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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJuan Cole: Top 10 Things That Don’t Make Sense About NSA Surveillance, Drones and Al-Qaida
Top 10 Things That Dont Make Sense About NSA Surveillance, Drones and Al-QaidaAug 6, 2013 * By Juan Cole * Truthdig dot com
In a Reuters Exclusive, John Shiffman and Kristina Cooke reveal that the National Security Agency shares information it gleans from warrantless surveillance of Americans with the Special Operation Division of the Drug Enforcement Agency, which then uses the metadata to develop cases against US citizens. The DEA then routinely lies to the judge and defense attorneys during discovery about how its agents initially came by their suspicions of wrongdoing. But you could imagine a situation where a young woman repeatedly called a boyfriend who was secretly known to the DEA to be a drug dealer, but whose crimes were unknown to her. And you could imagine law enforcement entrapping her into making a small drug buy. And then you could imagine their secretly basing their case against her in part on her phone calls to a known dealer. But this latter information would be denied to her defense attorney and the judge, making it harder to discern the entrapment.
All these stories about the governments quest for Total Information Awareness about the phone calls, email, internet searches, etc. of 312 million ordinary Americans raise some questions in my mind. There are so many things about these stories that dont make sense.
1. The government says that they need everyones phone records because they want to see who calls known overseas terrorists from the US. But if the NSA had a telephone number of a terrorist abroad and wanted to see if it was called from the US, why couldnt it just ask the telephone company for the record of everyone who called it? It isnt true that it would take too much time. It would be instant. Obviously, the government wants the telephone records of millions of Americans for some other reason.
2. If the real reason they are getting our phone records from the phone companies is to check for drug sales and other petty crime inside the US not related to terrorism, and if they are lying to judges about how they initially came to know of these crimes, arent the NSA, DEA and other government officials violating the Constitutional guarantee of due process? Are they focusing on drug buys because law enforcement can confiscate the property of drug dealers, whereas busting other kinds of crime actually costs time and money? And, hasnt their dishonesty and its revelation just put in danger thousands of drug convictions?
For 3-10: http://www.truthdig.com/juan_cole/
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)2. If the real reason they are getting our phone records from the phone companies is to check for drug sales and other petty crime inside the US not related to terrorism, and if they are lying to judges about how they initially came to know of these crimes, arent the NSA, DEA and other government officials violating the Constitutional guarantee of due process? Are they focusing on drug buys because law enforcement can confiscate the property of drug dealers, whereas busting other kinds of crime actually costs time and money?
BINGO!
chimpymustgo
(12,774 posts)3. If the NSA and FBI have all the phone records, bank account information and credit card transactions of everyone, why havent they been able to find any bankers or financiers who engaged in illegal activity while they were plunging ordinary Americans into poverty and homelessness with the Depression of 2008-2009? After all, they seem to have been able to discover illegal activity by former New York governor Elliott Spitzer, by illegally spying on his bank accounts. Was Spitzer, who was trying to crack down on Wall Street, the only prominent figure in New York engaged in such activities? Maybe some Masters of the Universe on Wall Street were, too? Surely there are telephone, bank and credit card records showing the guilt of the latter?
GiaGiovanni
(1,247 posts)/
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)It is good to see so many posts on DU lately reminding us that 2 + 2 = 4.
To the Greatest Page.
questionseverything
(9,646 posts)i heard about 2 or 3 major jail breaks,releasing terrorists prisoners....now why couldn't the nsa stop that?
i mean that would of been a legit reason to spy on foriegners but evidently the current admin is too busy falsifying evidence
frylock
(34,825 posts)Maedhros
(10,007 posts)Now report to the local gulag for reprogramming. You think too much and are too logical. Those are felonious violations of the new secret constitution.
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)RC
(25,592 posts)Maedhros
(10,007 posts)Maybe it's a new scale?
0-5 Embassies In Danger: Threat to NSA Programs LOW
6-10 Embassies In Danger: Threat to NSA Programs MODERATE
11-15 Embassies In Danger: Threat to NSA Programs HIGH
16+ Embassies In Danger: Threat to NSA Programs EXTREME
RC
(25,592 posts)People like me.