National Security Wiretap System Was Long Plagued by Risk of Errors and Omissions

"That official, Kevin Clinesmith, a lower-level F.B.I. lawyer who had written text messages expressing opposition to Mr. Trump’s policies and writing “viva le resistance,” has resigned." I guess there really as a Deep State after all. I wonder if we will ever see the text messages themselves and who he was sharing those sentiments with. How did Horowitz find no political bias, knowing about these text messages? Meanwhile, Comey walks free, with his latest story being that he didn't really know anything about the FISAs, even though he signed off on them. It's really weird, because his original story was he was right in the middle of everything, rushing out of a meeting with Trump to write down his notes. Now his story is that he was removed from all of this. He's an opportunistic sociopath I guess.

It appears that Hoovers legacy is not dead. An agency with a questionable past run by questionably competent individuals with agents openly displaying overtly political agendas wants us to just say no problemo. This is some hutzpah. The old saying that leadership is displayed from the top was never truer, except for the FBI it appears. This episode suggests that the leadership was more like the madam in the cat house. Hoover is rolling over in his grave in his party dress.

The FISA Court was structured to allow prosecutorial abuse from day one. The Executive branch nominates the presiding judges, who are then selected by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Their track record shows they don't say, "No.". This article provides evidence that the Judges are really rubber stamps. If the Congress won't install real controls (ideally including some system for defense counsel participation), it must look at shutting the whole thing down.

Clinesmith wrote ‘viva le resistance’. Sen Graham says ‘Somebody has to pay a price’ in a ....three year old Russia investigation. One political comment leads to a resignation, one will lead to another politically motivated investigation, attempting to exonerate Trump from claims of a Russian connection. Will that investigation demand tax returns? And more importantly, will it out other Russian sources/methods. More and more, this seems to be the focus. Find the sources. Which, of course, leads to more suspicion that Russia wants to know it’s own, moles. Reform seems necessary, but with the political atmosphere as toxic as it is, maybe a ...panel of state AGs, ABA experts, should be the ones looking at practices and suggesting reforms. Frankly, in an areas so nebulous, so possible of missteps, a looser warrant process, not a more stringent one, might be an option; wider possibilities, shorter time frame, and forget that agent signature; fear of repercussions could leave a possibility unexamined. Until too late. Kind of like dismissing Al Qaeda...before 9/11.

I don’t know why the FBI still has a good reputation. They routinely miss mass shooting tips, they mess up counterterrorism investigations, and they have been caught lying or misrepresenting several or many wiretap applications. And they are clearly more involved in politics than they should be.

I bet if FISA worked in the positive for criminal trump he would be touting it as ‘perfect’ everyday. No government agency is ‘perfect’ because they are run by imperfect beings, as all of us are. That does not mean the agency is evil or the much loved republican “deep state” reality. It’s no different than having a criminal, as in criminal trump, making decisions for our lives. So let’s start at the top & then trickledown.

Respectfully, the title of this piece be: National Security Wiretap System Was Long Plagued by Risk of Errors, Omissions and Manipulation.”

One thing this article - and almost all reporting - fails to acknowledge because it didn't fit with the false narrative the Republicans wanted to push. When Carter Page's ties with Russia were the subject of media attention in 2016, the Trump campaign completely disavowed Page as having any role in the campaign. The Trump campaign claimed that Page was no one, right up until - over a year later - they found that the FISA warrant on Page - like dozens or perhaps hundreds of FISA warrants - had an error. Suddenly the media forgot everything that happened a year ago and eagerly reported that the man who Trump claimed had nothing to do with the Trump campaign in 2016 was suddenly the integral part of the campaign, and wiretapping Page was like wiretapping Trump! In fact, Carter Page's ties with Russia had been a subject of concern many years before Trump even ran for president. But the Republicans needed to shut down all investigation into Trump since Trump's firing of the FBI Director who wouldn't stop investigating his friends didn't work. So suddenly the errors in the FISA warrant of a guy who Trump insisted had nothing to do with his campaign became a wiretap of the Trump campaign for political reasons! And as this article demonstrates, the media fell for it. Where is the reporting that back in 2016, Trump himself said Page was never part of his campaign. So it is beyond absurd that the media is dutifully changing the narrative now to "Page is Trump"!

A key issue that is rarely discussed is the need for oversight to make sure that the FISA authorized intrusive surveillance information in NEVER used for political purposes and that there are draconian penalties for such use. This should apply to BOTH high government officials and agency clerks who might surf files due to boredom looking for interesting gossip. There is a valid national security need for intrusive surveillance of foreign agents for whom there is some legitimate reason for suspicion. So there is a need for carefully vetting the basis of suspicions before authorizing intrusive surveillance and total candor in FISA applications. But many of those that are subject to such surveillance are later found not suspicious and thus it is critical that the results of that surveillance is only used for legitimate counterintelligence purposes and is NEVER used for any other purpose. There must be severe penalties for anyone in government who uses such information for political or any other improper reason.

False. Not true. Fake News. The Obama FBI knowingly doctored evidence to fraudulently obtain FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign. The most shameful thing is that no one’s been held to account. and the perpetrators of the hoax, Comey, McCabe, Strzok, etc., are still strutting around, scot-free.

Why do I see keep seeing Obama’s and Comey’s fingerprints on these horrendous debacles of justice?

Those of us with long enough memories have always argued that FISA was ripe for abuse. No surprise at all here that the government relishes secrecy over justice and that the temptation presented by FISA to fudge facts in favor of the cases it builds took priority over simply following the restrictions that could apply. What is surprising is that it took so long to be applied to the wealthy and influential. Apparently, such violators never thought the law would apply to them and that's why it has stirred controversy now, not because of any real changes in how the law is applied. FISA is simply unconstitutional in how it protects one's accusers against cross-examination and other means to confront the facts at hand. Furthermore, decades without any significant review of the ills that plague it puts the onus on Congress to clean up the human rights mess being made under this bad law that it created. It's also worth noting that FISA was created to push back against critical examination of the sordid chicanery of such recent events as Watergate, various whistleblowers, and the CIA scandals of the early to mid 70s. Just when it looked like Congress was going to clean house, FISA was offered as a compromise that would allow such oversight to take place in a well defined framework. Congress has shown little inclination to examine what takes place under FISA. It should, because the present state is one where FISA serves much better as a cover-up than a check on government abuse.

So, the secret police abuse their power? Imagine that! But antiwar protesters, civil rights crusaders and the like have always experienced this.

To try to pass off the abuse of the FISA court as actions of lower level employees is fake news. The FISA applications to spy on Trump’s campaign were ushered through the system by the highest levels of employees in the FBI. What we need to do is to bring the full force of the law down on those that abused it.

Did we all just collectively forget about PRISM? Nothing changed after Snowden's disclosure -- abuse of power is the name of the game, and we've just been allowing it to happen. It's sad that this kind of thing is a surprise to anyone, at this point.

So it turns out that a registered Republican FBI agent also made serious errors in the so-called "partisan" wiretap of Carter Page and the press ignored that in favor of the false narrative that the FBI was full of Democratic Hillary Clinton voters? And it turned out that the registered Republican FBI agent who made that mistake also happened to work out of the same New York FBI field office where someone else improperly leaked negative information to smear Hillary Clinton to Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, right before the 2016 election? Why is it that this newspaper ignored the copious evidence that the FBI was biased against Hillary Clinton but promoted the false Republican narrative that the FBI was biased against Trump? HALF A DOZEN FAILINGS by a Republican FBI agent is ignored, but the guy who copied and pasted wrong gets to be the fall guy because he wrote a text opposing Trump? And if that text came months after the election when Trump was doing treasonous things trying to shut down the Russia investigation - and had nothing to do with Carter Page - that isn't mentioned? This newspaper published the false Republican narrative that Trump had been totally exonerated by the FBI right before the 2016 election. This newspaper published the false Republican narrative that the FBI was full of Clinton supporters out to get Trump. Writing articles like this that barely mention all evidence of REPUBLICANS who made the errors is not a good enough apology.

The cliché about prosecutors being able to indict a ham sandwich applies equally to law enforcement getting a warrant from the FISA court (or any court). Unless legislators act to require an adversarial process in getting warrants, we will continue to see the kinds of abuses described here.