[glimcat]

> criminal allegations that turn out to be false

That's not the issue. The problem is that it gives the government the ability to arbitrarily circumvent the usual ethical safeguards and legal protections which come into play when bringing a criminal allegation.

Since the practice obfuscates at least part of the evidentiary chain, there's no way for a private citizen's legal defense to audit it for compliance with ethical and legal standards.

Also, given sufficient surveillance data and complexity of law, you can probably come up with some criminal charge against any arbitrary person under surveillance at any time when it would be useful to do so.

> intelligence agencies to make any criminal allegations

"Here's some data, that guy is inconvenient to us, please accuse them of this list of legal violations which we have just given you supporting evidence for."

If you know a reason why it wouldn't work like that - one which can still be enforced in open court, not a secret court known for rubber-stamping virtually anything brought before it by the government - I would love to hear it.

[tptacek]

Prosecutors are required to present potentially exculpatory evidence, but they have never been required to present all the data they generate in their investigations. Defendants have never had access to the entire "evidentiary chain" using the definition you present here.

Meanwhile: prosecutors "accuse", and to do it, they need evidence. They can't use evidence from NSA or DEA "fusion"; the whole point of "parallel construction" is that they need a chain anchored by probable cause to do anything.

[msandford]

Yes that's true. But the idea that there's an entity which can "magically" drum up a precise interdiction point where probable cause should be manufactured by law enforcement isn't good.

If a police officer wouldn't suspect you of a crime without the special instructions given to him by someone with access to sensitive information then you've just done an end-run around probable cause. Sure the police can manufacture probable cause to stop and search nearly everyone all the time. But they don't because they'd prefer to have some kind of actual probable cause because that gives them a much higher chance of not being on a wild goose chase. Subverting this limitation due to resources also subverts the even application of the law which is a bad thing.

The idea that drug dealers can't be caught the old fashioned way and spying on all American citizens in order to catch some people engaged in largely victimless criminal activity is laughable at best and terrifying at worst.

[rosser]

Speaking only for myself, the problem with Parallel Construction, from an "implications for law enforcement" perspective (thus leaving aside your legitimate concerns about warping the NSA's mission) is simply the dishonesty of it. It bakes yet more deceit into a prosecutor's job.

I think there's already quite enough of that as things stand, thanks so much.