\"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.\" - Lord Acton <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
If we were to try to identify the most corrupt of the U.S. government agencies, we would be hard pressed to find any more vile and destructive than the Drug Enforcement Agency led by Director Michele Leonhart, a holdover from the Bush administration renominated by President Obama in a gesture of goodwill to the Republicans and his homage to Abraham Lincoln's tradition of bipartisanship. <\/p>\n
Now, Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, brings us news that the Drug Enforcement Agency has been operating as a front for the National Security Agency to spy on foreign governments, corporations and individuals in Latin America - in fact, the DEA and NSA are operating as a \"two-way street.\" In The Hill we learn the sordid details Another US spying problem in Latin America: The DEA.<\/p>\n
From the Intercept: DEA is actually one of the biggest spy operations there is, says Finn Selander, a former DEA special agent Our mandate is not just drugs. We collect intelligence. ... Selander added that countries let us in because they dont view us, really, as a spy organization. <\/p>\n
This is potentially an even bigger breach of diplomatic trust than the NSA spying that Rousseff denounced at the U.N. Governments allow the DEA access to military, police and intelligence resources sometimes including phone-tapping -- as part of a collaborative effort with the United States to fight organized crime. They do not expect that by doing so they are unwittingly assisting the NSA and the enormous U.S. intelligence apparatus with unauthorized spying for political or commercial purposes.<\/p>\n
Our U.S. relationships with Brazil were already in rough waters after documents leaked by Edward Snowden inidicated Brazil was one of the top targets of NSA spying including the personal phone calls of President Rousseff and the computer systems of Petrobras - Brazils national oil company. President Obama apologized on our behalf and we promised we would not do this anymore. <\/p>\n
Are we learning now this may be a promise our President can not keep? Are the spying and surveillance habits of our vast intelligence system even known, and knowable by our political leaders? <\/p>\n
Last year, among the documents released by Snowden, and published in the New York Times, was an inconspicuous memo that received little attention, but I noticed it because I'm obsessed with the idea that the DEA has become so corrupt the only solution is to abolish it, and spread any legitimate functions it has among the 15 other federal law enforcement agencies. <\/p>\n
The memo was from an NSA operative to a DEA investigator. The NSA operative had obtained information about a non-terrorist drug dealer spotted by the NSA in this massive illegal terrorist data mining operation, that we've been assured is only used for to identify terrorists. <\/p>\n
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