Trial

DEA Gets Unchecked Access To Call Records; Taught To Lie About Where They Got Them

Jul 12, 2014 | Abuses of Power, News

Shortly after the Snowden leaks began exposing the NSA’s massive collection efforts, the New York Times uncovered the DEA’s direct access to AT&T telecom switches (via non-government employee “analysts” working for AT&T), from which it and other law enforcement agencies were able to gather phone call and location data.

Unlike the NSA’s bulk records programs (which are limited to holding five years worth of data), the Hemisphere database stretches back to 1987 and advertises instant access to “10 years of records.” And unlike the NSA’s program, there’s not even the slightest bit of oversight. All law enforcement needs to run a search of the Hemisphere database is an administrative subpoena — a piece of paper roughly equivalent to calling up Hemisphere analysts and asking them to run a few numbers. Administrative subpoenas are only subject to the oversight of the agency issuing them.

It’s highly unlikely these administrative subpoenas are stored (where they could be accessed as public records) considering the constant emphasis placed on parallel construction in the documents obtained by Dustin Slaughter of MuckRock — documents it took the DEA ten months to turn over.

Unlike the documents obtained by the New York Times (possibly inadvertently), these do contain a few redactions, including some apparent success stories compiled at the end of the presentation. But like the earlier documents, the documents show that the DEA and law enforcement have unchecked access to a database that agents and officers are never allowed to talk about — not even inside a courtroom.

It is expected that all Hemisphere requests will be paralleled with a subpoena for CDRs from the official carrier for evidentiary purposes.

It’s spelled out more explicitly on a later slide, listed under “Official Reporting.”

DO NOT mention Hemisphere in any official reports or court documents.

Judging from the request date, it would appear that this version of the Hemisphere presentation possibly precedes the New York Times’ version. However, this one does not name the cooperating telco, although that appears to be a deliberate choice of the person writing the presentation, rather than due to redaction. At one point the document declares Hemisphere can access records “regardless of carrier,” but later clarifies that it will only gather info that crosses certain telecom switches — most likely AT&T’s. Additional subpoenas will be needed to gather info from other carriers, as well as to obtain subscriber information linked to searched numbers. This small limitation plays right into the DEA’s insistence that Hemisphere be “walled off” from defendants, court systems and the public.

If exigent circumstances make parallel construction difficult, Hemisphere analysts (non-government liaisons within the telco) will “continue to work with the investigator throughout the entire prosecution process in order to ensure the integrity of
Hemisphere and the case at hand.” Analysts are allowed to advise investigators on report writing, presentations to prosecutors and issues occurring during the trial phase. The word “integrity” seems out of place when it describes non-government employees assisting government agencies in hiding the origin of evidence from other government agencies.

Cross-referencing what’s been redacted in this one with the unredacted document published earlier, it appears as though the DEA is trying to (belatedly) hide the fact that its Hemisphere can also search IMSI and IMEI data (for wireless connections). Although this document states (after a long redaction) that Hemisphere does not collect subscriber information, that’s only partially true. As of July 2012, subscriber information for AT&T customers can be obtained from the database. This information may have been redacted or it may be that this presentation pre-dates this added ability.

What this shows is that the DEA has access to loads of information and a policy of “parallel construction in all things.” Tons of other government agencies, including the NSA, FBI and CIA are funneling information to the DEA and instructing it to hide the origin. The DEA then demands law enforcement agencies around the nation to do the same thing. This stacks the deck against defendants, who are “walled off” from the chain of evidence, preventing them from challenging sources, methods or the integrity of the evidence itself.

HEMISPHERE DOCUMENT

via TechDirt.com

What Happens After Jurors Get It Wrong?

Oct 24, 2012 | Abuses of Power

About 300 people have been wrongfully convicted and exonerated in the U.S. thanks to DNA evidence. But overlooked in those stories are the accounts of jurors who unwittingly played a role in the injustice.

One of those stories is playing out in Washington, D.C., where two jurors who helped convict a teenager of murder in 1981 are now persuaded that they were wrong. They’re dealing with their sense of responsibility by leading the fight to declare him legally innocent.

Santae Tribble, now 51, is already out of prison, but he’s asking a judge to sign a certificate of actual innocence that would help him get compensation for more than 25 years he spent behind bars.

Bad Evidence And Faulty Facts

In January 1981, a jury took only a few hours to convict Tribble for shooting a cabbie dead in a botched robbery. There was only one witness, the cabbie’s wife, who couldn’t make a positive identification. The key evidence was a woman’s stocking, which the murderer wore over his face. That stocking contained hair the FBI said it had matched to Tribble.

“They admitted that they didn’t know with certainty, but the numbers they threw out were so steep as to make it virtually certain that it was his hair,” juror Susan Dankoff said.

In fact, prosecutors told the jury in the closing argument there was only a 1 in 10 million chance it could be someone else’s hair.

EnlargeCarrie Johnson/NPRJuror Anita Woodruff is haunted by her decision to help convict Santae Tribble of murder.

But Tribble, his family members and his girlfriend all testified that he was home, sleeping at his mother’s apartment in Maryland at the time of the murder.

Dankoff remembers she considered the alibi — and rejected it.

“Then you start to think, OK, maybe they’re covering for him. And I think that that was really what it came down to,” she said.

So the jury voted to convict — except that the hair analysis that proved so persuasive has been completely discredited. Even the Justice Department says Santae Tribble didn’t do it. Dankoff said she got a call from Tribble’s lawyer not too long ago letting her know.

“And that really, really left a mark,” she said. “I was just devastated. I think I walked around feeling numb for a week after hearing that.”

Anita Woodruff also served on that jury. She said she went home and cried after voting to convict. The case never really left her. So when Tribble’s lawyer Sandra Levick, of the Public Defender Service, called to say new DNA tests on that hair did not match, Woodruff recalled, “I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ I said, ‘He spent all that time in jail, for nothing.’ ”

Starting Over After Decades In Prison

Woodruff was only 20 years old at the time of the trial, close in age and experience to Tribble. She said she started thinking about how their lives diverged.

“You know, and I’m thinking about all the things that … I did,” Woodruff said. “I got married, you know, got a divorce, but I had kids, you get to raise your kids, and I did see them get their license and go to proms and high school graduations.”

Santae Tribble had none of that.

“I did have a son that was born soon after I was incarcerated,” Tribble said. “I missed his entire life growing up.”

Tribble said he understands the jury and the justice system made a mistake. But now, he said, is the time to make amends.

“Like, they went the extra mile to, when the pieces didn’t fit, to make them fit,” Tribble said. “Now that it’s clear that the pieces don’t fit, make it right.”

Under the law, Tribble can collect as much as $50,000 a year for each year he was wrongfully incarcerated, if a judge signs off and formally declares him innocent.

The two jurors from his trial so long ago have written to urge the court to support that idea. They say they’re haunted by Tribble’s circumstances. He has no job, no money and no real home. He’s living with his older brother. No big dreams, but maybe a landscaping business, he says, since he spent too many years indoors.

“Well, in landscaping they call it beautification,” Tribble said. “You know, to make it pretty, the flowers and arranging the grass and stuff like that.”

He says he only wants a chance, another chance, at a normal life.