In an effort to launch criminal investigations of Americans, a secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is funneling information information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a large database to authorities, Reuters, in an exclusive, reported on Monday.
Documents reviewed by the news agency showed that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated. This practice, some experts say, violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants do not know how an investigation began, "they can not know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses," Reuters reported.
"I have never heard of anything like this at all. It is one thing to create special rules for national security. Ordinary crime is entirely different. It sounds like they are phonying up investigation," Harvard Law School professor Nancy Gertner said. She also served as a federal judge from 1994 to 2011. Gertner and other legal experts said the program sounds more troubling than recent disclosures that the National Security Agency has been collecting domestic phone records. The NSA effort is geared toward stopping terrorists while the DEA program targets common criminals and primarily drug dealers.
Two senior DEA officials defended the program, and said trying to "recreate" an investigative trail is not only legal but also a technique which is used almost daily, Reuters reported.
The DEA's unit that distributes the information is called the Special Operation Division with two dozen partner agencies which comprise the unit, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, IRS and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It was created to help disrupt Latin American drug cartels and its operations have expanded in recent years. Much of its work has been classified.
The documents reviewed by Reuters are marked "Law Enforcement Sensitive," a government categorization that is meant to keep them confidential.
The Justice Department is reviewing law enforcement techniques used by the DEA, which shield some initial sources for criminal investigations from being disclosed in court, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday.
"I would refer you to the Department of Justice on this,'' Carney said. "And beyond that, I can tell that it's my understanding ... that the Department of Justice is looking at some of the issues raised in the story," Carney said.
