DEA decides to join the Constitution shredding party

[RuralEngineer]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/dea-doing ... 41093.html

The DEA Special Operations Division (SOD), a unit comprised of members of the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security, performs what's called "parallel construction, " which involves disguising how an investigation began.

From Reuters:

Federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.

"It's just like laundering money — you work it backwards to make it clean," Finn Selander, a DEA agent from 1991 to 2008 and now a member of a group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, told Reuters.

Seriously, if you're going to go through that much trouble to deny them a fair trial, just take them out back and whack them like the mob does.  Dispose of the veneer of justice.

[Pointedstick]

But the veneer is critically important. Without the veneer, an altogether different type of mob justice will tend to emerge.

It saddens me to realize just how stupid people have to be to do stuff like this. Don't they realize they're playing with fire?

[Reub]

The reason that they won't say how the investigation began is because it probably began using NSA eavesdropping information.

http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/08/05/ns ... stigations

From the web page:

"Fox News judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano said on Studio B that the DEA has actually started criminal investigations based on information seized pursuant to spying power. The judge said that’s “absolutely prohibited, not only by the Fourth Amendment, but by the statute that creates the spying power which says it can only be used to combat terrorism, not to combat other crimes.”?

Although this is obviously unlawful and outrageous, I do believe that there is still an important place for NSA spying, although constrained:

http://www.debka.com/article/23170/US-s ... xplosives-

Best Regards!

[Libertarian666]

The reason that they won't say how the investigation began is because it probably began using NSA eavesdropping information.

http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/08/05/ns ... stigations

From the web page:

"Fox News judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano said on Studio B that the DEA has actually started criminal investigations based on information seized pursuant to spying power. The judge said that’s “absolutely prohibited, not only by the Fourth Amendment, but by the statute that creates the spying power which says it can only be used to combat terrorism, not to combat other crimes.”?

Although this is obviously unlawful and outrageous, I do believe that there is still an important place for NSA spying, although constrained:

http://www.debka.com/article/23170/US-s ... xplosives-

Best Regards!

Ha ha, very funny! Have you considered standup comedy? I'm sure you'd slay them!

[Ad Orientem]

Right now I've got a few words for some of our brothers and sisters in the occupied zone: "the chair is against the wall, the chair is against the wall","john has a long mustache, john has a long mustache".....

This country is so screwed. Seriously. We might as well just run up the Hammer & Sickle right now. They won.

[Pointedstick]

This country is so screwed. Seriously. We might as well just run up the Hammer & Sickle right now. They won.

I'm more hopeful. Our society has some pretty awesome bread and circuses, and the moment they start to infringe upon them--and they will, because they're a bunch of power-hungry control freaks--all hell is going to break loose. That's when people are going to roar to life and smack down the fascists. You don't keep the people from their bread and circuses unless you relish being thrown to the lions.

[RuralEngineer]

This country is so screwed. Seriously. We might as well just run up the Hammer & Sickle right now. They won.

I'm with Ad Orientem. If a majority can't get outraged by the blatant abuses happening now then we can't rely on it ever happening.

I'm not convinced that the people turning us into slaves in some giant gulag aren't smart enough to take advantage of the apparent stupidity and/or apathy of the general populace and make the process slow enough that the lemmings gleefully put on their own chains.

[Pointedstick]

Let me put it this way. Which do you think would have the greater potential to result in tarring and feathering of politicians?

1. The revelation that the government is constantly spying on everybody and violating their privacy
2. Turning off everybody's access to pornography, video games, and television

[Libertarian666]

This country is so screwed. Seriously. We might as well just run up the Hammer & Sickle right now. They won.

I'm with Ad Orientem. If a majority can't get outraged by the blatant abuses happening now then we can't rely on it ever happening.

I'm not convinced that the people turning us into slaves in some giant gulag aren't smart enough to take advantage of the apparent stupidity and/or apathy of the general populace and make the process slow enough that the lemmings gleefully put on their own chains.

They don't even have to be that smart to take advantage of that, just smarter than the lemmings. Unfortunately, Idiocracy shows much too optimistic a trajectory.

[Libertarian666]

Let me put it this way. Which do you think would have the greater potential to result in tarring and feathering of politicians?

1. The revelation that the government is constantly spying on everybody and violating their privacy
2. Turning off everybody's access to pornography, video games, and television

Do you think "they" don't know the answer to that? It's obvious.
Actually, that may explain why about the only non-horrifying political trends are in the "non-threatening to them" category, namely the softening of the hard-right positions on marriage law and "alternative medicine".

[MediumTex]

This past weekend I discovered that I had at least three rats in my garage.

I went to the store and purchased three sturdy looking rat traps.  I then got on the internet and found out what rats liked to eat and discovered that they have a weakness for peanuts.

I loaded the traps with peanuts, set them and put them around the garage.

One hour later I had three dead rats.

Any time I am forced to kill another animal I like to take some lesson away from the experience that helps me feel less like the killing was pointless.

As I thought about the rat killing experience it hit me: "There are similar traps for humans and they have been set all around us."

I believe that for the government, there is a certain thrill in setting these traps that unwary garage rat/citizens will get caught in.

I imagine the adrenaline rush that a police officer must feel the first time he puts on the riot gear.  For many of them, I'll bet it is an almost erotic experience to anticipate the power they will be exerting over others (and getting a good workout in the process as well).

I like the way System of a Down said it in Deer Dance:

Circumventing circuses
Lamenting in protest
To visible police
Presence sponsored fear
Batallions of riot police
With rubber bullet kisses
Baton courtesies
Service with a smile

Beyond the Staples Center you can see America
With it's tired poor avenging disgrace
Peaceful loving youth against the brutality
Of plastic existence

Pushing little children
With their fully automatics
They like to push the weak around
Pushing little children
With their fully automatics
They like to push the weak around

A rush of words
Pleading to disperse
Upon your naked walls, alive
A political call
The fall guy accord
We can't afford to be neutral on a moving train

Beyond the Staples Center you can see America
With it's tired poor avenging disgrace
Peaceful loving youth against the brutality
Of plastic existence

Pushing little children
With their fully automatics
They like to push the weak around
Pushing little children
With their fully automatics
They like to push the weak around

Push them around
A deer dance, invitation to peace
War staring you in the face, dressed in black
With a helmet, fierce
Trained and appropriate for the malcontents
For the disproportioned malcontents.
The little boy smiled, it'll all be well
I say, the little boy smiled, it'll all be well

Pushing little children
With their fully automatics
They like to push the weak around
Pushing little children
With their fully automatics
They like to push the weak around
Pushing little children
With their fully automatics
They like to push the weak around
Push the weak around
Push the weak around
Push the weak around
They like to push the weak around.

[moda0306]

The will to entrap people has to be extremely strong.

Think of how good the cops feel on "To Catch A Predator" with what they're doing for society.  Now take that to every possible victimless crime that they try to enforce.

I mean they send minors into gas stations to buy cigarettes for crying out loud.