8 ms·

This is probably referring to "SOD tips" or "SOD tip-offs", where intelligence-community information is "laundered" through a source that provides a tip to inve

by zach 13y ago

This is probably referring to "SOD tips" or "SOD tip-offs", where intelligence-community information is "laundered" through a source that provides a tip to investigators, as discussed in this Reuters article from last year: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE...

gwern 13y ago
What's the difference between SOD tips and parallel construction?
- dhimes 13y ago
  It looks like one implies an outside source, the other originates with the officer at the scene. In the case of a traffic stop, the officer stops me 'because I am speeding' and searches me until he finds something. In another case, s/he stops me because of a 'tip.' The cover story of the officer differs. If they won't stop this they should at least keep stats on how many of these things pan out.
  - joe_the_user 13y ago
    You can be 100% sure these things "pan out" in the sense of resulting in convictions, because a lot of people are going to plea-bargain when confronted by the DEA, whether they are actually guilty or not. Essentially, once you have poisoned the actual trial process (and this shows just how poisoned it is), no statistics about "how effective this is" are going to mean anything. After all, I'm sure some DEA agents know they're convicting innocent people I'm sure others have blanket belief in the guilt of many innocent people. It's kind of a truism - once you abandon objective, unbiased inquiry, it's gone.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    To the best of my (limited) understanding, if you pull someone over because of a 'tip' and then search them, absent some other cause, the source of the tip needs to be documented to the court. You can't generally search people based on anonymous tips. (It's a little more complicated than that, of course: http://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/criminal-procedure/criminal-procedure-keyed-to-israel/arrest-search-and-seizure/illinois-v-gates-2/ http://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/criminal-procedure/crimin...)
    - Spooky23 13y ago
      Is that true if the policeman happens to observe an actionable infraction, like failure to keep right?
      - tptacek 13y ago
        You can't search a car on a traffic stop without probable cause of an actual crime. However, if your traffic stop is for a moving offense that warrants arrest (DUI, for instance, or reckless driving), all bets are off, because the police can do intrusive searches incident to an arrest. Also, if you're stopped for a moving violation and either authorize a search, or have evidence of probable cause in plain view (for instance, a bag of weed in the passenger seat), all bets are again off.
        smsm42 13y ago
        Dogs can authorize searches: http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/19/scotus-approves-search-warrants-issued-b http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/19/scotus-approves-search-war... And to get this power, all the dog has to do is to pass a training program. That's like giving anybody who has a "diploma" from a "prestigious Internet university" powers to arrest and imprison. Only in this case you can't even argue with them because how can you argue with a dog? A dog barked, thus search is authorized. Now let's think - can there be any ways to make the dog bark? If somebody does that in order to make foolproof instant probable-cause-on-demand, what would be his risks that the dog will grow a conscience and tell everybody he's been lying for years?
        tptacek 13y ago
        Yes, I agree with you, strongly, about the ridiculousness of drug-sniffing dog PC.
        makomk 13y ago
        Worse, from what I recall there are actual scientific studies out there demonstrating that many of these dogs do indeed bark when their handler thinks there are drugs rather than when they actually smell them.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  As far as I can tell, in parallel construction they use illegitimate cause or illegal evidence and ensuing investigations to construct a hypothetical way that they could have legitimately found cause or evidence, and then they lie and say that they did it the legal way. With SOD tips, they are getting tips from illegal sources and using them for cause, and simply lying and saying that they got the tip from somewhere else, like an anonymous informant, because there is no legal way they could have known. It's just a step away from hiring actors as witnesses, which I'm thinking is not very far away.
  - Crito 13y ago
    Assuming the people they claim are the informants actually exist, and are not complete fabrications, then really the only difference between these 'informants' operating in this capacity and actors are what guilds they do or do not belong to.
  - fleitz 13y ago
    Why hire witnesses when you can get them for free by offering to reduce ridiculous sentences?
  - tptacek 13y ago
    These sound like identical processes. In both cases, it helps to be clear about terminology. You can't simply introduce evidence and conceal its source from a judge; that evidence would be excluded from trial. You also can't introduce evidence that chains back to excludable evidence. But the products of NSA/FBI fusion (or "SOD", or whatever you want to call it) are never introduced as evidence, either directly or as cause to authorize a search. That's why the process is called "parallel construction": it is the legal opinion of the DOJ that you can use excludable evidence as intelligence so long as you then build a case from probable cause (either for a warrant or arrest) that doesn't stem from that intelligence. In other words, you can exploit the NSA to put a detective in the right place at the right time. But the detective will need to observe you doing something that gives them probable cause for a search: you'll need to, say, do an open-air drug transaction, or get stopped for running a red light and then have drugs plainly visible in your car (or have a dog authorize the search, which is plainly problematic). The way parallel construction works, the information coming from parallel construction is never brought to court. This bothers criminal defense attorneys and civil rights advocates. It has never been the case that prosecutors are required to furnish all the information they collect on a suspect (though they are required to furnish any potentially exculpatory information, per Brady v. Maryland). But people opposed to parallel construction see this process as a bridge too far; one way to look at it would be that the whole process of discovering probable cause is something that a criminal defense can challenge, and so that whole process is potentially exculpatory. It's also helpful to know that parallel construction isn't a new thing. It's similar to the process that works when the FBI/DEA has a highly-placed informant in a criminal organization. They want to make cases from that CI, but they don't want to expose the CI, not least because they'll have more cases to make down the road.
- guelo 13y ago
  It's the same thing. The article even says "The training document reviewed by Reuters refers to this process as "parallel construction.""
logicallee 13y ago
Man, if I were creating the rules to govern a UTOPIA - I mean a freaking UTOPIA - and I could choose any rules I wanted. And I wanted to make them durable. I mean DURABLE. Lasting hundreds of years. Thousands even. You know what I would do? I would make some rules that were even stronger than whatever laws were in effect at a given time. And I would let THE PEOPLE choose whatever transient laws they wanted. These even stronger rules - would protect people from choosing shitty transient ones. Well, turns out philosophers DID get this chance. And, when it came time to write these strong rules - and they wrote , "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall NOT be violated." To protect their citizens from whatever government was in effect at the time... .... the pen lingered.... ... and lingered ... and lingered. And through no pressure. No outside force except the desire to create a utopia. ...started writing "but". Why? Why? Why? Why not just write "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall NOT be violated"? Think about this, and perhaps you might start to see this world in a slightly better light.
- guelo 13y ago
  Trying to understand your point. Do you mean the phrase "but upon probable cause"? And if so, do you mean that it would have been a better utopia if searches were not allowed even with probable cause?
  - mikecb 13y ago
    Probable cause is not required for searches. Probable cause is required for a warrant to issue. Searches must be reasonable. Searches without a warrant are simply presumptively unreasonable.
  - antoko 13y ago
    There is a caveat already in the origin text. Unreasonable Given that is already in there why add the additional caveat that then allows unreasonable searches? Surely reasonable searches are all we really need.
spikels 13y ago
Although very interesting the Special Operations Division (SOD) is probably not what was redacted: 1) It is a legalization methodology not a unit of the DEA. The other items mentioned FISA, CIPA and parallel construction can all be used to make illegally obtained information legally usable in court. 2) It is a word/phrase that is approx 12 letters long. "SOD" and "Special Operations Division" do not fit and while "SOD tip-offs" fits it does not sound like terminology the DEA would use. I suspect it is either some executive order[1], presidential directive[2], presidential finding[3], secret memo or some other secret bullshit they just made up and that lawyers at the DOJ and White House (and perhaps some judge) decided was both constitutional and could be kept secret. I'm thinking along the lines of Obama's kill list[4] and Bush's torture memos[5]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_directive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_directive [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_finding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_finding [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targeted_killing#Obama_Administration_position_on_combat_drones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targeted_killing#Obama_Administ... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_Memos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_Memos
sdfjkl 13y ago
Heh, laundering evidence. This sounds a lot like what News of the World did with their phone "hacking" scandal - they'd illegally break into peoples voicemail, record it, then stuff the recording in an envelope and mail it to their receptionist so they could claim it was an anonymous source. Of course, those guys are in court right now.

by zach 13y ago

gwern 13y ago

What's the difference between SOD tips and parallel construction?

dhimes 13y ago
It looks like one implies an outside source, the other originates with the officer at the scene. In the case of a traffic stop, the officer stops me 'because I am speeding' and searches me until he finds something. In another case, s/he stops me because of a 'tip.' The cover story of the officer differs. If they won't stop this they should at least keep stats on how many of these things pan out.
- joe_the_user 13y ago
  You can be 100% sure these things "pan out" in the sense of resulting in convictions, because a lot of people are going to plea-bargain when confronted by the DEA, whether they are actually guilty or not. Essentially, once you have poisoned the actual trial process (and this shows just how poisoned it is), no statistics about "how effective this is" are going to mean anything. After all, I'm sure some DEA agents know they're convicting innocent people I'm sure others have blanket belief in the guilt of many innocent people. It's kind of a truism - once you abandon objective, unbiased inquiry, it's gone.
- tptacek 13y ago
  To the best of my (limited) understanding, if you pull someone over because of a 'tip' and then search them, absent some other cause, the source of the tip needs to be documented to the court. You can't generally search people based on anonymous tips. (It's a little more complicated than that, of course: http://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/criminal-procedure/criminal-procedure-keyed-to-israel/arrest-search-and-seizure/illinois-v-gates-2/ http://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/criminal-procedure/crimin...)
  - Spooky23 13y ago
    Is that true if the policeman happens to observe an actionable infraction, like failure to keep right?
    - tptacek 13y ago
      You can't search a car on a traffic stop without probable cause of an actual crime. However, if your traffic stop is for a moving offense that warrants arrest (DUI, for instance, or reckless driving), all bets are off, because the police can do intrusive searches incident to an arrest. Also, if you're stopped for a moving violation and either authorize a search, or have evidence of probable cause in plain view (for instance, a bag of weed in the passenger seat), all bets are again off.
      - smsm42 13y ago
        Dogs can authorize searches: http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/19/scotus-approves-search-warrants-issued-b http://reason.com/blog/2013/02/19/scotus-approves-search-war... And to get this power, all the dog has to do is to pass a training program. That's like giving anybody who has a "diploma" from a "prestigious Internet university" powers to arrest and imprison. Only in this case you can't even argue with them because how can you argue with a dog? A dog barked, thus search is authorized. Now let's think - can there be any ways to make the dog bark? If somebody does that in order to make foolproof instant probable-cause-on-demand, what would be his risks that the dog will grow a conscience and tell everybody he's been lying for years?
        tptacek 13y ago
        Yes, I agree with you, strongly, about the ridiculousness of drug-sniffing dog PC.
        makomk 13y ago
        Worse, from what I recall there are actual scientific studies out there demonstrating that many of these dogs do indeed bark when their handler thinks there are drugs rather than when they actually smell them.
pessimizer 13y ago
As far as I can tell, in parallel construction they use illegitimate cause or illegal evidence and ensuing investigations to construct a hypothetical way that they could have legitimately found cause or evidence, and then they lie and say that they did it the legal way. With SOD tips, they are getting tips from illegal sources and using them for cause, and simply lying and saying that they got the tip from somewhere else, like an anonymous informant, because there is no legal way they could have known. It's just a step away from hiring actors as witnesses, which I'm thinking is not very far away.
- Crito 13y ago
  Assuming the people they claim are the informants actually exist, and are not complete fabrications, then really the only difference between these 'informants' operating in this capacity and actors are what guilds they do or do not belong to.
- fleitz 13y ago
  Why hire witnesses when you can get them for free by offering to reduce ridiculous sentences?
- tptacek 13y ago
  These sound like identical processes. In both cases, it helps to be clear about terminology. You can't simply introduce evidence and conceal its source from a judge; that evidence would be excluded from trial. You also can't introduce evidence that chains back to excludable evidence. But the products of NSA/FBI fusion (or "SOD", or whatever you want to call it) are never introduced as evidence, either directly or as cause to authorize a search. That's why the process is called "parallel construction": it is the legal opinion of the DOJ that you can use excludable evidence as intelligence so long as you then build a case from probable cause (either for a warrant or arrest) that doesn't stem from that intelligence. In other words, you can exploit the NSA to put a detective in the right place at the right time. But the detective will need to observe you doing something that gives them probable cause for a search: you'll need to, say, do an open-air drug transaction, or get stopped for running a red light and then have drugs plainly visible in your car (or have a dog authorize the search, which is plainly problematic). The way parallel construction works, the information coming from parallel construction is never brought to court. This bothers criminal defense attorneys and civil rights advocates. It has never been the case that prosecutors are required to furnish all the information they collect on a suspect (though they are required to furnish any potentially exculpatory information, per Brady v. Maryland). But people opposed to parallel construction see this process as a bridge too far; one way to look at it would be that the whole process of discovering probable cause is something that a criminal defense can challenge, and so that whole process is potentially exculpatory. It's also helpful to know that parallel construction isn't a new thing. It's similar to the process that works when the FBI/DEA has a highly-placed informant in a criminal organization. They want to make cases from that CI, but they don't want to expose the CI, not least because they'll have more cases to make down the road.
guelo 13y ago
It's the same thing. The article even says "The training document reviewed by Reuters refers to this process as "parallel construction.""

logicallee 13y ago

Man, if I were creating the rules to govern a UTOPIA - I mean a freaking UTOPIA - and I could choose any rules I wanted. And I wanted to make them durable. I mean DURABLE. Lasting hundreds of years. Thousands even. You know what I would do? I would make some rules that were even stronger than whatever laws were in effect at a given time. And I would let THE PEOPLE choose whatever transient laws they wanted. These even stronger rules - would protect people from choosing shitty transient ones. Well, turns out philosophers DID get this chance. And, when it came time to write these strong rules - and they wrote , "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall NOT be violated." To protect their citizens from whatever government was in effect at the time... .... the pen lingered.... ... and lingered ... and lingered. And through no pressure. No outside force except the desire to create a utopia. ...started writing "but". Why? Why? Why? Why not just write "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall NOT be violated"? Think about this, and perhaps you might start to see this world in a slightly better light.

guelo 13y ago
Trying to understand your point. Do you mean the phrase "but upon probable cause"? And if so, do you mean that it would have been a better utopia if searches were not allowed even with probable cause?
- mikecb 13y ago
  Probable cause is not required for searches. Probable cause is required for a warrant to issue. Searches must be reasonable. Searches without a warrant are simply presumptively unreasonable.
- antoko 13y ago
  There is a caveat already in the origin text. Unreasonable Given that is already in there why add the additional caveat that then allows unreasonable searches? Surely reasonable searches are all we really need.

spikels 13y ago

Although very interesting the Special Operations Division (SOD) is probably not what was redacted: 1) It is a legalization methodology not a unit of the DEA. The other items mentioned FISA, CIPA and parallel construction can all be used to make illegally obtained information legally usable in court. 2) It is a word/phrase that is approx 12 letters long. "SOD" and "Special Operations Division" do not fit and while "SOD tip-offs" fits it does not sound like terminology the DEA would use. I suspect it is either some executive order[1], presidential directive[2], presidential finding[3], secret memo or some other secret bullshit they just made up and that lawyers at the DOJ and White House (and perhaps some judge) decided was both constitutional and could be kept secret. I'm thinking along the lines of Obama's kill list[4] and Bush's torture memos[5]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_directive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_directive [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_finding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_finding [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targeted_killing#Obama_Administration_position_on_combat_drones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targeted_killing#Obama_Administ... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_Memos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_Memos

sdfjkl 13y ago

Heh, laundering evidence. This sounds a lot like what News of the World did with their phone "hacking" scandal - they'd illegally break into peoples voicemail, record it, then stuff the recording in an envelope and mail it to their receptionist so they could claim it was an anonymous source. Of course, those guys are in court right now.