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Friday, January 10, 2020

UPDATED: FISC Corruption

After you read Joe diGenova's interview and see how he rakes the FISA judges over the rhetorical coals, read Margot Cleveland's new article that just came up: The FISA Court Is Complicit In The FBI Abuses It’s Raising Cain Over. There's really no other way to describe what went on except as judicial corruption. Our judicial system is becoming a joke when this goes on without consequences.

UPDATE:










26 comments:

  1. Russ Tice private snarking about ten years ago:

    "The FISA Court Judge contemplates that perhaps some of the tens of thousands of secret warrants for surveillance, wire-tapping, and black-bag home invasion jobs that the FBI and DOJ are requesting may be in violation of the Constitution. After all, the FISA court has only turned down a handful out of all the tens of thousands of requests.

    "He wonders where they came up with the scant supporting evidence on the people targeted, almost as if the government was already conducting wire-tapping against American citizens by the mass millions, in order to come up with very flimsy suppositions that they could be involved in terrorism or espionage.

    Funny how many targeted by FISA warrants are political opponents of the government, or social and civil activists, or journalists, or government whistleblowers. He has heard talk of some place called NSA, but is not sure what they do or how it may tie in. Oh no, he starts to question, has he been duped and used in the continued violation of civil liberties and could this all be eroding our constitutional democratic republic in favor of a totalitarian police-sta--- "

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    1. Actually, for many years it made sense that few applications would be rejected. If you read the law with understanding of the types of investigations to which FISA applies, it should be a pretty cut and dried process. I suspect--although I can't know this for sure--that the change came with the GWOT and the Patriot Act. With an emphasis on preventing domestic terror attacks there was greater use of FISA to target people in the US. My guess.

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  2. This is who the FISA Court appointed to assess FBI proposals to clean up their FISA act.
    https://twitter.com/Techno_Fog/status/1215817255306563587

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    1. I think you can count on it that Bill Barr will also be doing some assessing.

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    2. Wray won't serve ten years as FBI Director. He won't make it through the end of this year.

      Count on it, said by me, with nothing but a hunch.

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  3. Regarding the appointment of David Kris--is it possible that judges want to get out of the FISA warrant business (as currently construed) because they don't want to be in the business weighing evidence, source credibility, etc.? I.e. they're more comfortable in an adversarial setting, where litigants pick apart each others pleadings. (Also, an intelligence warrant for national security purposes has different implications (standards?) than a criminal warrant.)

    Surely, some of the federal judiciary are familiar with Robert Bork's criticisms, and as recently raised here by Angelo Codevilla.

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    1. A major part of a judge's job is always going to be weight evidence and assessing credibility. That's what search and arrest warrants are all about.

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    2. Yeah, I kind of stubbed my toe there, after thinking about what I wrote. Warrants are warrants--judges need to make a judgment about what's in front of them.

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    3. The difference, of course, is that with search, seizure, and arrest warrants the subject finds out soon enough and can contest them in court--after the fact. With FISA warrants, as long as they're on foreigners we don't really care. But as Joe diGenova says, increasingly they've been used against US citizens. We saw with the Carter Page situation that this incredibly wide FISA dragnet was launched against pretty much the whole Trump campaign, based on known BS and simply trawling for any kind of opportunity to attack the president. That's very different than normal criminal warrants.

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    4. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4614708/Carter-Page-FISA-Application.pdf

      It still blows my mind that the FISA application for Carter Page begins as follows:

      ...2. The target of this application is Carter W. Page, a U.S. person, and an agent of a foreign power, described in detail below...

      This was a lie and the FBI undoubtedly knew it. Since the premise for a FISA warrant fails, all of what follows fails too.

      This is not new news, but it never fails to shock.

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    5. Absolutely a lie. Page was, in fact, and had been for many years, and agent of both the FBI and the CIA. They deliberately hid that fact from the FISC.

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  4. Perhaps Bill Barr should appoint Carter Page, George Papadopoulos and General Michael Flynn to assess FBI proposals to clean up their FISA act. :)

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  5. Wray needs to be outraged or be gone.

    It looks like Wray is still thinking the Deep State, which has sustained and rewarded him handsomely him so far, will be his meal ticket down the road.

    He might think twice.

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    1. Wray's biggest problem--outside of a dishrage persona--is that he helped Rosenstein stonewall the GOP Congress, when he should have been doing his utmost to help.

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    2. The only thing keeping Wray in his job is the fact that Trump fired his predecessor.

      Was it Christie who recommended this fool?

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    3. I think so. Wray represented Christie in Bridgegate and hid evidence in his office safe. Trump needs to stop talking to Christie. Maybe I'm missing something.

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  6. The FBI, DoJ, NSA, and CIA need to be disbanded now.

    They are all for the government, not the Constitution, let alone for the people.

    They, along with many others in government, believe they, and only they, know what is right and correct.

    I am tired of this.

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    1. I'm afraid that would be a lot like unilateral disarmament. Nothing is simple.

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  7. Gut feeling - Trump will wait till his 2nd term to do house cleaning. Senate should be a bit more Trump friendly by then, and allow the confirmation of non deep state shills. And impeachment will be over by then. And the Barr investigation into the origin in the spying on Trump will be done by then.

    The more I read here and at conservative treehouse, the bigger this scandal and coverup becomes apparent. I’m amazed with all the forces against Trump, he’s still moving forward.

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    1. That would be an excellent scenario.

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    2. Seeing that Barr has referred, to early summer as the target time for some major Durham moves, for Trump to wait till his 2nd term to do house cleaning, would spur widespread suspicions, that the D.S. will be able to dodge major accountability.

      As these suspicions grow, the more Groypers/ BAPists will get to impress upon youngsters, the view that this democracy is really a lawless rotting corpse.

      Youngsters have quite a history, of being disproportionatly prone to engage in revolutionary conduct.
      While DJT, Barr, and Durham fiddle, Rome is getting ready to burn.

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    3. And, DJT's reelection is hardly a lock, esp. if we see an '08-scale $$ crisis, which could stem from rumblings in the Repo Market, see e.g.
      https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-repo-tools-explainer/repo-is-wall-streets-big-year-end-worry-why-idUSKBN1YG1UE , and
      https://goldtrail.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/goldman-and-jpmorgan-tweak-repo-operations-to-limit-basel-impact-_-financial-times.pdf .

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  8. I say Wray seeks a FISA warrant on Pierre Delecto?

    Not a foreign agent you say?

    Whoops, my bad.

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  9. "sysconfig" on a post by Sundance ar CTH about this gives a link to a NYT article from 2002 noting abuses under Clinton and W. This was before the NSA database, but they were building towards it.

    Note the fact it is all the same thing ... FBI, etc, abuse FISA somehow many times, FISC judge writes critical opinion, FBI etc come with arguments and statements they will do better, judge smiles and goes away.

    Also note how the article states the FBI asserts it needs more and expansive surveillance powers due to 9-11. In further support, they argue that one of reasons for 9-11 was their gun shyness due to a critical judge's opinion on their abuses.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/23/us/secret-court-says-fbi-aides-misled-judges-in-75-cases.html?ref=oembed

    Sundance believe this is an inherent fact of the system itself. It appears to be and was made worse by the Patriot Act and Obama.

    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/01/13/fisa-court-selecting-surveillance-state-advocate-david-kris-shouldnt-be-a-surprise/#more-180700

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    1. Thanks, TexasDude. This part of what I've referred to several time in the past, referencing "abuses" under BC and W, and especially in the wake of 9/11. However, there are other, constitutional aspects involved.

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