inhink things are piling up a way that should no longer be sustained. >> john shiffman, what has been ?our response rocks they say it is perfectly legal to what they do. -- one dea official told us this was a bedrock principle, parallel construction that they use every day. a were pretty unabashed about it and said they have been doing this since the late 90s and there's really nothing wrong with it. yesterday the justice department said they were going to review it. but the dea has said, there's no problem with this. >> how many people does this impact? impact, it would would think, everyone. we're talking about a principle of law here. not to get too legal, but if you are arrested, one of the fundamental rights you have is to see the evidence against you. at thewas jim interview dea, they decided the ted stevens case, which involved prosecutorial misconduct in which the senators charges were thrown out. they said after that there would be a review of all of the discovery procedures throughout the justice department, including at special operations division, but they said -- so i sai

host: john shiffman of reuters is joining us. let's take a call. caller: good morning. let me ask a question. i am listening to your comments and you said you have extensive writing about criminal justice issues. i do not have a criminal justice background, but just from my casual reading of events for the last couple of years, why is it, in your opinion, that the government is allowed, even from the local detectives to now the dea, to lie and mislead when they deal with suspects? the government gets away with things that the person who is underscoring the cannot it away with. i will take the answer off the phone. guest: well, i think it is interesting, a lot of people think that the police should not lie or that they should be honest all the time. i mean, it would be almost impossible to catch many people in the act. the supreme court has said that the police can be deceptive in terms of their dealings with criminals, especially when they go undercover. i will say that one of the least understood aspects of law is that it is a crime to do this to a federal agent. in re

host: joining us now is john shiffman and has had a series of stories looking at intelligence gatheredace within the drug enforcement agency. tell us about this program. what did you discover? guest: i worked with my colleague and we found the dea program that has been public for many years called the special operations division located in virginia. but a lot of what they do is public and coordinating international cases like the case against the russian arms broker, they also had a part of special operations that they did not publicize at all. they take tips from intelligence agencies, from informants, foreign governments, domestic wiretaps, and a large database which is different than they nsa record and that pass them along to agents in the field. while this is perfectly acceptable, probably acceptable, to pass along the tips, what happens next raises questions. the agency has been instructed to create something called parallel construction. case,s once they make a they act as if they never got the information. they might get a tip that a drug dealer will be in a certain place at a