DEA EXPOSED IN ILEGAL USE OF TELEPHONE RECORDS

FROM THE - JOURNALS of Monte Friesner – Criminal & Intelligence Analyst and Consulaire for WANTED SA   ~Contributed & Written by Kenneth Rijock ~

WILL UNDISCLOSED DEA ACCESS TO AT&T CALL RECORDS JEOPARDIZE EXISTING MONEY LAUNDERING CONVICTIONS ?

A confidential DEA program, that gathered telephone call records from an American Telephone & Telegraph Company database that reportedly contains all call made in the Continental United States, since 1987, has been publicly exposed, and could be used to set aside existing convictions for money laundering, as well as other major Federal crimes.

 

The information was discovered as the result of a Freedom of Information request to a law enforcement agency. Does it violate the USA PATRIOT Act ?

 

The existence of the program, code-named Hemisphere, and which utilized the covert cooperation of AT&T, was apparently never  disclosed, which may mean that it could constitute a Brady violation in closed or active Federal criminal cases, and might result in convictions being set aside, new trial motions being granted, and even dismissal of criminal charges.

 

The information, which was obtained by the Drug Enforcement Administration, through the use of administrative subpoenas, meaning that no court approval was obtained, could contain evidence of guilt or innocence, or of a defendant's role in criminal conduct, which would impact sentencing.

 

Apparently, unlike the NSA program that has received so much attention of late, this AT&T source also features information on location. It has been stated that the program has been in operation since 2007, and records information on its database on 4bn calls per day.

 

What impact this information will have on existing money laundering convictions is not known, but reportedly law enforcement was instructed to never use the name "Hemisphere" in any document, obviously to hide its existence.

 

Will criminal defense attorneys now have a field day, seeking to overturn convictions ? We cannot say, but the covert surveillance tactics used by US law enforcement, and hidden from public view, may result in a serious miscarriage of justice, if the courts respond to it by setting aside convictions.

 

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DEA HAS THE LEGAL RIGHT TO OBTAIN INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION ON CRIMINALS.

FROM THE - JOURNALS of Monte Friesner – Criminal & Intelligence Analyst and Consulaire for WANTED SA ~ Contributed & Written by Kenneth Rijock

WILL FEDERAL MONEY LAUNDERING CONVICTIONS BE SET ASIDE, DUE TO UNDISCLOSED DEA USE OF NSA INFORMATION ?

It has already begin: attorneys for criminal defendants have started to file motions in court, seeking telephone records, obtained by the National Security Agency (NSA), and used in criminal investigations by the DEAs Special Operations Division.

The information, which was not disclosed to defense attorneys in criminal cases, was required to be made available, as it could be exculpatory.

The landmark US Supreme Court case of Brady v. Maryland requires that any evidence that is material to either guilt or punishment must be disclosed.

It has been asserted that the Drug Enforcement Administration concealed these telephone records, by falsely stating that it was discovered through alternative, or "parallel" sources, and even hid its origins from prosecutors and judges.

There are a substantial number of federal money laundering convictions in the United States, where the defendants are still incarcerated, serving long terms of imprisonment.

Will the courts set aside some of those convictions, forcing the United States Attorneys who handled those matters to re-try the cases, and will the defendants be released, pending a new trial ? These are serious considerations, and one wonder who the Department of Justice will hold accountable for what could turn out to be a serious denial of justice. Someone at DEA, at the highest level, ordered this illegal policy.

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READ MORE ON : www.wantedsa.com