Clever criminal defense serves up new twist in NSA surveillance scheme

If the government can use information from your phone, email, credit card, etc., why shouldn't you be able to?

This is a question being asked by a bank robbery suspect in South Florida who's demanding NSA records on him for his legal defense. The Sun-Sentinel reports on this new twist in the government's domestic surveillance:

Terrance Brown, 40, is one of five men on trial in federal court in Fort Lauderdale on charges they conspired to hold up armored trucks making cash deliveries to banks inMiramar and Lighthouse Point in 2010. They have all pleaded not guilty.

Another man, alleged co-conspirator Nathaniel Moss, 34, is serving life in federal prison after admitting he shot and killed Brink's truck guard Alejandro Nodarse Arencibia, 48, during the final heist on Oct. 1, 2010, outside the Bank of America branch at 7950 Miramar Parkway.

The FBI and federal prosecutors are using cellphone records in court to try to prove that the five accused men were all nearby when the robbery attempts and planning occurred, as Moss, who is cooperating with the U.S. Attorney's Office, testified.

The prosecution had told defense attorneys that they were unable to obtain Brown's cellphone records from the period before September 2010 because his carrier, MetroPCS, had not held on to them.

Not so fast, Brown's attorney Marshall Dore Louis argued in court documents filed in Fort Lauderdale days after the National Security Agency surveillance program was revealed last week...

Louis argued in court Wednesday that the government should be forced to turn over phone location records for two cellphones Brown may have used because it could prove he was not present for one of the attempted bank robberies, on July 26 on Federal Highway in Lighthouse Point.

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