I don't know why this particular DEA aspect of the federal government Big Brother system in the NSA hasn't gotten more attention.
The NSA data collection wasn't much of a surprise except in scale given the reality of the Patriot Act, but the domestic ramifications in other agencies and their use of the data is actually shocking (though not exactly surprising).
Take for example the secret branch of the DEA called the "Special Operations Division". Nothing sinister about the name, nope, nothing at all.
The initials are S.O.D. Perhaps a reference to that other S.O.D.?
Andrew O'Hehir writes:
"The feds really were after him. In the latest post-Snowden bombshell about the extent and consequences of government spying, we learned from Reuters reporters this week that a secret branch of the DEA called the Special Operations Division – so secret that nearly everything about it is classified, including the size of its budget and the location of its office — has been using the immense pools of data collected by the NSA, CIA, FBI and other intelligence agencies to go after American citizens for ordinary drug crimes. Law enforcement agencies, meanwhile, have been coached to conceal the existence of the program and the source of the information by creating what’s called a “parallel construction,” a fake or misleading trail of evidence. So no one in the court system – not the defendant or the defense attorney, not even the prosecutor or the judge – can ever trace the case back to its true origins."
The NSA data collection wasn't much of a surprise except in scale given the reality of the Patriot Act, but the domestic ramifications in other agencies and their use of the data is actually shocking (though not exactly surprising).
Take for example the secret branch of the DEA called the "Special Operations Division". Nothing sinister about the name, nope, nothing at all.
The initials are S.O.D. Perhaps a reference to that other S.O.D.?
Andrew O'Hehir writes:
"The feds really were after him. In the latest post-Snowden bombshell about the extent and consequences of government spying, we learned from Reuters reporters this week that a secret branch of the DEA called the Special Operations Division – so secret that nearly everything about it is classified, including the size of its budget and the location of its office — has been using the immense pools of data collected by the NSA, CIA, FBI and other intelligence agencies to go after American citizens for ordinary drug crimes. Law enforcement agencies, meanwhile, have been coached to conceal the existence of the program and the source of the information by creating what’s called a “parallel construction,” a fake or misleading trail of evidence. So no one in the court system – not the defendant or the defense attorney, not even the prosecutor or the judge – can ever trace the case back to its true origins."
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