Nation Of Change has the article Spying Scandal Engulfs Other US Agencies.

Earlier this month, Reuters revealed that a special division within the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has been using intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a mass database of telephone records to secretly identify targets for drug enforcement actions.

In the wake of these revelations, a former prosecutor tells IPS he believes he and his colleagues may have been unwitting pawns in the federal government’s effort to deceive defendants and the court system, thereby violating citizens’ constitutional rights.

The article goes on to discuss the Special Operations Division (SOD) comprised of federal agencies including Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency (NSA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Department of Homeland Security.

Fakhouri says the SOD program is unconstitutional because of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments combined.

Full and fair disclosure is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution as part of the Sixth Amendment, which states, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right… to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation.”

The Fifth Amendment provides, “No person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

It is getting harder and harder for me to make excuses for what the NSA is doing in gathering information about people’s phone calls.