Reuters reports thatU.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is sending surveillance information obtained by government agencies, including the NSA, to law enforcement around the country. A Special Operations Division “is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.”
The documents show that law enforcement agents were also directed to hide the origins of the information. F ederal agents were trained to “recreate” the investigative trail in an effort to essentially cover up where the information originated, leading many to view the raids as a direct violation of the Constitutional right to a fair trial.
“I have never heard of anything like this at all,” Harvard Law School professor Nancy Gertner told Reuters. “It is one thing to create special rules for national security…ordinary crime is entirely different. It sounds like they are phonying up investigations.”
Gertner, who served as a federal judge from 1994 to 2011, believes the DEA program dismantles the notion of due process. In some of the leaked documents, the DEA was said to have pretended their investigations began with a routine traffic stop as opposed to a surveillance-based tip.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
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With love, rage, and solidarity,
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