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Prosecutors halt vast, likely illegal DEA wiretap operation
- edc117 11y agoDon't get me wrong, I'm glad to see this was stopped, but how long until the DEA is simply drinking from the same firehose the NSA is? We've already heard all about parallel construction, and now there's talk about sharing the information the NSA sucks up. Why isn't any of this going through Congress or being given proper oversight?
- fweespeech 11y agoIf it went through Congress, the politicians couldn't be caught supporting it. They want plausible deniability. If it works, Congress can claim they reduced crime. If it fails, they can blame the President failing to properly oversee his people. They have literally no incentive to get involved.
- italophil 11y agoNot very long before they get NSA data, Obama just took the first step: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/us/politics/obama-administration-set-to-expand-sharing-of-data-that-nsa-intercepts.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/us/politics/obama-administ...
- awqrre 11y agoObama really fooled me with his "nice" speeches at election time...
- thephyber 11y agoDo you have any proof he had decided to take this course of action before he took office when he was making campaign promises? I'm under the impression that the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies are extremely good at drumming up scary daily reports which wear down any president's resolve.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ryanlol 11y ago>Do you have any proof he had decided to take this course of action before he took office when he was making campaign promises? Does it really matter when he decided to take this course of action? I think what matters is that he did. >I'm under the impression that the Pentagon and the intelligence agencies are extremely good at drumming up scary daily reports which wear down any president's resolve. That's no excuse, it doesn't justify his actions. Obama was selected from a country of 300 million people to lead the nation, it's perfectly justifiable to expect for him to be above being manipulated by "scary daily reports". And here he is, step by step turning the US into an Orwellian police state (God, I wish this was hyperbole). Also, I seriously doubt the NSA has been bugging Obama for permission to hand over their data to various LE agencies.
- ssmoot 11y ago> Does it really matter when he decided to take this course of action? I think what matters is that he did. I would hope a President (or any politician really) would feel free to change their mind as they're presented with evidence they weren't previously familiar with. Or maybe their own priorities have even changed 8 years later and that's influenced their change of heart. That sort of thing happens. Just because I might disagree with their conclusion or interpretation doesn't mean they shouldn't be free to reevaluate. One of the most hollow, worthless political insults is to call someone a "flip flopper" IMO. It panders to ignorance. I want politicians to be persuaded by the facts. To not be zealous idealogues.
- awqrre 11y agoThen I guess that every election promise that he choose not to keep should be brought back to a popular vote/referendum ... that would help people not feel betrayed. It's not like he has to promise anything...
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- thephyber 11y agoThis is the worst case scenario from the NSA mass-surveillance debacle. I could plausibly justify it when the NSA (a department of the DoD) was solely focused on national security (assuming the NSA's self-imposed controls, protocols, procedures, etc were implemented and executed as the NSA Director claimed). Now national security resources are being retasked to fight another failed prohibition. The US Federal Government's failed drug policies are as much a threat to US national security as foreign drug cartels are. Re-legalize narcotics, redirect enforcement and imprisonment funding to rehab, education, abd.
- s_q_b 11y agoThe DEA's Special Operations Division already shares data with the IC for parallel construction purposes, and they have a $280,000,000 budget.
- mtgx 11y agoI wonder what they mean by "changing the rules". Are they talking about another Executive Order? How would they just "change the rules" without violating some law? My fear is this will be done through CISA, as I expected it would be. That would give them the excuse to say it's legal.
- x5n1 11y agoDEA needs to be dismantled. What are useless organization. They are thugs that go after the poor. Founded by Nixon to basically do just that. Some interesting facts: "The total budget of the DEA from 1972 to 2014, according to the agency website, was $50.6 billion." So in 40 years 51 billion dollars, or a billion dollars per year. "In 2005, the DEA seized a reported $1.4 billion in drug trade related assets and $477 million worth of drugs.[20] According to the White House's Office of Drug Control Policy, the total value of all of the drugs sold in the U.S. is as much as $64 billion a year" So basically they are robbing poor and not really making any dent in the drug trade.
- leeoniya 11y agonot to mention how much it costs to support an enormous prison population (largest in the world?) and the permanent toll it has on those with criminal records for drug offenses. do privatized for-profit prisons have a gov't lobby to help fill their cells to max capacity?
- dangerlibrary 11y agoYep. Probably more than one, but a quick google search yielded: http://apcto.org/ http://apcto.org/
- niccaluim 11y agolargest in the world? Largest by total number by a huge margin (2.2 million, with the next largest being China with 1.7 million), but we've fallen to the #2 spot when measured per capita. Newly #1 there is Seychelles with about 700 prisoners out of a population of 90,000. Source: http://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison_population_rate?field_region_taxonomy_tid=All http://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison_popula...
- abecedarius 11y agoThey're getting $2 billion/year now, according to Wikipedia. I wonder if your $50.6B is not inflation-adjusted; it struck me as surprisingly 'low'.
- michaelbuckbee 11y agoIt's already happening (and has been for some time). The NSA passes information to the DEA which they then build out a separate evidentiary chain to satisfy the legal requirements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
- arca_vorago 11y agoI thought the Snowden do s or some other leak had already shown the NSA was sharing with DEA... I honestly think its most likely already happening.
- alistproducer2 11y agoI wonder how many people are sitting in a cell due to this?
- kirykl 11y agoas many tobacco and fast food company CEOs are sitting on a beach
- lenova 11y agoSounds like season 5 of The Wire...
- the_watcher 11y agoI was extremely surprised to see the reporting done by my hometown paper, The Desert Sun, as it's not exactly a nationally renowned paper.
- ipsin 11y agoSo is there any legal recourse against the public servant who violates the law, if the law itself provides no penalties? In short, if this isn't punished, why won't it happen repeatedly?
- coldtea 11y agoAbuses of law by those in power (including the power of making laws) are only punished after popular protests (and sometimes take full popular revolt). There's no reason it won't happen repeatedly. In fact it has been happening since at least Hoover's years...
- valar_m 11y agoThe remedy for illegal search is that evidence obtained through the illegal search is excluded at the defendant's trial.[0] That's all you get. In short, if this isn't punished, why won't it happen repeatedly? It isn't punished, and it does happen repeatedly. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusionary_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusionary_rule
- Godel_unicode 11y agoAt least in law enforcement, the punishment comes in the form of being turned over for promotion and ultimately fired for wrecking the States case. It takes longer for some, but not make your numbers for long enough and you're fired.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> So is there any legal recourse against the public servant who violates the law, if the law itself provides no penalties? (1) By definition, if the law provides no remedy, there is no legal recourse; (2) The law often provides remedies, either specific to the violation or more general, but there may be difficulties in securing them (e.g., many violations of people's rights are, in fact, crimes by government agents. However, prosecutors are unlikely to pursue such crimes, especially if they were in support of executive policy rather than a rogue -- with respect to the leadership -- agent. Many also would generally open up civil liability under generally-applicable principals of law, but public officers and the public entities they work for may be able to assert various forms of governmental immunity to such liability.) Ultimately, the remedies for bad behavior by government often must be political, rather than legal.
- DonkeyChan 11y agoYou don't stop things like this when they're legal or maybe legal. There is no "Maybe it was illegal" It was, or it would have continued.
- codys 11y agoThe "prosecutors" of the title are the ones who were "authorizing" (along with a "single state court judge"). This is a voluntary reduction. Neither the judge nor the prosecutors authorizing the "likely illegal" wiretaps have been charged with any wrongdoing. There is nothing in place to prevent a similar thing from occurring again.
- lowbloodsugar 11y agoIndeed. "I definitely don’t apologize for using this tool to hit the cartels in Riverside County ... this is still a tool that I believe in."
- deelowe 11y agoJudges can't be charged with misinterpreting the law. They just get disbarred.
- voxic11 11y agoAnd persecutors also have absolute immunity. They can only be charged for things done entirely outside the scope of their duties.
- adventured 11y agoIn cases like this, they almost always voluntarily pull back on questionably legal activities to prevent any kind of legislative (or similar) response that might stop future questionably legal endeavors. I'm sure that's what they've done in this case.
- matt_wulfeck 11y agoLikely illegal doesn't mean anything. It's the judicial branch that decides whether it is or is not legal. It's not until that point. For some reason there's a lot of leeway for the government to push boundaries in this regard. The running outcome is that if something was not expressly illegal then there's no prosecution but a slap on the wrist. The judicial branch should start taking a much harder line against overreach; they should begin operating the other way: if it's a case of citizen rights and privacy then it's not legal unless it's expressly legal.
- Karunamon 11y agoLikely illegal Doesn't mean anything This kind of statement has always bothered me - some actions are clearly against a plain reading of a law long before a court has anything to say on the matter.
- matt_wulfeck 11y agoThat's the problem though. The courts haven't said anything related to these types of operations. It's not like drunk driving with clearly defined tests and much precedent law.
- ipsin 11y agoRight, but you being bothered doesn't have any legal weight. It's kind of like the torture thing (excuse me, "enhanced interrogation"). It's plainly against the law, but your counsel has a novel legal theory about how black is actually white, up is down, etc. The person who would prosecute you for violating that law is the one you appointed, or possibly Congress if they felt like impeaching you. But... nothing happens. People argue about whether what you did is really right, or if torture is actually torture, and life goes on.
- beambot 11y ago"Likely illegal" means a lot! A guy kills his wife; his actions are "likely illegal"... it's just that we have a "innocent until proven guilty" system (thank goodness!). It isn't until the judicial branch rules that we know for sure that it was illegal, and that there was sufficient evidence to prove that it was illegal.
- studentrob 11y agoIt might get easier for law enforcement in the future. A bill by US lawmakers, set for release in March, could require encrypted devices to be able to give un-encrypted data to law enforcement. Feinstein says the bill is "coming along ... some people are making it a lot harder than we think it needs to be". An alternate proposal is also on the table http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-cybersecurity/2016/02/march-is-encryption-bill-month-hackers-going-after-japans-infrastructure-a-mixed-final-2015-tally-212865 http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-cybersecurity/2016...
- pc2g4d 11y agoShouldn't that Riverside County judge be under scrutiny here as well as the prosecutors? Judges have to sign off on these things.
- rubyfan 11y agoIs it passed time that the federal government has overstepped its authority here? We need to see some repercussions for directors when these departments start breaking the law. When I exceed the speed limit and get caught I get a speeding ticket. To enforce the law we put police in strategic spots and give them the tools to enforce the law. We should have similar policing of federal agencies.
- Godel_unicode 11y agoDo you mean something like the office of the inspector general [1], or an actual law enforcement agency focusing on federal agencies? If the latter, you're in danger of proposing an infinitely recursive solution. 1 -https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_the_Inspector_General https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_the_Inspector_Gene...
- Retric 11y agoA major problem seems to be that 'ex-cops' don't like inspecting 'cops'. However, balancing powers between three entity's seems to work well. Agency A inspects agency B, agency B inspects C, C inspects A. That way B can't threaten A. As a bonus it really set's things up so they get antagonistic with each other.
- rtpg 11y agoWell that's what the the courts are for. There are punishments like adding oversight into the agency. It's reactive, but hey you don't get a ticket for "conspiracy to speed". There isn't a lot of piercing of the corporate veil happening in gov't agencies though. As in people getting arrested. But at the same time, if you work at the FBI, want to try something, and your lawyers say it's legal... Should you go to jail? Should the lawyer? Sending the person in jail doesn't really help much, but forcing the agency to adopt new postures could help more. We could do both as well, but what does throwing the person in jail really accomplish, apart from giving people a sense of vindication?
- rexf 11y ago
- pg_is_a_butt 11y agoso? until prosecutors prosecute prosecutors who at some point did not halt vast, likely illegal DEA wiretap operation, then america's justice system remains corrupt, and thus leaves americans with NO justice. buy guns, you pussies.
- hackuser 11y agoIf it was illegal, will anyone go to jail? Also, is it happening in any other locales?