<story><title>DEA teaches agents to recreate evidence chains to hide methods</title><url>https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2014/feb/03/dea-parallel-construction-guides/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>tptacek</author><text>I object to parallel construction because it warps NSA&amp;#x27;s incentives and encourages them to develop deeper domestic capabilities.&lt;p&gt;Having said that: it&amp;#x27;s worth understanding what parallel construction actually is.&lt;p&gt;Parallel construction does NOT allow law enforcement to:&lt;p&gt;(a) Introduce evidence that is the product of NSA surveillance&lt;p&gt;(b) Literally manufacture probable cause to effect a search to generate introducible evidence&lt;p&gt;In order for an LEO to act on data from a surveillance source,  they must not only be &amp;quot;at the right place at the right time&amp;quot; (which is what surveillance allows them to do), but, once there, discover probable cause to effect a search. That&amp;#x27;s why you see slides in this deck about how long you can stop a car in a traffic stop; one of the pitfalls of trying to launch a search from a traffic stop is that if the stop exceeds the duration allowed for a detention without arrest, all the evidence generated after that time period elapses is excludable.&lt;p&gt;Obviously: (i) the probable cause mitigation is damaged by drug dogs (&amp;quot;our search was authorized by this dog over here&amp;quot;), and (ii) all search mitigations are damaged by the fact that they come into play only once someone is arrested and threatened with prosecution. Those are both very serious, important, valid objections. However, I contend that they are objections to the entire process of evidence collection with or without surveillance. Judges need to stop pretending that dogs can judge whether a search is reasonable. Prosecutors have too much unchecked power in our system.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s an extremely detailed cartoon flowchart of how 4th Amendment protections come into play (or are thwarted) in the real world:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2256&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lawcomic.net&amp;#x2F;guide&amp;#x2F;?p=2256&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>DEA teaches agents to recreate evidence chains to hide methods</title><url>https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2014/feb/03/dea-parallel-construction-guides/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>gregholmberg</author><text>Parallel construction allows intelligence agencies to make criminal allegations that might turn out to be less than factually accurate, while facing no review and no repercussions.&lt;p&gt;The concept of allowing evidence from secret sources should offend anyone who believes in a just society.</text></comment>