U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans.

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(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.

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Remember kiddies, your government knows best~

land of the free

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Originally Posted by The Angelic Anathema

Remember kiddies, your government knows best~

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If it's done by the DEA as the news story title says, then it probably means they are trying to used NSA assets to help them catch DRUG DEALERS! I say GOOD FOR THEM! Recreational drugs (except for marijuana) are very bad for you. PERIOD!

---------- Post added at 03:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:47 AM ----------

What idiot just gave me neg rep for disagreeing with my opinion on this thread?

its all one big consperacey. well thats the way i see it but then agion i am technecley a *retard* by medical terms

Once the truth is revealed, hiding it only makes it more obvious. PRI$M and $urveillance. <br>

I think a couple of people are missing the point of the article, so imma leave this quote here:

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"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."

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Sure, this has a ripple effect into other areas, but this isn't a "TAKING AWAY DRUGS DERP," or "GOBMENT BE SPYING ON US" thread. This is about being able to defend yourself in a court case if you have no knowledge on what to dispute.

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"A former federal agent in the northeastern United States who received such tips from SOD described the process. "You'd be told only, ‘Be at a certain truck stop at a certain time and look for a certain vehicle.' And so we'd alert the state police to find an excuse to stop that vehicle, and then have a drug dog search it," the agent said.

After an arrest was made, agents then pretended that their investigation began with the traffic stop, not with the SOD tip, the former agent said. The training document reviewed by Reuters refers to this process as 'parallel construction.'"

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So this is it in a nutshell. Thread title is a bit misleading imo, but hopefully someone smarter than me can help me out.

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Originally Posted by Velvet_Nightmare

Thread title is a bit misleading imo, but hopefully someone smarter than me can help me out.

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No, the title says it all. One has to invest some mental energy in reading the article and comprehending just how badly they've been screwed.

You are being spied on.
By the government.
Which then lies to you about it.

mazal tov

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Originally Posted by The Angelic Anathema

No, the title says it all. One has to invest some mental energy in reading the article and comprehending just how badly they've been screwed.

You are being spied on.
By the government.
Which then lies to you about it.

mazal tov

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Government is spying on me? Wow, this is shocking news!

...seriously though. Am I running illegal drugs out of my car? Am I in any way involved in dealing, producing, or handling drugs in anyway? No. Am I ever gonna have to worry that the trail of evidence and investigation is being covered up, thus preventing me from being able to defend myself to my full extent in court? Who knows, maybe one day some loser will dump cocaine in my car and tell the cops it's on me, but honestly, if all you can gather from the article is "Government is spying on you and lying about it," then it must be a slow day for you.

Plus:

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The DICE database contains about 1 billion records, the senior DEA officials said. The majority of the records consist of phone log and Internet data gathered legally by the DEA through subpoenas, arrests and search warrants nationwide. Records are kept for about a year and then purged, the DEA officials said.

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Sounds like everyday police work to me.

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Originally Posted by The Angelic Anathema

No, the title says it all. One has to invest some mental energy in reading the article and comprehending just how badly they've been screwed.

You are being spied on.
By the government.
Which then lies to you about it.

mazal tov

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Obviously annoying, but is it unexpecting? As long as you don't do stupid things then why should we worry? I agree that we should have our freedom as Americans, but really the only people who would worry about this are the people who have something illegal to hide. Add in the fact that is not even unexpected.

I say that if people really cared about the government spying on them, they'd stop posting things on their FB and do something about it.

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Originally Posted by SigmaSD

I say that if people really cared about the government spying on them, they'd stop posting things on their FB and do something about it.

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Excuse me, but Facebook is a valid outlet.
(This was a joke, by the way.)

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Originally Posted by Yoko Littner

As long as you don't do stupid things then why should we worry? I agree that we should have our freedom as Americans, but really the only people who would worry about this are the people who have something illegal to hide.

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The line "if you've got nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about" is used all too often in defending surveillance overreach. It's been debunked countless times in the past, but with the line being trotted out frequently in response to the NSA revelations, it's time for yet another debunking, and there are two good ones that were recently published. First up, we've got Moxie Marlinspike at Wired, who points out that, you're wrong if you think you've got nothing to hide, because our criminal laws are so crazy, that anyone sifting through your data would likely be able to pin quite a few crimes on you if they just wanted to.

For instance, did you know that it is a federal crime to be in possession of a lobster under a certain size? It doesn't matter if you bought it at a grocery store, if someone else gave it to you, if it's dead or alive, if you found it after it died of natural causes, or even if you killed it while acting in self defense. You can go to jail because of a lobster.
If the federal government had access to every email you've ever written and every phone call you've ever made, it's almost certain that they could find something you've done which violates a provision in the 27,000 pages of federal statues or 10,000 administrative regulations. You probably do have something to hide, you just don't know it yet.

Furthermore, he points out, that one of the big reasons why laws are changed is because people realize that the laws don't make sense for the current times -- but that's much more difficult if law enforcement is sniffing through all your data and penalizing you any time they've found you've done something wrong.

Imagine if there were an alternate dystopian reality where law enforcement was 100% effective, such that any potential law offenders knew they would be immediately identified, apprehended, and jailed. If perfect law enforcement had been a reality in Minnesota, Colorado, and Washington since their founding in the 1850s, it seems quite unlikely that these recent changes would have ever come to pass. How could people have decided that marijuana should be legal, if nobody had ever used it? How could states decide that same sex marriage should be permitted, if nobody had ever seen or participated in a same sex relationship?

The cornerstone of liberal democracy is the notion that free speech allows us to create a marketplace of ideas, from which we can use the political process to collectively choose the society we want. Most critiques of this system tend to focus on the ways in which this marketplace of ideas isn’t totally free, such as the ways in which some actors have substantially more influence over what information is distributed than others.

Meanwhile, over at Mashable, Julian Sanchez gives a much more direct explanation for why everyone has something to hide:

Some of the potentially sensitive facts those records expose becomes obvious after giving it some thought: Who has called a substance abuse counselor, a suicide hotline, a divorce lawyer or an abortion provider? What websites do you read daily? What porn turns you on? What religious and political groups are you a member of?

Some are less obvious. Because your cellphone's "routing information" typically includes information about the nearest cell tower, those records are also a kind of virtual map showing where you spend your time — and, when aggregated with others, who you like to spend it with.

Furthermore, he points out the elitist obnoxiousness of the claim that you shouldn't worry about overly broad surveillance, just because you might not be a target:

However, that seems like an awfully narrow way to think about the importance of privacy. Folks don't usually say (aloud, anyway), "I'm white, why should I care about racism?" or, "My political and religious views are too mainstream to ever be restricted, so why should I care about the First Amendment?"

We don't say such things not only because we care about other people's rights as well as our own happiness, but also because we understand that we benefit indirectly from living in a certain kind of society. You may not be interested in protesting, criticizing the government or debating fringe political views — but as a citizen of a democracy, subject to the laws the democratic process produces, you're better off in a system where those things are allowed to happen.

So, yes, even if you don't think you have something to hide, you do, and you should be concerned about the basic civil liberties and civil rights of those around you.

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Source.

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Originally Posted by SigmaSD

I say that if people really cared about the government spying on them, they'd stop posting things on their FB and do something about it.

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But I don't get why they had to spy secretly rather than transparently. Why couldn't they just tell us they have all this data? Why did some dude have to release it and get chased to the other side of the planet for doing so?

They know better than your typical American about the nefarious nature of what they're doing.

Also, I think the fact that people sound complacent about this is due to the fact that there isn't (yet) some big anti-spying interest group organizing political action. There are plenty of people who would be complacent about something like abortion, gay marriage, war, etc. if interest groups didn't organize protests.

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Originally Posted by Wio

But I don't get why they had to spy secretly rather than transparently. Why couldn't they just tell us they have all this data? Why did some dude have to release it and get chased to the other side of the planet for doing so?

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General rule of thumb in regards to the mindset behind these sort of programs/projects and operations is to not let the other side remotely get any wind of suspicion that they are being monitored. If one sensed being spied on while changing, naturally curtains would fall. 'Less of course, you're in to that.

This whole matter garners my attention because I don't imagine the interests in question are gullible enough to use this method of communication or transferring. Those that might are probably at the lower rungs and aren't aware of any better. Then again, I could be surprised.

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Originally Posted by The Angelic Anathema

Source.

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I need to hide that lobster I just bought!

Lol, but yeah I understand. Either way it is annoying that they do this, but it isn't something unexpected.

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Originally Posted by Yoko Littner

Either way it is annoying that they do this, but it isn't something unexpected.

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Expected or not, the legal status is set firmly in the not. We expect our government to follow the rules, and all you have to say is that it is expected to violate them?
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdd0i5EjYI1rvgn38.png

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Originally Posted by The Angelic Anathema

Expected or not, the legal status is set firmly in the not. We expect our government to follow the rules, and all you have to say is that it is expected to violate them?
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdd0i5EjYI1rvgn38.png

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Um, wut? I meant it like I'm not shocked that they do this. They obviously shouldn't, but are you really shocked?

What am I expected to say? I agree it is wrong, but what else is there really to say?

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Originally Posted by Yoko Littner

What am I expected to say? I agree it is wrong, but what else is there really to say?

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You're not expected to say anything. However, you should have stated that you found the actions wrong in your first post. Instead, you defended the actions in your first post, and then you said it was "annoying."

I'm a very literal person, and expressing annoyance isn't denouncement.

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Originally Posted by The Angelic Anathema

You're not expected to say anything. However, you should have stated that you found the actions wrong in your first post. Instead, you defended the actions in your first post, and then you said it was "annoying."

I'm a very literal person, and expressing annoyance isn't denouncement.

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I just didn't know people are expected to post in a way that is acceptable to you and you being literal. Anyways, I do agree it is wrong and by no means disagree with you though.

The people who wrote the constitution would facepalm at this by the way.

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Originally Posted by Yoko Littner

The people who wrote the constitution would facepalm at this by the way.

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Those who wrote the constitution had more class than to resort to simple hand gestures. We'd have some killer pamphlets, protests, and speeches.

 

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Originally Posted by Yoko Littner

I just didn't know people are expected to post in a way that is acceptable to you and you being literal.

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You didn't even say you were against it until that post. How am I supposed to know what your stance is if you don't say it? It has nothing to do with what is acceptable to me, and trying to make my response to be anything other than a critical reply is asinine.

Oh, and saying something "isn't unexpected," is saying that it is possible, which doesn't convey anything other than the possibility of said something. It's a pointless phrase that does not convey a lack of shock. I'm not going to assume things you should be explicitly stating.


Spoilered for lack of relevancy.

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Originally Posted by The Angelic Anathema

Those who wrote the constitution had more class than to resort to simple hand gestures. We'd have some killer pamphlets, protests, and speeches.

 

You didn't even say you were against it until that post. How am I supposed to know what your stance is if you don't say it? It has nothing to do with what is acceptable to me, and trying to make my response to be anything other than a critical reply is asinine.

Oh, and saying something "isn't unexpected," is saying that it is possible, which doesn't convey anything other than the possibility of said something. It's a pointless phrase that does not convey a lack of shock. I'm not going to assume things you should be explicitly stating.


Spoilered for lack of relevancy.

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Y'know, the lend me an ear classic.

I guess I see what you mean by the way @ spoiler tab.

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Originally Posted by Kumagawa

land of the free

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Something seems to be missing...

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Originally Posted by Kumagawa

land of the free*

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Ah, that's better!