Exclusive: IRS manual detailed DEA's use of hidden intel evidence (Reuters)
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Source: Reuters
Exclusive: IRS manual detailed DEA's use of hidden intel evidence
Reuters John Shiffman and David Ingram 1 hour ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Details of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration program that feeds tips to federal agents and then instructs them to alter the investigative trail were published in a manual used by agents of the Internal Revenue Service for two years.
The practice of recreating the investigative trail, highly criticized by former prosecutors and defense lawyers after Reuters reported it this week, is now under review by the Justice Department. Two high-profile Republicans have also raised questions about the procedure.
A 350-word entry in the Internal Revenue Manual instructed agents of the U.S. tax agency to omit any reference to tips supplied by the DEA's Special Operations Division, especially from affidavits, court proceedings or investigative files. The entry was published and posted online in 2005 and 2006, and was removed in early 2007. The IRS is among two dozen arms of the government working with the Special Operations Division, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency.
An IRS spokesman had no comment on the entry or on why it was removed from the manual. Reuters recovered the previous editions from the archives of the Westlaw legal database, which is owned by Thomson Reuters Corp, the parent of this news agency.
As Reuters reported Monday, the Special Operations Division of the DEA funnels information from overseas NSA intercepts, domestic wiretaps, informants and a large DEA database of telephone records to authorities nationwide to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. The DEA phone database is distinct from a NSA database disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
Monday's Reuters report cited internal government documents that show that law enforcement agents have been trained to conceal how such investigations truly begin - to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up the original source of the information.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/08/us-dea-irs-idUSBRE9761AZ20130808
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/08/us-dea-irs-idUSBRE9761AZ20130808
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)quadrature
(2,049 posts)you have been warned.
don't end up like Patreaus
morningfog
(18,115 posts)Jerry442
(1,265 posts)If you've been naughty, the surveillance people will give a heads-up to the IRS or the FBI or the DEA, or the local PD to investigate you and then they'll do a Cheshire Cat, leaving no trace, except for the disembodied grin mocking you while you're being screwed.
If you've been nice, nothing happens.
Problem is, the people who decide who's naughty or nice ain't Santa.
Ask Eliot Spitzer how this works.
Poll_Blind
(23,864 posts)Spot on and so true, and so true based on what I already know, I feel like doubling over and puking.
PB
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)I REALLY wish I could dismiss the Spitzer remark as paranoia.
But, I can't, I just can't.
Festivito
(13,452 posts)pam4water
(2,916 posts)on it. But it probably wont get it, thanks to all the whistle blower prosecutions. Who is going to stick their neck out for a drug runner...
Socal31
(2,484 posts)Time to fill the jails with a new breed of pirates!