WELCOME TO LAW ENFORCEMENT'S "DARK SIDE": SECRET EVIDENCE, ILLEGAL SEARCHES, AND DUBIOUS TRAFFIC STOPS
Trevor Aaronson January 9 2018, 9:57 a.m.
FEDERAL AGENTS AT the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration speak in veiled terms about the secret DEA unit that shares intelligence from the National Security Agency and other organizations with law enforcement for use in criminal investigations. They call it the "Dark Side."
The Special Operations Division receives raw intelligence from the NSA's surveillance programs, including from the mass surveillance programs revealed in documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden. DEA agents in this unit then analyze the surveillance data and disseminate leads to federal and local police nationwide. But the information comes with a catch. Law enforcement can't use it to secure search warrants or in any way reveal the intelligence community as the source of their leads. Instead, they must find another way to justify their searches and broader investigations.
An egregious example of this law enforcement tactic occurred in 2004 when, through intercepted phone calls and their own subsequent surveillance, the DEA discovered that Ascension Alverez-Tejeda was transporting drugs from Los Angeles to Washington state in his car. To search the vehicle without revealing the phone calls as their original source, DEA agents set up an elaborate ruse.
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Other than Alverez-Tejeda and his girlfriend, every person involved in this piece of theater was a DEA agent or local police officer: the person driving the car in front of Alverez-Tejeda's, the "drunk" truck driver, even the supposed car thief. While a federal judge ruled that the DEA hoax violated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure, an appeals court overturned the ruling and described this abuse of Alverez-Tejeda’s constitutional rights as "relatively mild."