Fiona Tang writes in ACLU FOIA Seeks Information About How Government Launders Evidence:
Today the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking records related to "parallel construction," the government's practice of falsifying a trail of evidence in order to conceal controversial investigative techniques from the courts and the public.
Under parallel construction, instead of disclosing how its investigation actually took place, the government presents a sanitized version of events. The practice allows the government to evade legal challenges to the use of such techniques, and also to keep the very existence of such techniques a secret. Recent news reports have shown that parallel construction might be far more common than we'd like to think, so we've asked the government to provide any records it has documenting the practice.
... parallel construction has been used to cover up some of the most notorious surveillance techniques in the past decade. It initially captured the public's attention in August 2013, when Reuters published an article scrutinizing the elusive Drug Enforcement Administration Special Operations Division's use of the practice. Parallel construction received renewed attention this past May, when a non-disclosure agreement between the FBI and the Oklahoma City Police Department was released through a state records request. The non-disclosure agreement governs the use of cell site simulators—colloquially known as "stingrays"—and requires that the Oklahoma City Police Department use the technology for "lead purposes only," further explaining that the agency must "use additional and independent investigative means and methods . . . that would be admissible at trial" in lieu of disclosing to the defendant the fact that a stingray device was used.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19 2016, @08:11PM
Well, it started off boring and slow...
with ACLU trying to bullshit everyone
with a bunch of smart talk.
That part of the trial sucked.
But then, the chief"J"
just went off.
He said, "Man, whatever.
The guy's guilty as shit.
We all know that. "
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday July 19 2016, @09:30PM
It's a quote from Idiocracy, and rather apropos really.
Trying to sue the government to get them to declare parallel construction illegal---you know, the activity they do to get around doing illegal things already---has a kind of bitter irony to it.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday July 20 2016, @12:37AM
Well, the FOIA is just trying to get them to admit how they do it. Not quite as unreasonable.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday July 20 2016, @12:49AM
Living in Idiocracy might not be so bad.... except that we don't actually have ButtFuckers, nor can we go family style on a hooker and a bucket of wings. I'd settle for gladiator events sponsored by Camacho myself. Fuck, I'd vote for Camacho today!
In case anybody wants to write that in this fall:
Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho
!Camacho/Frito 2016!
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday July 20 2016, @02:59PM
Beef Supreme vs. The Dildozer! One night only!
Coming November 2016.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday July 19 2016, @08:28PM
This is why I have some hope for this country, it was founded from the beginning on freedom (no matter how hypocritical) and those ideals are taught and cherished. So far the extreme instances of dictatorship (ww2 internment, commie hunt, etc) have had very limited lifetimes. Groups like the ACLU are like the canary in the mine, once something happens to them we will know our country is taking a big step sideways on to a new track...
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19 2016, @08:34PM
Limited lifetime? When will the War on Drugs end? Oh prophet, tell us the end date of the War on Terror next?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19 2016, @09:23PM
When will the War on Drugs end?
When you pry my bong from my cold, Cheetos encrusted fingers.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19 2016, @09:11PM
My own take was that the country always had good PR about liberty and did an awfully good job at brainwashing the populace that it was true, but after you see it in action for a few decades, you realize the claims fall short of the reality.
To be clear, parallel construction has had a LONG history, but recently has been codified which where the hand-wringing comes in.
Good on the ACLU, but the main point -that law enforcement shouldn't be doing these things- gets lost in the admissibility of evidence arguments instead of charging police with criminal conduct, full stop.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday July 19 2016, @09:21PM
> the country always had good PR about liberty and did an awfully good job at brainwashing the populace that it was true
After all those years, I still can't stand watching kids say the Pledge every morning, and I feel uneasy about the bloody Song and insane number of Flags showing up everywhere.
Gotta be from growing up surrounded by people who had lots of experience of how the 30s turned into the 40s...
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19 2016, @09:35PM
I hate every flag I see
I want to burn every one to the ground
But I hate censorship even more
And they have free speech just like me
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Thursday July 21 2016, @02:56AM
Oh for sure, there are plenty of screwed up things that go on. Still, there is a huge difference between shady dealings and open dictatorship. Erdogan's recent actions are a move towards dictatorship, as long as such dealings are hidden then it is the standard corruption that all countries face and must be rooted out individually. Once they are done openly, that is when you know the country has lost its way.
We have taken some open steps towards a dark path, TSA and Gitmo being the most visible. However the population has only been angered by these things and resents the restrictions on their freedoms. The experiment of dictatorship seems to be failing in the US, but I'm just a lowly peon so my opinion isn't worth much.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19 2016, @09:12PM
Happens at all levels of government, for example, the cops tried to hide the evidence in this crash,
http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?avis=BN&date=20160715&category=CITYANDREGION&lopenr=160719447&Ref=AR&profile=1024&template=printart [buffalonews.com]
There was video showing no lights on the cop car as it ran a stop sign and hit an innocent driver. The cop testified he had lights on and the police hid the tape. After much legal wrangling, the cops finally fessed up, released the tape and settled the case.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 20 2016, @01:00AM
And how many cops were fired? Held in contempt? Imprisoned for Fraud, or Lying under Oath?
The best you can say about the police is "All animals are created equal and some are created more equal". Worse "Occupying Force" or "the Thin Blue Line Gang".
If the police wants are respect again, instead of being one side of War on "We the People". They need to act the same as they treat us. If you or I shot some, then we are arrested and tried. The police, it seams more like a "paid vacation" paid by us, until some says "It was justified, he was scared. Oh, it gave him PSDT, retire and full pension", again paid by us.
The different between a "Terrorist" and "Tyrannical Government"... The "Tyrannical Government" calls all against their rule a "Terrorist". Remember history is written by the winner.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19 2016, @09:32PM
Their request is ridiculously broad. It isn't asking for records related to a certain case or instance or something, they're asking for all records with certain phrases in them, or all records where the document give certain instructions. There's no way to satisfy that in a reasonable manner. Ask yourself how do you do this? For any organization larger than a handful of people all working exclusively off of one shared drive, this is a crazy request. Take the Government out of it for a moment; let's say you make the same request of a university. How do you search through all the individual PCs of all the colleges and departments? You can't just kick off some grep commands and walk away. How do you read all the files on everyone's computers ("including legal and policy memoranda; guidance documents; instructions; training documents; formal and informal presentations; directives; contracts or agreements; and memoranda of understanding") to the point where you understand the meaning being conveyed in these documents to decide whether it is subject to the request or not?
Then they ask for the fees to be waived. Yeah, good luck with that. What most people here seem to not understand is how this process works. Someone has to address these requests. Let's say you are the unfortunate boob who has to carry out this request. How long do you think it will take you to do that? How many months? Who pays for your time? There isn't some standing army of FOIA responders who are covered on an overhead budget; the money to answer these requests have to come from somewhere, which is where the fees come in. The uninformed here think that the fees are there to discourage FOIA requests, but I hope you can see the difference between asking for something very well targeted and asking for something that will take 3 man years of time to accomplish. And don't be shocked if you do make such a request, that they tell you that your fee would be an amount that works out to be around 3 man years of someone's time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19 2016, @09:47PM
Everybody knows where it's at. It's at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying beware of the leopard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 20 2016, @04:25AM
A PR stunt is fine, most people have never heard of "parallel construction" nor have any idea how widely it is used. Judges and prosecutors especially need to be made aware so that we can hopefully move away from the "all cops are inherently trustworthy" position that the courts hold.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday July 19 2016, @09:38PM
We need to stop using their euphemism.
Parallel Construction is flat out perjury. LYING to the court. Willfully and deliberately. And for the express purpose of hiding illegal activity on the part of the government.
Whatever happened to candor before the tribunal?
Let's not use their spin. Call it what it is. Perjury construction. Lying to the court. Conspiracy by government agents to conceal their crimes.
What Parallel Construction is like that most people can understand.
Let's break in to your house when you're not there, snoop around and find evidence of a crime.
Once we know what the crime is, then we'll otherwise find a more plausible way to have learned about the crime, which further enables us to investigate this crime and prosecute you for it.
And while we're at it, we should search your car while you're not looking.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19 2016, @10:13PM
See title.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19 2016, @10:18PM
But a black President would never allow kangaroo courts to persecute his black brothers based on illegally obtained evidence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19 2016, @10:29PM
And a constitutional scholar at that.
Anyone else having flashbacks of the past couple presidential elections with the rhetoric justifying Hilary?
Not that Trump isn't bad news, but that alone isn't a justification for voting for Hilary.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday July 19 2016, @10:50PM
I'm having flashbacks of pretty much every election. The candidate for [Party I Like] may be an evil, corrupt scumbag, but the candidate for [Party I Don't Like] is even worse! Then these gullible, shortsighted morons try to convince everyone who refuses to play this obviously ridiculous game that they should vote for Democrats or Republicans, and that not voting for the candidate they hate less is like voting for the candidate they really, really hate. This sometimes leads to people who don't vote or people who vote third party being accused of somehow aiding both mainstream candidates simultaneously. That should show how broken the logic being used is, but the partisan idiots are mostly too stupid to realize it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19 2016, @11:44PM
I heard third parties are evil because Jill will appoint a treasonous traitor to her cabinet and let the terrists win.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 20 2016, @07:17AM
> will appoint a treasonous traitor to her cabinet and let the terrists win
It's not going to get worse that it already is then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 20 2016, @07:56PM
I met a really awesome girl the other day, but she's 100 percent backing Hillary because 'Trump will be worse.' Without a full understand of the issues Hillary will cause due to her platform (among other things supporting 'backdoored encrypted' and 'enhanced electronic surveillance', along with pushing forward further copyright and criminal laws beneficial to the RIAA/MPAA and few others.)
*THIS* is why we need a shakeup in the US political system, and if there isn't going to be a shakeup, then it is why likeminded individuals need to band together in meatspace, and either politically/economically take over a county/state, or mass emigrate from the US to do the same somewhere else. With 330 million people, our chances of changing the tide of US politics is most likely futile. If the internet and the laws of the last 20 years haven't managed to upset the general public enough to 'rebel' against the duopoly, nothing will.... at least until they are all out of work or so indebted to their corporate masters that all chance at free will has been taken from them. And by then it will be far too late.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 20 2016, @07:13AM
Is "controversial" a newspeak for illegal?