Ever since Edward Snowden revealed details of the U.S. government’s top-secret mass surveillance programs to the press, the White House and the NSA have maintained that they “are not spying on American citizens.” At a recent Black Hat security conference, General Keith Alexander, Commander of the U.S. Cyber Command and Director of the NSA, told attendees that the people who uphold the Constitution are the same people that run these programs, adding that the NSA “[does] not see the content of the calls.” Someone in the audience yelled “Bullshit!” And it was.
On August 3rd, the New York Times published an article regarding tensions and “turf fights” between different government agencies that feel the NSA is blocking their attempts to “exploit the security agency’s vast resources…because their own investigations are not considered a high enough priority.” The article goes on to claim that intelligence officials say they “have been careful to limit the use of the security agency’s troves of data and eavesdropping spyware for fear they could be misused in ways that violate Americans’ privacy rights.” I call bullshit.
I’m not a gambler, or one to take bets I could lose, but I’d bet a bottom dollar that the “sources” of the article were part of a preemptive PR stunt by the NSA, the White House, or the DEA in an attempt to continue denying the true nature of these surveillance programs. If they implant a story that there are other high-level government agencies being blocked from getting access to the information collected under PRISM, then maybe the American people will feel safe and believe that the government is not really listening in on their calls. Well, as Heather Dubrow from the #RHOC always says: “Just because you keep saying it, doesn’t make it true.”
Yesterday, Reuters confirmed my theory. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has been on the receiving end of multiple tips from the NSA through a secretive unit within the DEA called the Special Operations Division (SOD). Why is this illegal?
Under the Constitution, the government cannot obtain evidence or information about you unless it has probable cause to believe that you’ve engaged in a crime. They must then go to a court, get a warrant, and then collect their evidence. Only then, is that evidence usable in a prosecution against you in the court of law.
With the NSA’s tips that are collected from their surveillance technologies and other forms of domestic spying, the DEA is fed information that it believes can lead to or be used in a criminal prosecution or arrest. But, it also knows that that information can’t be used in the prosecution because it’s been acquired outside of the legal and constitutional process. So, what do they do…they cover up how they really got it. It’s called Parallel Construction. Confused?
A drug dealer wants to move narcotics in the United States. The dealer needs to coordinate with a truck driver and the recipient of the shipment and does so via text, calls or emails. The NSA, through this massive surveillance wiretapping, informs the secretive DEA unit. The special operations division tells local or state police that they need to stop a certain truck at a certain place and time. Local police do that in a way that looks like a routine traffic stop. A drug-sniffing dog may be brought in on the scene. If police find drugs they arrest the drivers, and the case goes to trial. The cops, though, can never say, “Intel came from…” They’re under direct orders to not disclose the source of their initial investigation. Instead they might say the investigation began with a routine traffic stop. A plausible story that creates a false investigative trail that won’t trace back to the secret source. This is the “parallel construction.”
Some may argue that stopping large scale drug trafficking may make this all justifiable. But, what is stopping the DEA or local police from using it on a smaller scale – if they haven’t already. What if I want to buy an 8th of marijuana? I call, text, or email my dealer, and tell him “Can you bring me some green shirts. And no seeds in my shirts this time!” Using my phone number, the NSA can trace the number to my account, and obtain my full name and address. When the dealer tells me that he will be over in an hour, the NSA now has a time-frame, name, and address. With that information, the NSA can easily inform the SOD who will inform the NYPD and my dealer and I will soon be off to Sing-Sing.
By hiding the origin of the investigation, the DA could be hiding evidence that the defense would normally use against the prosecution (aka the State), and thus jeopardizes a person’s constitutional right to a fair trial.
So, to sum it all up, the NSA is in cahoots with the DEA. They are prosecuting people and putting them in prison by using evidence that they’ve acquired illegally. Then, they’re covering it up by lying to the courts and deceiving them into believing that what was acquired was done so constitutionally. We’ve already said good-bye to the Fourth Amendment with this whole NSA Prism program, now kiss the Fifth and Sixth adios.
Danielle DeAbreu
Danielle DeAbreu is a former model and student at William Paterson University studying Broadcast Journalism with a minor in Political Science.
Follow me on Twitter @DaniDeAbreu13
