[Reuters on the DEA’s “legal” database on American phone calls][1]:

> The DEA database, called DICE, consists largely of phone log and Internet data gathered legally by the DEA through subpoenas, arrests and search warrants nationwide. DICE includes about 1 billion records, and they are kept for about a year and then purged, DEA officials said.

So the DEA and NSA have phone record databases, but the DEA’s is apparently legal — though how an agency gathers a billion records in a year while getting warrants for each person leading to those records eludes me… No the real shame in the DEA DICE database is this:

> A 350-word entry in the Internal Revenue Manual instructed agents of the U.S. tax agency to omit any reference to tips supplied by the DEA’s Special Operations Division, especially from affidavits, court proceedings or investigative files.

This program is secret, but legal, *but* we don’t get to know when it was used against us, **but** other U.S. agencies get to use it. *Hmmm*.

[1]: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/07/us-dea-irs-idUSBRE9761AZ20130807