than the KGB. And supposedly mccain hates the KGB.
Speaking of mccain, Stossel must be being blackmailed. He said last night that mccain said he was happy in the POW camp because he chose to be. (Not exact quote) Yeah, I’ll bet he was, the damn traitor.
That might not be entirely unfeasible/untrue; I seem to recall hearing about a Holocost survivor's story where he came to the realization that he had no control over his situation, but he did have control over his actions/reactions and [to a degree] emotions.
Sorry, but I really don't remember much detail of the story, just the general gist.
So we now have potentially dangerous government snooping combined with other government agencies waging a mindless and ultimately self-defeating drug war.
Which does more damage?
Wrong question because these two practices combined create an especially dangerous synergy.
This cannot end well.
I quite sure next time has already occured.
Many would argue that is already happening.
For me what is important here is that it seems the NSA is collecting EVERYTHING, sorting EVERYTHING on some algorithms, searching on names, searching on key words, etc.
And that means that YOU might not be getting searched and sorted simply because you aren't yet a bee in their bonnet they want to get rid of.
More lying, dishonest crapola from “the most open administration in history.”
Remind me why we used to cuss out the Soviet Union again?
Yep, and even though they’re not collecting your information, they seem able to come up with it...and hand it off to others.
Magical, that.
See, this NSA law-breaking is handy. If some uppity General dares to question His Highness about Benghazi, then his email love letters to his mistress get revealed.
Poof! No more career for General Petraeus.
So it isn’t just terror and drug emails being read. The NSA is reading love letters, too.
It’s completely illegal. Completely corrupt.
I think ALL communication/media digits are collected and recorded, but I’m betting all digits from all conservative web sites are collected, recorded, sorted, and analyzed.
“I’m betting all digits from all conservative web sites are collected, recorded, sorted, and analyzed.”
You win.
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