SurveillanceDEA uses NSA surveillance information to make arrests
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has benefitted from multiple tips from the National Security Administration’s (NSA) surveillance programs – although not necessarily the programs revealed by Edward Snowden. DEA officials in a secret office known as the Special Operations Division (SOD) are assigned to handle incoming tips from the NSA. The information exchanged between the two agencies includes intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants, and a massive database of telephone records.
DEA has reportedly conducted several operations based on NSA tips // Source: halanews.net
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has benefitted from multiple tips from the National Security Administration’s (NSA) surveillance programs.
The Washington Post reports that DEA officials in a secret office known as the Special Operations Division (SOD) are assigned to handle incoming tips from the NSA. The information exchanged between the two agencies includes “intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records,” according to a report by Reuters.
The SOD’s work is classified, meaning that DEA cases that begin on NSA leads cannot be identified as having originated from an NSA source. When a case is developed based on information originating from an NSA source, the DEA has to come up with a way to explain how it received, or gained access to, the evidence, a process which in intelligence and law enforcement circles is known as “parallel construction.”
Reuters’ report does not make a direct connection between the DEA and the NSA phone surveillance program, the details of which were leaked by Edward Snowden. The report does state, however, that the NSA grants DEA access to phone records and that the SOD, on occasion, gets help from the NSA.
One of the main reasons the DEA has not admitted using NSA information in its investigations is that such admission could trigger a constitutional battle over the law that gave DEA access to the evidence.
A federal court said earlier this year that if law enforcement agencies wanted to use the NSA phone records in court, the agency had to say so beforehand and give the defendant a chance to contest the evidence.
That decision became part of a trial when Adel Daoud was arrested last year as part of a sting operation trying to detonate a bomb in Chicago. Daoud’s lawyers suspected that his client was identified using NSA phone records, but the lawyer was never told.
Federal prosecutors said that the evidence was gathered using traditional methods, but have not explained what those methods were.
Daoud’s trial is set to begin early next year
