“This is primarily for people who may not fully grasp the FISA process and what it is capable of.”
Have you been living under a rock? You do know that the FBI used FISA to spy on Trump? You did not know that? And Trump is an American citizen. Do you really think that Trump was engaged in activity that justified a FISA warrant on him? And the FBI used a FISA warrant on most of the Trump team.
It IS true. The IC cannot TARGET US citizens, any person located inside the US, or a foreigner in the USA.
Based on your reply, that seems to be the prime point that made you angry, and I presume you said "WTF??? Of COURSE it can be used to spy on Americans, that is what they did to Trump and Flynn!"
And you are correct. And I am completely and fully in agreement!
But the point is, the FISA CANNOT be used by itself to TARGET American citizens. To use FISA against Trump, Flynn, Carter, Popadopoulos, et al, they HAD to have a foreign entity that they were going to directly TARGET.
American citizens are incidentally involved as PART of that process, and that is the ONLY way. They could not open a FISA process on Trump or Popadopoulos. They had to get a foreign entity involved.
If they needed to go directly at Flynn or Carter, for example, they would have had to go down a non-FISA path.
But that is what makes it so terrible-the Left actively, knowingly, with forethought of purpose and deep malice, engaged the levers of power with the FISA process, and used it, not to spy on the Russians that Flynn or Carter were said by them to be hobnobbing with.
They USED the FISA process against the VERY principles it was ostensibly created for. In every single case, the FBI and DOJ SOUGHT OUT AND FOUND PEOPLE IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES AND DESIGNATED THEM AS A THREAT.
Once some stupid, corrupt, or inconsequential Russian oligarch schlub was designated as a threat, they could begin.
Michael Flynn sat next to a Russian woman at a dinner. She could be declared a threat to be monitored, and under FISA, every communication made by Flynn to anyone in the Administration opened up every single person in the entire Trump Administration and beyond to government surveillance and unmasking for mining. Recorded phone conversations. texts, emails, Facebook posts, you name it, EVERYTHING that passed between Flynn and EVERYONE he breathed on (including Trump) then became a "Subject" (again NOT a target) and every single thing that tens or hundreds of thousands of people including Flynn's garbage man (if he ever contacted him) would then be able to be "legally" surveilled.
The key points are that the FISA warrants on US Citizens can ONLY be used if there is a foreigner deemed by the IC as someone to monitor, and the IC pointed their investigative cannon based not on the foreign national, but as a means to point it at an American citizen. In that fashion, the IC monitoring of specific foreign nationals was DELIBERATELY and MALICIOUSLY, and with FULL INTENT engaged in order to enable them to spy on American citizens who communicated with.
Reading your post, I suspect I wrote my post poorly and you misunderstood what I was trying to say. I don't think there is much daylight between you and I on this.
I don’t think you understood rlmorel’s post.