Anyone who watches reruns of 1970s criminal law dramas on television can readily conjure up the prototypical portrayal of the American landscape that featured at the time: urban areas ridden with social instability, drug dealers openly plying their wares on street corners and, most frighteningly, violent criminals freely roaming the streets because the criminal justice […]

An ex-federal DEA agent describes a clandestine government surveillance and arrest program through use of an illustration, as follows. Information covertly received by a special unit within the DEA called the Special Operations Division (SOD) from an NSA satellite intercept, or perhaps via a wiretap or an informant, would be passed along to state police. […]

It’s a case that is bound to resonate with most Americans, from Florida to California (where it occurred). And especially when viewed from the prism of, “It could have happened to me,” it is a flatly frightening — even horrifying — tale that fortunately ended up without the loss of life of an innocent person. […]