Generally speaking, one government agency collaborating with another is not a conspiracy. It does not become one until they conspire to commit a crime, which neither the NSA nor the DEA is yet accused of doing here.
Email can be read without a warrant. Calls can’t be monitored, but metadata can legally be collected.
Evidence tampering (i.e. the practice of “parallel construction”, whereby the DEA makes up a bogus story about the origin of the information) most certainly is a crime.
Nonsense. If a crime is learned about in a way that’s inadmissible in court, there’s absolutely nothing preventing them from finding a way to prove the crime that is admissible.
Right, the crime is in telling the American people of the mass surveillance being conducted secretly against it, the fact of which (the mass surveillance) having already been denied to the people (via Congress).
That’s not arse about face at all.
Exactly.
Irrelevant. “Parallel construction” is a method of tampering with existing evidence to pass off inadmissible evidence as admissible, not an independent discovery of new admissible evidence.
Evidence tampering is not the correct legal category. There are two issues here: candor and admissibility.
The admissibility question is controlled by the the doctrine called the fruit of the poisonous tree. It may or may not apply, depending on how connected the evidence was, and whether the NSA illegally obtained the evidence. Neither is established by the Reuters article with sufficient specificity to say.
The other issue is candor. If the DEA lead prosecutors to lie about the source of evidence or the chain of causation that led them to obtain certain evidence, then this a problem even if there is no fruit of the poisonous tree problem. Not sure it’s a crime though.
Is the OP under the impression this is the first major government conspiracy to come to light? The CIA’s stated purpose, or any intelligence apparatus for any other state, is one giant conspiracy. Discovery tends to involve a journalist, a whistle blower, a regulatory body, a theft of classified materials from a secure location, documents being declassified after 50 years or whatever, or one part of the government getting pissed at another part and looking into things (e.g. the Church commission). Ain’t nothing new about this one.
Real life conspiracies don’t tend to be as exciting as the ones imagined by cranks, though. Usually it’s mundane stuff like media/intelligence manipulation, assassinations/coups, spying, covering up previous bad decisions, routine imperial management, and general FUD. The fact the NSA likes to spy on us doesn’t really have any bearing on chemtrails, moon hoaxers, or 9/11 truthers.
No, it’s an act of constructing a parallel chain of evidence that can be used in court.
See, this is where I disagree.
For ages, I’ve been an anti-conspiracy guy. Chemtrails? Feh, can’t keep something that big secret.
Now, I don’t know. Maybe it’s possible. No way for me to find out. And that creeps me out.
To me, the NSA business has made almost everything else just slightly more believable.
Not the really whacky shit- reptilians don’t shape shift, even if they do interbreed with us.
Cut the crap or take it to the Pit. You can’t insult other posters in this forum.
So you got red pilled hard. Were you unaware of previous historical conspiracies, or did you not classify them in your brain as such and when this came to light in real time so to speak you suffered cognitive dissonance? This shouldn’t change anything because you should have evidence before believing in anything.
EDIT: And although Snowden’s leaks are quite detailed and useful I think most people who were paying attention knew governments were hoovering up internet data and were in bed with the internet providers. This sort of arrangement goes back to Bush, maybe even Clinton.
AKA “Intelligence Laundering”.
Why, pray tell, would they go to that trouble, if the way they originally obtained the intelligence was legitimate and legal?
Legitimate businesses don’t launder money, only criminal enterprises. The same is true of intelligence agencies, IMO.
So your theory is that the government sought to keep the surveillance programs secret because they are illegal, and not as a way to make them more effective. Ok. It seems like the first step in your theory is to show they are illegal. Go ahead.
To maintain the secrecy of the program.
My contention is that they are wrong. It has nothing to do with the law. The government knows they are wrong, too. Hence, the secret rubber stamp courts, the lying to congress and the American people, the embarrassed backlash, the intimidation of innocent journalists and world leaders, etc.
Ok. So your position is that the NSA spying program was kept a secret because they believed it was wrong?
What’s wrong about wanting to stop terrorists?