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Secret DEA Unit Investigates Americans

Aug 20, 2013 | Search and Seizure

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Intelligence sources say that a secret unit of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration has been utilizing wiretaps of Americans across the nation to assist in commencing investigations against citizens. The unit, known as the Special Operations Division (SOD), is apparently a joint effort involving not only the DEA, but also the FBI, the NSA, Homeland Security, the CIA and the IRS.

We don’t know many of the details of the operation, but according to a report from Reuters, those participating in the SOD operations are admonished not to disclose its involvement in any investigation, including instructing the participants to omit the SOD’s activities from reports, discussions with prosecutors, courtroom testimony and affidavits. According to senior DEA officials, the practice of omitting such information is legal, and is used almost daily.

Well, it’s nice to have the legal opinion of senior DEA officials on this matter, since without it, we might come to a contrary conclusion – that the practice of omitting sources of information leading to investigations, including in testimony and affidavits, might well be perjury, or false swearing at the very least.

Perjury in Arizona (A.R.S. 13-2702) is defined as making a false sworn statement regarding a material issue, knowing it is false. The issue of materiality hinges on whether the statement has the capacity to affect the course of a proceeding, such as a criminal trial. Perjury is a felony. If the statement is not material, the crime is false swearing, also a felony.

So the SOD instructs its people to hide the fact, for example, that an investigation that began as a wiretap resulted in an arrest. They are told to tell the court that it began perhaps with a routine traffic stop. Seems to us that withholding the information is clearly a criminal act, probably a felony. What it does is to prevent the defendant and his lawyer from attacking a search based on the fact that the wiretap was illegal. If it was illegal, the search was unconstitutional, and the items seized will be barred from use as evidence against the defendant in his case. We’d call the omission (and the cover-up) not only a false statement under oath, but a material one at that.

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