It IS true. The IC cannot TARGET US citizens, any person located inside the US, or a foreigner in the USA.
Of course they cannot TARGET those individuals. Those people need a REAL legal process apart from the FISA StarChamber process. Supposedly.
But. If the IC TARGETS someone who is a non-US Citizen, they are allowed to use the "Two-Hop Rule. As you probably know, it used to be the "Three-Hop Rule". That meant that the agency is allowed to travel “three hops” from its targets who they are targeting.
For the benefit of others who may be following along, under the prior "Three-Hop Rule" was in effect up until 2013. It was changed to the "Two-Hop Rule, which limits the number of people who can be surveilled under that FISA warrant on the foreign national.
Hahahaha...sorry. The use of the word ""limit" probably isn't really appropriate in the same way a pregnancy in a woman might be "limited".
Under the THREE-HOP RULE after 2001 and up until 2013 (when the public suddenly became aware of what the prohibition on surveilling American citizens under that statute, and were rightly horrified) if you were a non-US Citizen (such as obscure aide to Putin, for example) being targeted overseas and you communicated via email, text, or phone with an obscure staffer in the Bush White House, possibly even to simply confirm the arrival of a legitimate package or the time some meeting was going to start, then the agency could go to to the FISA Court and target the poor schlub of a staffer named Joe, saying he was in contact with a suspect foreign national.
Gee. This sure sounds familiar.
If approved, without the poor schlub Joe knowing anything about it, the agency could look at ALL the communications of EVERY SINGLE PERSON that the obscure Bush White House staffer communicated with in the previous FIVE YEARS. Phone. Email. Text. Facebook.
But under that three hop rule, they could collect "masked" data of EVERY KIND that Joe had engaged in, so if he communicated with 192 people in the last five years, then...every single one of THOSE 192 people could have every communication of ANY kind they had with anyone collected. All "masked" of course.
(Note that the 192 value was chosen because the average "friends" based on Facebook (which I have never used) is 192)
And...in the final "hop", everyone one of THOSE 192 people who emailed, called, texted, or Facebooked people, could have THOSE communications collected.
In this example, I am assuming each person ONLY communicates with 192 people based on that average. But honestly, it could be a ten. Or a thousand. But in the case of 192 separate persons communicated with at each "hop", it breaks down like this:
That is a lot of people who can have every communication they ever partook in saved up for analysis. Of course, it is all safe and anonymous. The IC can only view the metadata. Who called whom, date and time, length of call or text, actual phone number called, that kind of thing.
Everything else is "masked". That is, what was actually said in any communication. That data is available, but ostensibly needs an official unmasking request to view the actual contents beyond the metadata. (If I don't have this right, I am certain someone will set me straight, and I welcome that.)
And, in this process, not a SINGLE one of those 5 million people for whom data was actually collected on, will have ANY INDICATION WHATSOEVER that their communications are being scrutinized via a FISA process. There is nobody they can ask WHY? There will never be anyone for them to confront about it. But they are all safe, unless someone in the government requests an "unmasking" of someone collected in that FISA net, and there exists a WIDE variety of all kinds of wonderful people in government can make an unmasking request to look at the names and communication details. NOTE: At this point, I will bring us up to date with the "hop"rules. After 2013, when Edward Snowden's revelations made John Q. Public's hair stand on end, the Obama administration and IC were FORCED to change to the "Two-Hop Rule", and the time interval to go into the past was changed to 1.5 years instead of five years. So, there might be only 30-50,000 US citizens having their personal communications collected and surveilled instead of five million. Back to the regularly scheduled programming.)
With the unmasking to get names and communication details, someone would have to make a formal request of some kind to be recorded. Should be safe.
But is it?
Look at what went on with General Michael Flynn and all in ONE WEEK between 12/15/2016 and 12/23/2016. They were very busy bees.:
On 12/15/2016, Director of National Intelligence Clapper expands rules to allow the National Security Agency (NSA) to widely disseminate classitied surveilance material within the government. The same day, 17 Obama officials request the unmasking of Lt. Gen. Flynn in intelligence.
There were 38 unmasking requests in 24 days from State, CIA, Treasury, Administration.
Well, I would feel better now knowing only those few people making official requests are viewing my personal communications. Hahahaha.
But we are all protected, right? None of us can be spied on by our own government unless there is a GOOD reason, right?
RIGHT?
The point is, this renewal is more of the same. Nothing has changed. Our liberties and privacy are being trampled. We need to make it a national goal to get this FISA process destroyed.
Mike Johnson isn't the cause of this problem. And he isn't the solution. He is part of it. Our problem as the citizenry is to find a way to get around the Deep State, because they are calling the shots right now. So, we must, in some way destroy this surveillance state and root out those who support it. If destroying this surveillance state means more violence or terror, we will have to figure out how to deal with it. Because our country, formed only to work under a moral and just people, will not survive this.
Because too many Americans are neither moral, nor just.
And the biggest lesson is: This kind of power cannot be trusted to ANY human. We are too flawed, and the temptations are too great.