Parallel construction is a

law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of the government or other social institutions who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by investigating, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms gove ...

process of building a parallel, or separate, evidentiary basis for a criminal investigation in order to limit disclosure as to the origins of an investigation. In the US, a particular form is evidence laundering, where one police officer obtains evidence via means that are in violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and then passes it on to another officer, who builds on it and gets it accepted by the court under the good-faith exception as applied to the second officer. This practice gained support after the Supreme Court's 2009 '' Herring v. United States'' decision.

By the United States Drug Enforcement Administration

In August 2013, a report by Reuters revealed that the Special Operations Division (SOD) of the U.S.

Drug Enforcement Administration The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating illicit Illegal drug trade, drug trafficking a ...

advises DEA agents to practice parallel construction when creating

criminal case Criminal procedure is the adjudication process of the criminal law. While criminal procedure differs dramatically by jurisdiction, the process generally begins with a formal criminal charge with the person on trial either being free on bail ...

s against

Americans Americans are the Citizenship of the United States, citizens and United States nationality law, nationals of the United States, United States of America.; ; Law of the United States, U.S. federal law does not equate nationality with Race (hu ...

that are based on

NSA warrantless surveillance The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and proces ...

. The use of illegally obtained evidence is generally inadmissible under the

fruit of the poisonous tree Fruit of the poisonous tree is a legal metaphor used to describe evidence that is obtained illegally. The logic of the terminology is that if the source (the "tree") of the evidence or evidence itself is tainted, then anything gained (the "fruit ...

doctrine. Two senior DEA officials explained that the reason parallel construction is used is to protect sources (such as undercover agents or informants) or methods in an investigation. One DEA official had told Reuters: "Parallel construction is a law enforcement technique we use every day. It's decades old, a bedrock concept." An example from one official about how parallel construction tips work is being told by Special Operations Division that: "Be at a certain truck stop at a certain time and look for a certain vehicle." DEA would alert state troopers and they may wait for that certain vehicle and decide to use drug searching dogs to see if there is any illegal drug-related activity. Parallel construction allows the prosecution building the drug case to hide the source of where the information came from to protect confidential informants or undercover agents who may be involved with the illegal drug operation from endangering their lives. A number of former federal agents had used parallel construction during their careers, according to Reuters interviews. Most of the former agents had defended the practice of parallel construction because, according to them, no falsified evidence or illegally obtained material were presented in courts.. A judge can rule evidentiary material inadmissible if it is suspected that the evidence was obtained illegally. Parallel construction in this case in the US usually is the result of tips from the DEA, as well as the Special Operations Division that are derived from sources within foreign governments, intelligence agencies or court-authorized domestic phone recordings. According to a senior law enforcement official and a former US military intelligence official tips are not given to the DEA until citizenship is verified to avoid any illegal wiretapping of US citizens who are abroad. US authorities require a warrant to wiretap domestic US-persons (citizens and non-citizens alike) and to wiretap US citizens who are abroad. The Reuters piece occurred amid reporting of the 2013 NSA leaks, although it made no "explicit connection" to the Snowden leaks.

In the United Kingdom

The Register ''The Register'' (often also called El Reg) is a British Technology journalism, technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee (journalist), Mike Magee and John Lettice. The online newspaper's Nameplate_(publishing), masthead Logo, s ...

'' argues the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 introduces parallel construction for evidence obtained through surveillance under the act, and prevents it being revealed or questioned in court.

In World War II

Parallel construction was used to hide the fact that the

Enigma machine The Enigma machine is a cipher device developed and used in the early- to mid-20th century to protect commercial, diplomatic, and military communication. It was employed extensively by Nazi Germany during World War II, in all branches of the W ...

encryption had been cracked. Operations based on intelligence recovered this way were authorized if there was a plausible alternate means for the data to have been obtained. Many losses were suffered when preventing them would have alerted the Nazis that Enigma had been deciphered.

References

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By the United States Drug Enforcement Administration

In the United Kingdom

In World War II

See also

References

Further reading