Top secret report details FBI mass surveillance

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5. NSA surveillance is also implicated in the "Silk Road" case

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/14/the-most-important-trial-in-america.html?via=newsletter&source=CSMorning

One of the potentially most important and far-reaching trials in recent memory has just begun without much fanfare. And if you care about due process, Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches, the limits of government surveillance, and Internet freedom, you should pay attention.

Ross Ulbricht, 29, stands accused by the federal government of being “Dread Pirate Roberts,” the pseudonymous proprietor of the notorious website Silk Road. Launched in 2011 and shuttered in 2013, Silk Road was known as the Amazon or eBay of the “darknet,” an anonymous, Bitcoin-enabled marketplace where “buying drugs online became safe, easy, and boring. . . .

There remain serious questions, too, about whether the feds illegally availed themselves of NSA information about the server’s location and then faked a “parallel construction” trail of evidence that they present in court. The NSA is not supposed to be tracking the information of citizens within the United States, of course, and it’s not supposed to be lending its capabilities to domestic law enforcement, either. But as Bruce Schneier writes, it’s well-known that the NSA funnels information to the FBI and DEA “under the condition that they lie about it in court.”