<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><item><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></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dmix</author><text>&amp;gt;  discover probable cause to effect a search.&lt;p&gt;Right so when you get arrested at that traffic stop, all you need is about $15-20k+ for lawyer, tons of time in courtrooms, bail money, potentially jail time in between, months&amp;#x2F;years stressing a criminal charge...and hopefully some decent evidence you can convince a judge or jury your rights weren&amp;#x27;t infringed.&lt;p&gt;There are a ton of externalities that goes into proving the state wrong and protecting civil rights at the court level. The majority of drug convictions happen to people in lower socio-economic positions (if not, asset seizure will ensure it). So the fact lawyers are capable of destroying the DEA&amp;#x27;s evidence in a courtroom doesn&amp;#x27;t make me feel any better about the situation. Reducing the use of drug dogs is a good start, far too many false-positives.</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><item><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></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ggreer</author><text>At this point, making it easier for law enforcement to discover crime probably harms more people than it helps.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s a thought experiment: What if law enforcement was &lt;i&gt;perfect&lt;/i&gt;? That is, every time someone broke a law, the state knew and could arrest them. Let&amp;#x27;s also assume this technology somehow disallowed even the slightest peek into an individual&amp;#x27;s legal private life. After a week under such a system, we&amp;#x27;d all likely be jailed.&lt;p&gt;There are so many laws; so many &lt;i&gt;unjust&lt;/i&gt; laws, that we&amp;#x27;re all criminals. Giving law enforcement more tools just puts the DA in a position of greater power.</text></comment>