Shocker: NSA Tools for Spying on Foreign Terrorists Used by DEA to Bust Americans for Drugs

Reuters has an important scoop on the use and concealment of anti-terrorism data intelligence on Americans involved with disfavored intoxicants:

A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.

Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.

The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial.

Reason has been on the anti-terrorism "mission creep" beat since the beginning.

Reminder: Blank-check surveillance enthusiasts like Rep. Peter King (R-New York) think that "spying and snooping" on Americans is "only in" Rand Paul's "mind."