John Shiffman and Kristina Cooke of Reuters report:
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.
Read more on Reuters. Not surprisingly, perhaps, government people asked about the practice see it as defensible and no big deal while defense attorneys claim this is outrageous and raises constitutional issues.