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 ...
Are you maybe thinking of Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”?
Quite possibly; I know it was in a book, but one I never read. (That is, I heard the story second/third-hand.)
Usin the NSA database without a warrant ping.
PING, we knew it would be used against citizens.
bbbb.....bbbbu.....bbbb.....bbbbu we’re at Terror Code Magenta, or something. A bunch of terrorists are gonna blow-up our embassy in Abu Dhabi or Tehran or Little Rock or somewhere. We gotta keep on reading everybody’s email to stop this from happening!!!
This is a total disregard of the probable cause requirement for search and seizure under the4th amendment. This article is flying out to the defense bar and the judiciary as we write here. The subornation of purjury aspect of this is beyond doubt. The Brady violations for withholding exculpatory evidence will free thousands of criminals in prisons. Judges will not stand for this throughout the entire country and you will see contempt of court rulings on prosecutors in the very near future. WE are fast approaching a dictatorship.
Follow the money. Snooping and manipulation of data is ultimately a quest for ill-gotten gain.
If this is correct, close NSA and start over. Do it now. Stop the police state!
Thanks for your reply. A lot of us were wondering what the Obozo thugs had on Petraeus and how they got it. Now we know “how they got it!”
‘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.’
Seems like it should be available for all to read.
.
Come on FREEPERS.... link it please...
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