Posted on 02/24/2020 6:09:44 AM PST by TigerClaws
Against the backdrop of a then pending OIG FISA report, in December of 2019 buried deep in the congressional budget Continuing Resolution (CR) was a short-term extension to reauthorize the FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], all parts of the Patriot Act.
As a result of the FISA CR inclusion the terminal deadline was pushed to March 15, 2020:
FISA Court judges Rosemary Collyer (declassified 2017) and James Boasberg (declassified 2019) both identified issues with the NSA bulk database collection program being exploited for unauthorized reasons. For the past several years no corrective action taken by the intelligence community has improved the abuses outlined by the FISA court. The sketchy programs, and abuse therein, needs more public attention.
However, there is now a confluence of events highlighting a likelihood congress and the intelligence apparatus writ large want to reauthorize the FISA surveillance and collection authorities without further sunlight and without public input. Here’s what’s going on….
AG Bill Barr is scheduled to meet with key Senators next week. While the media are attributing and framing the meeting toward Trump activity, it is more than likely one key purpose of the upcoming meeting is AG Barr advocating for quiet FISA renewal.
Keep in mind the deadline for the DOJ to respond to the FISA court about the abusive intelligence practices identified in the Horowitz report was February 5th, more than two weeks ago. The responses from the DOJ and FBI have not been made public.
FISA Court Order – FISA Court Notice of Extension.
My suspicion is a quiet agreement exists between the DOJ/FBI and FISA Court. It appears the DOJ is trying to get the FISA reauthorization passed before the FISC declassifies the corrective action outlined from the prior court order. This response would also include information about the “sequestering” of evidence gathered as a result of the now admitted fraudulent and misrepresented information within the FISA applications.
With that in mind, it is NOT accidental the Wall Street Journal publishes an article today about AG Barr’s position on FISA reauthorization. The White House wants structural reform; it appears the DOJ and FBI want considerably less than that.
WASHINGTON—Senior White House officials are discussing an overhaul of the government’s surveillance program for people in the U.S. suspected of posing a national-security risk, spurred in part by President Trump’s grievances about an investigation of a 2016 campaign adviser, according to people familiar with the matter.
The effort seeks to take advantage of the looming expiration of some spying powers next month, including portions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a Watergate-era law that Mr. Trump believes was improperly used to target his campaign, these people said. Overhauling FISA has become a rallying cry for conservatives and allies of the president in the aftermath of a watchdog report detailing several errors made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in its applications for surveillance of Mr. Trump’s campaign adviser, Carter Page. Some Republicans have called for upending FISA, prompting pushback from some in the administration, including Attorney General William Barr.
The plan, which is being spearheaded by officials within the White House Domestic Policy Council, is in the early stages and could face resistance from other parts of the Trump administration, including the National Security Council, which has generally advocated maintaining or expanding surveillance powers during Mr. Trump’s presidency.
Some administration officials have privately raised concerns that the new FISA effort could go too far, but officials working on the plan countered that they don’t intend to undermine the government’s core surveillance powers.
[…] Mr. Trump hasn’t expressed any public opinion on the coming expiration of the spying powers, but he has been a harsh critic of the government’s surveillance powers and has privately encouraged his advisers to develop a policy response to the surveillance of Mr. Page, the people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Trump feels personally victimized by the FISA process and the intelligence agencies that he oversees and some of the White House officials see a political opening for an overhaul.
“We were abused by the FISA process; there’s no question about it,” Mr. Trump told reporters this month. “We were seriously abused by FISA.”
[…] Some senior administration officials, including Mr. Barr, are hesitant to make major changes to existing intelligence law, people familiar with the matter said.
Mr. Barr has said the current FISA process needs more oversight from the Justice Department, in light of the inspector general report, but has defended the law itself as essential for national security.
“We are committed to preserving FISA and we think all Americans should be committed to preserving FISA,” Mr. Barr told reporters in December. “It is essential to protect the security of the United States.”
Mr. Barr has called FISA a “critical tool” and vowed to preserve it after some Republicans suggested the future of the law was in jeopardy following the inspector general’s report. (more) With the terminal deadline for FISA reauthorization rapidly approaching; and with serious abuses identified within the system of the FISA court, specifically as they pertain to the targeting of American citizens; there have been no public hearings or congressional discussions about the FISA process and the outlined fourth amendment violations.
Earlier today exiting House Judiciary Ranking member Doug Collins (being replaced by Jim Jordan) appeared on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo and warned of House mark-up hearings to advance the renewal without any public input or reform discussion. WATCH:
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Congress always waits until the last-minute to act on important issues.
The FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], again all parts of the Patriot Act, must not be reauthorized without a full public vetting of the abuses that have taken place for the past several years.
It is important that we contact our representatives and inform them of the need for full sunlight upon all prior activity; including the declassification of documents showing how the system has been abused; before any reauthorization is considered.
The DOJ/FBI response to the FISA court needs to be made public. To better understand the scale of the issue, the consequences when the system is abused, the upstream sequester material needs to be made public. Additionally with all of the information now known to exist, the White House needs to pressure the intelligence community to declassify both the Collyer report from 2017 and the Boasberg report from 2019.
Reveal the November 2015 through April 2016 FISA-702 search query abuse by declassifying the April 2017 court opinion written by FISC Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer. Show the FBI contractors behind the 85% fraudulent search queries. [Crowdstrike? Fusion-GPS? Nellie Ohr? Daniel Richman?] This was a weaponized surveillance and domestic political spying operation. [The trail was laid down in specific detail by Judge Collyer – SEE HERE]
The fourth amendment is being violated by the continued abuse of bulk metadata collection, and government officials illegally accessing the system. This needs to be stopped.
2019 Boasberg Report:
The Court needs tweeking...but FISA does work. How do you think we caught dirty Comey.
What did Obama know, and when did he know it? Was he briefed that this intelligence apparatus was used to spy on his political rival? Did he just learn about it when he read the paper? Did he think there was anything wrong with this operation? Has the media ever asked him about this?
Need to let this expire and clean house at FBI, CIA, NSA, and DOJ. Get rid of the Obama people. Will take Don, Jr. being 46 to continue the process of restructuring Deep State.
Comey, to which pretty much nothing has happened.
Yeah, some “catching”.
FISA needs to go away. We have a perfectly good court system that’s public and is usually disinfected by sunlight.
I would suggest ignoring this story because most of the key players are full of sh!t anyway.
What in the world did the FISA court have to do with Comey and his lying to Trump and his leaking to the NYT?
Comey did sign a fraudulent FISA application, but they still haven't said yet, that it was fraudulent {even though every one knows it was}.
They are gonna sneak the re-up of the FISA act through under cover, with little or no public hearings and mostly closed door meetings.
The demonRATs and the pubbies are equally guilty.
Doesn’t Trump have veto power? Why wouldn’t he just kill this entire corrupt system and bunch of judges who cooperated with it?
It’d be a major blow to Deep State.
Barr is pushing it.
Where is the evidence?
It’s the ‘one ring’. They can’t resist.
Totally agreed. FISA Courts are a threat to our Republic that cannot be tolerated.
Barr is wrong.
What can’t they do through a U.S. District Court judge granting a warrant that they can with a FISA court? Other than spy on U.S. election presidential campaigns?
Need to end the entire system. It’s un-American.
No secret courts!
A.G. Barr likes secret courts because he is Deep State and wants his DOJ and FBI to continue their Gestapo tactics against innocent Americans.
It’s a secret warrant rubberstamp court.
Yes, if we allowed supreme unlimited power to law enforcement we might catch a guilty party or two, but at what cost? What’s wrong with our judicial system that we need secret courts that can spy on presidential campaigns?
Trump needs to END IT, regardless of what Barr says.
Of course, the leftist loonies who decried the Patriot Act and other Post-9/11 laws will rush to defend Deep State and FISA if Trump comes out wanting to let the law lapse.
From Wiki:
Also rare is for FISA warrant requests to be turned down. During the 25 years from 1979 to 2004, 18,742 warrants were granted, while only four were rejected. Fewer than 200 requests had to be modified before being accepted, almost all of them in 2003 and 2004. The four rejected requests were all from 2003, and all four were partially granted after being submitted for reconsideration by the government. Of the requests that had to be modified, few were before the year 2000. During the next eight years, from 2004 to 2012, there were over 15,100 additional warrants granted, and another seven being rejected. Over the entire 33-year period, the FISA court granted 33,942 warrants, with only 12 denials – a rejection rate of 0.03 percent of the total requests.[4] This does not include the number of warrants that were modified by the FISA court.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court
He did not know he had ordered it until he read it in the papers.
Not only is it a secret court but it approves virtually every application the FBI requests. In the case of Carter Page, it sent the FBI away requesting more evidence, and they returned with the fake Steele dossier which then satisfied their demand. A batting average of 1000 = abuse.
Anyone who believes the FBI is going to allow any substantive modification to FISA is living in a dream world. They’ll kill or blackmail anyone necessary to keep hold of the massive power grab they made in the wake of 9/11.
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