FBI and DEA Under Review For Misuse of NSA Mass Surveillance Data 86
Patrick O'Neill writes: The FBI and DEA were among the agencies fed information from an NSA surveillance program described as "staggering" by one judge who helped strike the program down. Now the two agencies are under review by the Justice Department for the use of parallel construction as well as looking into the specifics and results of cases originating from NSA tips.
(Here's some more on the practice of parallel construction in this context.)
My money is on.... (Score:5, Insightful)
After investigating themselves, no wrongdoing will be found.
I never find wrongdoing when I investigate myself. At least not anything that needs to be discussed in public, just a little internal housekeeping, you know, minor discipline issues, nothing to make a federal case over.
One thing you can be certain of: This will lead to exactly 0 prosecutions, no matter how much abuse is found.
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The evidence was illegally obtained then misused to create a reason to obtain the evidence.
I'm not sure how anyone could claim that isn't any wrongdoing, but I'm sure our good friend cold fjord will chime in with his pro-NSA propaganda.
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If the NSA's intrusive powers, constitutionality aside, are all about terrorists, what in God's name are they doing passing normal crime info on to the FBI and DEA?
I don't think this revealation is all that secret. I recall some extra special terrorist power being granted to the FBI late Clinton era, and they immediately used it to bust drug people. They didn't even bother with the sophistry that drug distribution is a kind of terrorism.
No, when asked directly, they said, "Well, I know what we promised to
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If the NSA's intrusive powers, constitutionality aside, are all about terrorists, what in God's name are they doing passing normal crime info on to the FBI and DEA?
I don't think this revealation is all that secret. I recall some extra special terrorist power being granted to the FBI late Clinton era, and they immediately used it to bust drug people. They didn't even bother with the sophistry that drug distribution is a kind of terrorism.
No, when asked directly, they said, "Well, I know what we promised to use it only for terrorists, but the law doesn't actually state terrorist investigations only, so tuff." They lied to get it through Congress, then immediately began misusing it in a way only a lawyer or someone planning to throw a coup would find reasonable.
Yes, or course. I remember back in 2001 or 2002 discussing all the new powers the government gave itself with a friend of mine. He actually believed it would only be used for terrorism cases. I was stunned by the naivete. Anyone with any sense should have known that any new powers will be used for any damn thing the Feds want.
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If the NSA's intrusive powers, constitutionality aside, are all about terrorists, what in God's name are they doing passing normal crime info on to the FBI and DEA?
I don't think this revealation is all that secret. I recall some extra special terrorist power being granted to the FBI late Clinton era, and they immediately used it to bust drug people. They didn't even bother with the sophistry that drug distribution is a kind of terrorism.
No, when asked directly, they said, "Well, I know what we promised to use it only for terrorists, but the law doesn't actually state terrorist investigations only, so tuff." They lied to get it through Congress, then immediately began misusing it in a way only a lawyer or someone planning to throw a coup would find reasonable.
Yes, or course. I remember back in 2001 or 2002 discussing all the new powers the government gave itself with a friend of mine. He actually believed it would only be used for terrorism cases. I was stunned by the naivete. Anyone with any sense should have known that any new powers will be used for any damn thing the Feds want.
Aside from paranoia do we have any real cases where the government has abused this surveillance footage? Did they call your wife and tell her you were looking at porn? Or are you just afraid they could do so? One is abuse, one is the perception of being abused.
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Wrong doing started when they violated the supreme law of the land under an illegal war (not declared against a sovereign nation) to obtain these powers and a blank check. The clusterfuck starts there and they sure spent a lot of money and suppressed the effects of hyperinflation for quite a while, we all knew this could only last so long though.
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If the NSA's intrusive powers, constitutionality aside, are all about terrorists, what in God's name are they doing passing normal crime info on to the FBI and DEA?
There is no meaningful distinction between terrorism and crime, so this is how it must be.
Re:My money is on.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree. I think wrongdoing will be found... a few minor, isolated cases. That will give the government a chance to point out how the abuses are "minor" when compared to the "proven benefits" of the Surveillance State, as well a chance to talk about how they are "constantly improving" an already careful program so it's even better about not collecting any important information from "ordinary, law-abiding citizens"
M
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Token wrongdoing will be found.
A couple of people who were on their way out anyway will be offered off-the-books compensation and a promise of no consequences to be tainted by this.
A couple of people they want to get rid of outright will get pinned with the most serious charges, but to protect the organization they will be allowed to resign quietly without any prosecution.
In the end, it will be the same as no wrongdoing being found but with a little "accountability theater" to keep critics quiet.
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Worse. It will be seen as a loophole in the law that only terrorists can be found out by indiscriminate mass surveillance. If terrorists, then why not... (fill in the blank terrible crime here). Then the law will be expanded to say that any felony crime inadvertently uncovered during mass surveillance is fair game.
On the one hand, they are right... If you can be allowed to search without a warrant for terrorists then why not other criminals? If you find out someone went on a murderous rampage for person
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This is an equivocation fallacy. The arguement to do this for terrorism is because its not a crime, but an act of war, the terrorists aren't merely criminals, but foreign combatants. When its time to treat them as combatants, even if illegal combatants(i.e. violating the laws of war like the Geneva conventions) then the governemtn says it is just crime. Oh and since its just a cri
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This is an equivocation fallacy. The arguement to do this for terrorism is because its not a crime, but an act of war, the terrorists aren't merely criminals, but foreign combatants.
The government isn't claiming merely the necessity for mass surveillance in the face of imminent danger from terrorists, they are claiming a right to perform mass surveillance as a function of law and the ability to use evidence gained from the fruit of mass surveillance to prosecute criminal cases against people conspiring with terrorists. Either mass surveillance is constitutional as a tool against crime or it isn't. There is no false argument there. Evidence gained through mass surveillance and the f
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They are in fact claiming that, its just that the lie. They claim terrorism is different therefore give them what they want, when they get what they want they claim its just crime and their new powers are constitutional when they aren't. You start arguing that its unconstitutional and shouldn't be used as a tool against crime, and back to "But Terrorists!" implying the difference. The logical fallacy isn't yours, its the governments.
Sure, there are mixed messages. And in different cases there are claims being made by government agents that are completely contradictory. I was highlighting the arguments that are of greatest concern to me. It isn't of concern to me when the government occasionally exercises power in ways that exceed their authority. That is necessity. Like the police (or anyone) kicking down a door without a warrant if they think a kidnapped child is inside. But kicking down one door is different than going house to
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They are fine with forgetting about the 4th.
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> The arguement to do this for terrorism is because its not a crime, but an act of war, the terrorists aren't merely criminals, but foreign combatants
I am fine with that, but they should have to prove THAT in a court of law too. Problem is, war, crime, these are just labels. The moment a government is arresting people, its law time...it court time. That is a fundamental check on the power of government that should be inviolate.
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Yes, I am well aware that this government has been going down a slow march to totalitarianism for several decades now. It was the early 90s when they started militarizing the police and eroding away our rights.
Do you know there was a time when police with a warrant would, in nearly every single case, knock on the door and wait for someone to answer, then, talk to them. Now they just yell "police" while they bust n the door and throw in a flashbang over just about anything at all.
This has all been a long tim
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Never, because they work for the doj, who in turn work for politicians.
lies, damn lies, and sworn testimony (Score:5, Insightful)
The basic problem here is that "parallel construction" equals "lying under oath". Once judges start accepting outright lies, it rots the (already slightly decayed) system right down to the core.
It's like when they're trying to indoctrinate you to be a terrorist, and they make you perform some unspeakably abominable act as your initiation. After that, you won't question your decision to join this iffy organization, because that would mean that you did this unforgivable thing, not for the greater good, but just because a bunch of assholes told you to. Which makes you yourself not only an asshole but also an idiot.
So these judges will not only accept lies as testimony, they will defend the practice to the death, to anyone who raises the very obvious point that you shouldn't base your system of justice on blatant lies. Otherwise they're assholes and idiots, and nobody wants to admit that they're an idiot asshole.
Re:lies, damn lies, and sworn testimony (Score:5, Informative)
There's no reach with the definition he used.
The police find the information by way of violating the law.
Having uncovered the information in question, they concoct some *other* way that they can or could have discovered it.
In court, under oath, they claim to have found the information this *other* way. That's the lie.
"Parallel construction" is a known violation of the defendant's rights, cloaked in a lie to keep said violation secret.
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You're right, how could I be so foolish? Of course parallel construction isn't lying! Because:
I found out you were a fan of our local baseball team because I saw you at the ballpark last Tuesday night.
...is obviously 100% factually equivalent to:
I found out you were a fan of our local baseball team because I snuck into your house and hacked your computer and the only entries in your browser history were mlb.com/teams/townburg_bumblebees and horseporn.com/underage_colt_on_colt/tenatacles.mp4"
Stupid, silly, me! Thanks, kind stranger!
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Dammit, that sounds like a lot of work. How 'bout I just sit here on my fat ass then tell the court that I found out you were a fan of our local baseball team because of... well, I can't tell you because it's a state secret, but just trust me, and don't try to verify.
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Parallel construction is as follows (and proper).
You break in (ahem "search") and discover Joe is a fan of the Sporting Team, which is very useful for the investigation. You don't use that information to secure a search warrant.
You follow and stakeout Sporting Team Event with agents, and "discover" Joe attending, being a fan. You use THIS information for search warrant, because it is very useful for the investigation. You then use the search warrant to search the previously searched location, and discover a
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And illegally obtained evidence and evidence derived from it is not supposed to be admissible, precisely to discourage the illegal evidence taking in the first place. See Fruit of the poisonous tree [wikipedia.org]
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It's not a lie that the wrongdoing/crime occurred
Two crimes were committed. The (illegally) found evidence proves the commission of a crime. But what about the crime of the illegal search. If you are going to throw someone in prison upon finding the dead body in the trunk, what will you do to the cop who had no business opening the trunk without a warrant in the first place? Nothing. Because the police are above the law. Whatever happens, society will end up paying for the bad actions of law enforcement. Either for violations of our Fourth Amendment right
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And here we see one of several fallacies applied to attack the US government and legal system at all costs, including conflation with child sex trade. We are one step away from somebody saying "Hitler was in favor of parallel construction"
Wait, you're saying that conflation with the child sex trade is a tactic mainly used against the U.S. executive branch? I think you may have that backwards. It's a testament to how screwed up things are that I legitimately have no idea whether you're trolling or not.
Hitler probably wasn't in favor of parallel construction, but only because he didn't need it.
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1) it would have inevitably be found in roughly the same time frame through conventional policing
2) it would NOT have inevitably be found in roughly the same time frame through conventional policing
If we have case 1, the NSA's actions were pointless. If we have case 2, the evidence is fruit of the poison tree. This is by definition, because if it has any effect on the second search, it has affected it, and thus is 'fruit.'
The scenario you are concerned a
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If there's any justice, every agent who committed perjury will receive a sentence of at least a couple years, along with loss of job and pension. Hopefully a few will get more than that.
Re:lies, damn lies, and sworn testimony (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea is not to admit the fruits of warrantless searches and coerced confessions, but to avoid suppressing valid evidence for pointless technical reasons.
The technical reasons are not pointless. They are there to keep Law Enforcement honest. It seems they are not entirely successful on that front.
If they discover valid evidence by violating your rights, you don't really have rights. As always, the ends don't justify the means. Police and prosecutors bitch about technicalities because they don't care about your rights; they only care about convicting you, guilty or not. It is entirely proper that a guilty person go free on a technicality. It shows that even guilty people have rights, as it should be.
Re:lies, damn lies, and sworn testimony (Score:4, Insightful)
The second problem is that there is a good reason not to have secret agencies feed law enforcement. The thing is, secret agencies are not bound by law in how they obtain their information, so nobody has any protection against them or any recourse under the law. Having them give information to law enforcement completely negates the essential checks and balances any working legal system has. Hence the DEA and FBI had to commit perjury on a mass-scale in order to use that information. That they were willing to do so already demonstrates the problem very clearly.
To make it amply clear: If secret agencies feed law enforcement in your state, then you life in a police state or worse.
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To make it amply clear: If secret agencies feed law enforcement in your state, then you life in a police state or worse.
I would argue that the US is already a police state. It's just subtle enough (and portrayed in the Media in such a way) that most people don't notice.
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I would agree to that.
Let's be clear here ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parallel construction is effectively perjury at a huge scale.
What it's doing is giving them access to information they either aren't supposed to have, or are unwilling to admit to having. And then they come up with a carefully crafted lie about how they might have found this information from another source.
This bit of creative writing has the effect of denying you the ability to see the evidence against you, and know where it comes from.
It allows them to operate with impunity, while essentially denying you a fair trial ... because the bullshit story they make up about how they heard from a guy who heard it form a guy is exactly that: bullshit.
It's government agencies who are bypassing decades of court decisions about proper procedures and rules of evidence, and using secret laws and bold-faced lies to be able to trump up whatever charges they have, with information obtained through questionable means, and the lying to suppress the real source of the information to cheat the system and deny you the ability to know how they really got it.
This is as bad as any Soviet era secret police ever was, precisely because it bypasses all legal safeguards, and totally ignores the law as it pertains to knowing the evidence against you and how it is obtained.
Any police agency doing this is, in my opinion, committing a crime. There's no other way to see this other than these organizations lying to courts, and providing local police with a fucking manual to also lie to the courts.
Give us your fucking papers, comrade.
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I don't disagree with you. If we are being intellectually honest then your argument is perfectly correct. If we care to do the right thing then your argument is perfectly correct, IMHO.
The problem is you had better be prepared for disappointment. The Feds abhor intellectual honesty "The law says we can't give aide to a country after a coup but it does not say we have to make the determination if a coup occurred." -- This is how they think. Any normal person I would consider having any sort of relations
Re:Let's be clear here ... (Score:4, Interesting)
See, the problem with that is it ignores how they actually got it.
When you have information you're not supposed to have, and you can look back and then put together a bullshit argument about how you could have gotten it, it has nothing at all to do with reality.
It is the fruit of the poison tree, because it was obtained without probable cause, and because the origins of it are being hidden from the accused.
It's perjury, plain and simple. And if law enforcement is being encouraged to commit perjury, that pretty much means the justice system is completely fucked.
It's taking information you can't justify having, and then effectively framing someone you believe is guilty but couldn't prove to a standard the courts would reject by re-building your evidence retroactively to suit your story.
If the cops are doing that, they should be imprisoned, or shot on sight.
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There is also the little problem that the step to completely making up "evidence" is a small one. They are already lying under oath to a court on how they got the evidence. If that becomes routine, why not just plant drugs on everybody they do not like where it is plausible and lie about that under oath? I am sure a significant amount of that is already going on, it is just so easy for them to improve their numbers and make themselves look good.
"Parallel construction" is a technique right out of a police st
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That should be totally covered by
Officer, do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Obviously, parallel construction does not lend itself to the whole truth. IANAL, but it sounds to me like your DEA Agent is perjuring herself.
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The GCHQ always seemed to have a deeper understanding of never going near courts or short term political requests.
Early in the 1920-30's the UK found a fast way into Soviet embassy codes, one about links deep in the UK, staff, unions, cash. It was too good to be true but the UK had to spread the results of the code work as it was just such a perfect document as a domestic political win. C
separation until 9/11 showed drawbacks (Score:2)
There was more separation between intelligence and law enforcement in the US prior to 9/11. The cops shouldn't be doing some of the sneaky stuff (or asking someone else to do it), so there were laws in place forbidding much data sharing.
Looking into how an attack like 9/11 could be prevented in the future, it was found that more cooperation between agencies might have prevented it. The intelligence agencies had parts of the puzzle and the FBI had other parts. Nobody had enough to see the whole picture.
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The problem with 9/11 wasn't that there was too little cooperation between agencies. It wasn't that government agencies were gathering too little information. Bush was warned beforehand about threats.
The problem is that nobody expected such an attack. If people had considered it a possibility, they would have picked up enough traces to see it coming.
It was something like the Pearl Harbor intelligence failures. There really wasn't a modern intelligence community, and the head of Naval intelligence s
That is probably true. Also, indications NSA, FBI (Score:2)
That's certainly true, few people were expecting that type of attack, or had any reason to suspect such an attack might occur, AS FAR AS WE KNOW. (We don't know what all information the spooks had.) They were thinking of terrorist acts as being old-fashioned hijacking.
ALSO, we know that the CIA had names of people suspected to have links with Al Quaeda (the hijackers), the NSA had indications that a Al Quaeda was planning something big in the near future.* The FBI had some other relevant info.
So it's P
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Bush was briefed on terrorist threats before 9/11. I believe he'd been told that there were indications that they involved airliners. That sort of warning is really all the spooks can do.
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Pick a decade, any decade.
Main Core https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] "The data which is believed to come from the NSA, FBI, CIA, and other sources,[1] is collected and stored without warrants or court orders"
MAINWAY https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Operation CHAOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Project MINARET https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Project SHAMROCK https://en.wikipedia.org/w [wikipedia.org]
kinda proved the point (Score:2)
You listed two programs exclusively used by intelligence agencies.
You then listed the two 1940s era programs which directly (and openly) CAUSED Congress to pass the law saying that NSA cannot collect information on US persons. That's precisely the Act that was amended after 9/11 to reduce the restrictions on the NSA (FISA).
You also list Main Core, which little more than a vague rumor that someone is collecting a bunch of data for some reason - we don't have nearly enough facts to even start discuss
Unchecked power will ALWAYS be abused (Score:5, Interesting)
There was a great episode of the old Penn & Teller show "Bullshit!" that dealt with this. They hired a bunch of random people as security monitors, gave them access to surveillance cameras, and told them not to use the cameras to spy on people's private lives (only on the fake security perimeter). Sure enough, 90% of them used the cameras to spy on people's personal shit.
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...90% of them used the cameras to spy on people's personal shit.
Or at least 9 out of 10 times.
Re:Unchecked power will ALWAYS be abused (Score:4, Interesting)
This. When I worked in hospital IT we were warned several times, the single most common reason for anyone in the hospital to be fired, is inappropriate records access. They had implemented auditing years ago. In fact, a decade before I worked at the hospital, my mother did, and there was a huge scandal involving medical records and a famous patient.
By the time I left, they were implementing real time flagging. The system was able to flag on all sorts of things, accessing records within your family, accessing records of people who live near you, all things people actually do with alarming regularity when given access to records.
The old adage is "power corrupts" and it is apt. People will misuse power given to them. Will all of them all the time? No. However, enough will and its impossible to say who will and who wont because almost every single one will given the right motivation or excuse.
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While working there I ended up in a flame war in one of their forums with a user, while logged in with my personal account.
The war continued for about a week, escalating, as I didn't back down on my opinion and the other user continued to escalate the rhetoric, ending up with his threats of physical violence.
I then looked up his account at work and discovered that he was around 14 yrs old, and that his father pa
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There was a great episode of the old Penn & Teller show "Bullshit!" that dealt with this. They hired a bunch of random people as security monitors, gave them access to surveillance cameras, and told them not to use the cameras to spy on people's private lives (only on the fake security perimeter). Sure enough, 90% of them used the cameras to spy on people's personal shit.
Now couple that with the results of the Zimbardo Prison Study and you see how we got where we are and where we are going.
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Watch what happens in a month - (Score:5, Insightful)
this story is forgotten, swept under the rug, no longer referenced.
Just as suddenly as it appeared in the news, it disappears from the news and our short memories caused by modern low attention-span media causes us to forget.
Then the parallel construction and misuse of data will continue.
Just like everyone has forgotten about the persecution of real reporters that began in 08 and was heavily reported on for a short time. We still have mainstream news that's a result of what happened back then, but no mention of that fact.
Just like everyone forgets about the global cooling scare that was a big deal in the 70's and still covered in the 80's.
Just like everyone forgets about the various legal entities that have found "the smoking gun" and plan to go after the administration or some other powerful organization, never to hear anything more about it past the initial breaking news stories.
This one will fall off the earth too.
Parallel Construction Should Be Prosecuted (Score:2, Interesting)
My personal feeling is that parallel construction should be prosecuted as a felony. It's perjury, abuse of the juridicial process and contempt of court, and in a fundamental way (not some playing loose along the edges). Send someone to trial over this, and watch the abuse stop.
Anyone going to jail? (Score:2)