The NSA is Snitching On You to the Cops
From the Huffington Post comes a note on who else is using NSA data in some fashion:
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.
http://www.policymic.com/articles/58141/the-nsa-is-snitching-on-you-to-the-cops
A day after a New York Times story broke on the intense jockeying for NSA intelligence from various agencies within the federal government, Reuters has published an explosive report on the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) and its collaboration with the NSA and other agencies providing intelligence. That the surveillance agency has linked up with drug enforcement, as well as the extent to which the drug enforcement agency has isolated itself from the legal process by simply removing any evidence that points to it’s involvement are grave causes for concern.
In a story that received scant attention, the San Francisco Chronicle reported over the weekend that the NSA has been distributing information to the Justice Department on matters unrelated to terrorism. The new Reuters report can be seen as an extension of that story. The story is fairly straightforward. A unit of the DEA known as the Special Operations Division has been receiving and distributing vast levels of intelligence from agencies such as the NSA, CIA, and Department of Homeland Security. Upon receiving information about a particular transaction or meeting place, DEA agents go make arrests, using traffic stops as pretext.
1: No, it is not snitching on me, as there is nothing to snitch
2: Even if there WERE something to snitch, I would deserve it. So be it.
3: I am happy they are snitching on those who deserved to be snitched upon
4: I would be happy if they had more information to snitch, assuming the appropriate checks in balance were in place to prevent abuse.
If anything, my take-home from the Snowden affair is that the NSA is doing a lot LESS data snooping than I thought, with more oversight. I am not worried about this even one iota. Private sector snooping is much more problematic due to its pervasive ubiquity.
Chad:
“Private sector snooping is much more problematic due to its pervasive ubiquity.” We can agree on this.
The ‘I have nothing to hide because I don’t do that’ isn’t a very strong argument. Perhaps it feels satisfying? Interesting that the ‘appropriate checks and balances’ does not appear to concern you.
The better argument is that if I *did* have something to hide that the robosnoopers would pick up, I don’t *deserve* to be able to hide it.
They aren’t going to flag my conversation with grandma. They would flag my (hypothetical) discussion about laundering the cash from my drug business. You know what? I am ok with them trying to do that.
Chad,
Wake up and smell he rot. The issue is not whether one has something illegal to hide, or not. The issue is being able to know one’s accusers and/or where any such accusation may have initiated. Of course if you’re under the impression that all prosecutions that take place in good old USofA are only of guilty individuals, then ask yourself why we even bother to have a justice system at all. If arrest equals guilt just let the cops handle it all. We don’t need no stinkin’ court system with no stinkin’ bleed heart judges. And if that’s your general train of thought you’re a fool.
The ‘I have nothing to hide because I don’t do that’ isn’t a very strong argument.
Not least because if they think you have something to hide, they can always find evidence to support such a narrative. There’s that classic youtube video where a law professor explains why you never talk to the cops – the same logic applies to government snooping.
If the spooks think you’re suspicious, they will find evidence to support that suspicion – pure and simple.
Yup Phoenician,
This is why we have innocent until proven guilt. The founder came to understand that you can never prove your self innocent to one who refuses to believe it, thus the state is made to prove you guilty. And thus the burden was placed on the state to have to really work to find the definative evidence of one’s guilt.
With the idea that Chad et al have, this entire bit of enlightenment that is the foundation of our law is demolished.
I’m sure Chad would never do anything to make an intelligence agency suspicious…
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/02/15/are-you-making-the-fbi-suspicious-see-the-fliers-that-reveal-what-theyre-looking-for/