A group of lawmakers have asked United States Attorney General Eric Holder to explain recent allegations that federal drug busts have been carried out using non-terrorism intelligence collected by the National Security Agency and shared outside the NSA.
The eight legislators – all Democrats – have asked the country’s
top attorney to weigh in on the reports published by Reuters
earlier this month in which the NSA is accused of tipping off
Drug Enforcement Administration agents to help orchestrate
narcotics busts.
“These allegations raise serious concerns that gaps in the
policy and law are allowing overreach by the federal government’s
intelligence gathering apparatus,” wrote the senators – Tammy
Baldwin of Wisconsin, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Tom Udall of New
Mexico, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Sherrod Brown of
Ohio.
In another letter sent earlier this month by Reps. John Conyers
(D-Michigan), Jarrold Nadler (D-New York) and Bobby Scott (D-NY),
those congressmen called into question whether or not those
surveillance powers are being even further abused, this time by
the DEA.
“If this report is accurate, then it describes an unacceptable
breakdown in the barrier between foreign intelligence
surveillance and criminal process,” that letter reads in
part.
Sens. Wyden and Udall – who have long critiqued the operations of
the NSA – issued a statement earlier this month condemning
allegations that the surveillance apparatus administered by the
intelligence agency was being abused to target domestic persons .
“While Senate rules prohibit us from confirming or denying
some of the details in today’s press reports, the American people
have a right to know more details about of these violations,”
Wyden and Udall wrote. “We hope that the executive branch will
take steps to publicly provide more information as part of the
honest, public debate of surveillance authorities that the
Administration has said it is interested in having.”
Since at least 2011, both Wyden and Udall hinted that the spy
powers bestowed in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
were being abused long before NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden
leaked classified documents showing how domestic data was
being collected from telecom providers and kept under the
instruction of the federal government.
“When the American people find out how their government has
secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and
they will be angry,” Wyden said at a Senate hearing two years
ago.
“These allegations raise serious concerns that gaps in the
policy and law are allowing overreach by the federal government’s
intelligence gathering apparatus,” the senators say in their
latest letter.
According to the Reuters article from earlier this month, the
DEA’s Special Operations Division has been receiving intelligence
collected by the NSA from an array of different surveillance
methods. Internal documents obtained by the news agency described
how the Special Ops agents were told to recreate the evidence
trail in order to avoid what reporter John Shiffman called
“parallel construction.”
“For example, agents said in interviews, they act as if a drug
investigation began with a traffic stop for speeding or a broken
taillight, instead of a tip passed from the NSA,” Shiffman
wrote.
According to Reuters, an Internal Revenue Service document showed
a similar process in place for using NSA-gathered intelligence
for tax cases being pursued by IRS agents.
Republished from: RT