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The FISA 702 bill has been described by critics as a “dramatic and terrifying” expansion of the United States government’s surveillance powers. . The United States National Security Agency (NSA) is only days away from “taking over the internet” with a massive expansion of its surveillance powers, according to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. In an April 16 post to X, Snowden drew attention to a thread originally posted by Elizabeth Goitein — the co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice — that warned of a new bill that could see the U.S. government...

BREAKING: Speaker Mike Johnson just inexcusably voted against the American people and his voters by casting the tie-breaking vote 212-212 to defeat a FISA 702 amendment requiring a warrant to spy on Americans. This is how the Constitution dies. Brought to you by the House GOP.

You might remember FISA warrants from the infamous and disgraceful Russia hoax saga. Well, they’re making headlines again as lawmakers debate bringing back the use of the 702 FISA warrantless searches that came about after 9/11 and during the Patriot Act frenzy and were used and abused against innocent Americans. ... Everyone’s favorite warrantless surveillance tool, FISA Section 702, returns to the US House of Representatives this week and is expected to go to a full House vote on Thursday. Or, it may all fall apart (again) in the House Rules Committee on Tuesday. This week’s congressional action follows an...

In a last-minute rush to sanction spending before the end of the year, the Senate enacted a $886 billion defense spending proposal Wednesday, sponsored by President Joe Biden, that includes financing for Ukraine, yearly pay hikes for personnel, and most controversially, a reauthorization of the the National Defense Authorization Act.. The NDAA funds Pentagon objectives such as training and equipment. The Act was approved by a bipartisan majority of 87-13 in the Senate. For the last 61 years in a row, Congress has advanced the must-pass defense budget measure. “At a time of huge trouble for global security, doing the...

What might happen if Republican senators were serious about confronting the Biden Administration’s political weaponization of the intelligence community? Suppose I had in my hands a draft of a bill that Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) were preparing to prevent the Biden Administration from using federal agencies to encourage U.S. persons to inform anonymously on whomever of their families, acquaintances, fellow workers, etc. they suspect of becoming radicalized to violent extremism. The staffers who provided the draft would probably report that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is pressing the senators to stop work...

Representative Matt Gaetz sent out a tweet today that is absolutely accurate. You can call it a soft-coup, or you can call it politicization of the DOJ and FBI, but the end result is the same – the intentional effort to manipulate, influence, and ultimately subvert an election for the presidency of the United States…. and that’s what the DOJ is trying to hide. If you peel the skin off the onion, and get down to the substantive core issue that represents the biggest risk to the entire collective group who worked to subvert the 2016 presidential election, you get...

Most of the ‘vast-Russian-conspiracy‘ media presentations seem to start with a discussion of intelligence gathering beginning in July of 2016. The GOP convention to nominate Donald Trump was July 18-21st of 2016. Adding to the July 2016 origination narrative FBI Director James Comey stated the counterintelligence operation against candidate Trump began in July 2016. However, not a single MSM entity has looked at the FISA-702(16)(17) abuses by the FBI and DOJ-NSD outlined by the FISA court and NSA well before July 2016. It is a matter of unclassified public record the FBI and DOJ-NSD were allowing “contractors” to conduct searches...

The biggest of all BIGGER story aspects to the HPSCI Memo, in all coverage, has been overlooked by all Main Stream Media. The Department of Justice FBI FISA request was for “Title I” surveillance authority. This is not some innocuous request for metadata exploration – the FBI said American citizen Carter Page was a “foreign agent of a hostile foreign government”; the FBI was calling Carter Page a spy. “Title I” FISA surveillance of U.S. citizens is the most intrusive, exhaustive and far reaching type of search, seizure and surveillance authority, permitting the FBI to look at every scintilla of...

It was announced this afternoon the lawyers representing, Rick Gates, the business partner of Paul Manafort, have withdrawn from the case. The judicial notification is HERE, and details of withdrawal were filed under seal. Amid the news cycle of the HPSCI memo release, and considering there could be ripple effects therein, lots of media speculations follows: WASHINGTON DC – Three attorneys representing Rick Gates told a federal court Thursday they are immediately withdrawing as counsel for the former Donald Trump campaign aide, who is fighting special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of him on money laundering and other charges. Lawyers Shanlon...

Office of the Inspector General U.S. Department of Justice This is the 99 page report on the FBI and FISA court.

According to Representative Dave Joyce (R-OH14) the House Intelligence Committee will hold a vote on the release of the four page Nunes memo that reveals systemic corruption within the DOJ and FBI including the unlawful use of FISA-702(16)(17) data searches which were part of an elaborate DOJ-FBI surveillance program on the political campaign of Donald Trump.

To understand the Four Page House Intelligence Memo at the heart of today’s FISA Abuse stories, it helps to understand why the memo is needed. We wrote about the issue in a March 2017 outline called: “The Nunes Paradox” – SEE HERE As the year-long story has unfolded, there are two central components at the heart of the political corruption and weaponization of the DOJ and FBI: ♦First, corruption within the DOJ and FBI that included their use of unlawful use of FISA-702 exploits; and ♦Second, how that intelligence information was extracted, passed along to those outside government, repackaged, and...

Consider this an addendum “break out” thread, a reference of sorts, to help prepare people for the upcoming week and discussions about FISA-702. We’ll break down the term: “ FISA-702(16)(17) ” into the elements that will help you make sense of this story in the future. FISA – Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 702 – An American caught up in the process of Foreign Surveillance (16) – A search query based on “TO” and/or “FROM” (17) – A search query based on “ABOUT” Again, to repeat, there are differing FISA rules for use of the NSA or FBI database depending on...

The ENTIRE SYSTEM of FISA-702 surveillance and data collection was weaponized against a political campaign. The DOJ and FBI used the FISA Court to gain access to Trump data, and simultaneously justify earlier FISA “queries” by their contractor, Fusion GPS. FISA-702 queries were used to gather information on the Trump campaign which later became FBI counterintelligence surveillance on the officials therein.

Ever since the transcript of Fusion-GPS Co-Founder Glenn Simpson’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee was released by Senator Dianne Feinstein, several inquisitive media outlets have begun questioning the relationship between the FBI investigators, Glenn Simpson and dossier author Christopher Steele. What we have discovered not only highlights the answer to that question, but it also answers a host of other questions, including: Did the FBI pay Christopher Steele? Yes, but now how media thinks. Was the FBI connected to the creation of the Steele Dossier? Yes, but not in the way the media is currently outlining.

The company, which wasn't named, quietly pushed back in the government's secret court against the National Security Agency's surveillance program, but ultimately failed. {snip}....All of the documents relate to the government's use of the so-called Section 702 statute, named after its place in the law books, a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The statute authorizes the collection of data on foreign persons overseas who use US tech and telecoms services. The law is widely known in national security circles as forming the legal basis authorizing the so-called PRISM surveillance program, which reportedly taps data from nine tech titans...

Congress shouldn’t reauthorize the government’s most potent snooping powers until it imposes stronger safeguards for Americans, a key conservative lawmaker said in response to a judge’s ruling that U.S. intelligence agencies tried to hide potential breaches of privacy rights. Rep. Raul R. Labrador, Idaho Republican, said Judge Rosemary M. Collyer’s April ruling is the latest in a string of warning signs that federal agencies need more oversight before Congress renews their broad powers under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In particular, Mr. Labrador and several colleagues want to know how often Americans’ information is scooped up and...

For instance, a ruling declassified this month by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) chronicles nearly 10 pages listing hundreds of violations of the FBI’s privacy-protecting minimization rules that occurred on Comey’s watch. The behavior the FBI admitted to a FISA judge just last month ranged from illegally sharing raw intelligence with unauthorized third parties to accessing intercepted attorney-client privileged communications without proper oversight the bureau promised was in place years ago.

We might expect Keith Alexander to advocate on behalf of the two programs at the center of our national debate about terrorism and surveillance. He is, after all, the head of the National Security Agency, which runs them. “It’s dozens of terrorist events that these have helped prevent—both here and abroad—in disrupting or contributing to the disruption of terrorist attacks,” Alexander testified last week. And it’s not entirely surprising that the four leading members of Congress on intelligence matters would argue on behalf of these programs, known as “215” and “702,” for the sections of the laws that authorize them....