[Grampa Dave]

This would mean that the Obama administration had effectively short-circuited the FISA process by checking to see if Trump associates were picked up incidentally on existing surveillance, and then disseminating the take widely within the intelligence bureaucracy. That’s not the same as ordering — without court oversight — a targeted wiretap on Trump Tower. But it’s pretty serious, nonetheless.

History of our agreement where the Brits spied on our people and we spied on their people for 7+ decades. Unlike PRISM, the MUSCULAR program requires no (FISA or other type of) warrants.

“It couldn’t possibly be true, because that is not how our system works,” Pelosi said during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington.

“We do not investigate, through a FISA court, Americans — here or abroad.”

Well, Nancy how about this: Part two of ??? parts history of our agreement where the Brits spied on our people and we spied on their people for 7+ decades. Unlike PRISM, the MUSCULAR program requires no (FISA or other type of) warrants.

MUSCULAR (surveillance program)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

MUSCULAR (DS-200B), located in the United Kingdom,[1] is the name of a surveillance programme jointly operated by Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) that was revealed by documents which were released by Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials.[2] GCHQ is the primary operator of the program.[1]

GCHQ and the National Security Agency have secretly broken into the main communications links that connect the data centers of Yahoo! and Google.[3]Substantive information about the program was made public at the end of October 2013.

Contents:

1 Overview
2 Operational details
3 Reactions and countermeasures
4 Gallery
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Overview:

The programme is jointly run by:
– Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) (United Kingdom)
– U.S. National Security Agency (NSA)

MUSCULAR is one of at least four other similar programs that rely on a trusted 2nd party, programs which together are known as WINDSTOP.

In a 30-day period from December 2012 to January 2013, MUSCULAR was responsible for collecting 181 million records. It was however dwarfed by another WINDSTOP program known (insofar) only by its code DS-300 and codename INCENSER, which collected over 14 billion records in the same period.[4]
Operational details:

According to the leaked document the NSA’s acquisitions directorate sends millions of records every day from internal Yahoo! and Google networks to data warehouses at the agency’s headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland.

The programme operates via an access point known as DS-200B, which is outside the United States, and it relies on an unnamed telecommunications operator to provide secret access for the NSA and the GCHQ.[3]

According to the Washington Post, the MUSCULAR program collects more than twice as many data points (“selectors” in NSA jargon) compared to the better known PRISM.[2]

Unlike PRISM, the MUSCULAR program requires no (FISA or other type of) warrants.

Because of the huge amount of data involved, MUSCULAR has presented a special challenge to NSA’s Special Source Operations. For example, when Yahoo! decided to migrate a large amount of mailboxes between its data centers, the NSA’s PINWALE database (their primary analytical database for the Internet) was quickly overwhelmed with the data coming from MUSCULAR.[5]

Closely related programmes are called INCENSER and TURMOIL. TURMOIL, belonging to the NSA, is a system for processing the data collected from MUSCULAR.[1]

According to a post-it style note from the presentation, the exploitation relied on the fact that (at the time at least) data was transmitted unencrypted inside Google’s private cloud, with “Google Front End Servers” stripping and respectively adding back SSL from/to external connections.

According to the Washington Post: “Two engineers with close ties to Google exploded in profanity when they saw the drawing.” After the information about MUSCULAR was published by the press, Google announced that it was working on deploying encrypted communication between its datacenters.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUSCULAR_(surveillance_program)

[Yosemitest]

Pay very close attention to ITEMS #5 and #6:

Found by Mrk Levin at Mark Levin PROVES Trump Wiretapping Claims: ‘The Evidence Is Overwhelming’ #ObamaGate
(They went to the FISA, that's the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Court not once ... BUT TWICE ! ) :

1. Heat street, November 7, 2016 EXCLUSIVE: FBI ‘Granted FISA Warrant’ Covering Trump Camp’s Ties To Russia
“Two separate sources with links to the counter-intelligence community have confirmed to Heat Street that the FBI sought, and was granted, a FISA court warrant in October, giving counter-intelligence permission to examine the activities of ‘U.S. persons’ in Donald Trump’s campaign with ties to Russia.

… The first request, which, sources say, named Trump, was denied back in June, but the second was drawn more narrowly and was granted in October after evidence was presented of a server, possibly related to the Trump campaign, and its alleged links to two banks; SVB Bank and Russia’s Alfa Bank. While the Times story speaks of metadata, sources suggest that a FISA warrant was granted to look at the full content of emails and other related documents that may concern US persons.”


2. The Guardian, Jan 10 2017 John McCain passes dossier alleging secret Trump-Russia contacts to FBI
“ … The Guardian has learned that the FBI applied for a warrant from the foreign intelligence surveillance (Fisa) court over the summer in order to monitor four members of the Trump team suspected of irregular contacts with Russian officials. …

“ … The Fisa court turned down the application asking FBI counter-intelligence investigators to narrow its focus. According to one report, the FBI was finally granted a warrant in October, … “


3. McClatchy, JANUARY 18, 2017 FBI, 5 other agencies probe possible covert Kremlin aid to Trump
“The FBI and five other law enforcement and intelligence agencies have collaborated for months in an investigation into Russian attempts to influence the November election, including whether money from the Kremlin covertly aided President-elect Donald Trump, two people familiar with the matter said.

The agencies involved in the inquiry are the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Justice Department, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and representatives of the director of national intelligence, the sources said. …”


4. New Your Times, January 19 2017 Intercepted Russian Communications Part of Inquiry Into Trump Associates

“… The F.B.I. is leading the investigations, aided by the National Security Agency, the C.I.A. and the Treasury Department’s financial crimes unit. The investigators have accelerated their efforts in recent weeks but have found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, the officials said. One official said intelligence reports based on some of the WIRETAPPED communications had been provided to the White House. …”


5. New York Times, Jan 12 2017 N.S.A. Gets More Latitude to Share Intercepted Communications
“In its final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies BEFORE APPLYING PRIVACY PROTECTIONS.”


6. New York Times, March 1 2017 Obama Administration Rush To Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking
"In the Obama administration’s last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election — and about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and Russians — across the government.”


7. New York Times, Feb 9 2017 Flynn Is Said to Have Talked to Russians About Sanctions Before Trump Took Office

8. Washington Post, March 2 2017 The Daily 202: Trump’s Russia headache gets worse, as Sessions struggles to spin undisclosed meetings
“ U.S. Investigators have examined contacts Attorney General Sessions had with Russian Officials during the time he was advising Donald Trump’s Campaign. The focus of the U.S. Counter Intelligence Investigation has been on communications between Trump Campaign Officials and Russia. … The inquiry involving Sessions is examining it’s contents while serving as Trump’s Foreign Policy Advisor in the spring and summer of 2016. “


9. The Wall Street Journal, March 2 2017 Investigators Probed Jeff Sessions’ Contacts With Russian Officials
“U.S. investigators have examined contacts Attorney General Jeff Sessions had with Russian officials during the time he was advising Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. ”

[Yosemitest]

Also, read this from " hoosiermama" :

Xxxxxxx
Dennis Consejo
GOP leaders associated with the NeverTrump movement and what is known as the GOP “Mormon Mafia” hired a company named Fusion GPS in Washington DC to conduct “opposition research” against now President Trump in late 2015. Fusion GPS is run by three former Wall Street Journal reporters: Glenn Simpson; Tom Catan; and Peter Fritsch. Individuals involved in recommending and securing Fusion GPS services included Sen. John McCain, Mitt Romney, Frank VanderSloot and Evan McMullin.

Fusion GPS hired UK based Orbis Business Intelligence, run by ex-British spies Christopher Steele and Christopher Burrows. Steele was MI6 and had been posted in Moscow in the 1990s. Orbis used Steele’s ex-KGB sources to attempt to dig up information against Trump. Orbis created the famous and now discredited “dossier” against Trump. Sen. John McCain notified the FBI of the dossier in October 2016. He hand delivered the dossier alleging secret Trump-Russia contacts and extremely embarrassing allegations to the FBI in November. The files were widely circulated within the Obama administration.

In their enthusiasm, FusionGPS/Orbis and their Russian operatives placed numerous calls and sent emails to both to Trump campaign members and to current Russian intelligence operatives early in 2016. The volume of these calls and emails caught the attention of the CIA. An FBI Counter-Intelligence project was started to assess whether these communications represented a threat to the US. Because of the sheer volume of the communications and the known Russian agents involved, FBI Director James Comey sought a FISA Court warrant to investigate the nature of the calls in June 2016. The FISA Court rejected the request. Not to be thwarted, the FBI, working with the CIA and the NSA, created a list of Russian individuals that had communicated with the Trump campaign that would be monitored. The calls and emails were intercepted without warrant under current FBI Counter-Intelligence authorizations. The communications were recorded and attempts to identify the US person(s) on the lines were conducted. The now famous call between Gen Flynn and the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak was captured in this sweep.

Following the GOP Convention, the funding for FusionGPS/Orbis from NeverTrump and the GOP Mormon Mafia ended. Fusion GPS did not want to see their efforts end and solicited the continuation of the project to Democracy Partners and others in the DNC. They were successful in securing some additional funding form DNC affiliated donors. With the assistance of James Comey, the FBI agreed to pick up some of their expenses to continue forward. The FusionGPS/Orbis efforts continued until early January 2017. James Comey and all of the members of the Obama administration national security leadership knew that the Trump/Russian interference conspiracy was based on these FusionGPS/Orbis activities in October of 2016.

No evidence of wrong-doing by any member of the Trump campaign was found.
... Mar 9, 2017 5:11am