Posted on 02/02/2018 7:05:18 PM PST by son of terrence
WASHINGTON A federal judge sharply rebuked the National Security Agency in 2011 for repeatedly misleading the court that oversees its surveillance on domestic soil, including a program that is collecting tens of thousands of domestic e-mails and other Internet communications of Americans each year, according to a secret ruling made public on Wednesday.
The 85-page ruling by Judge John D. Bates, then serving as chief judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, involved an N.S.A. program that systematically searches the contents of Americans international Internet communications, without a warrant, in a hunt for discussions about foreigners who have been targeted for surveillance.
The Justice Department had told Judge Bates that N.S.A. officials had discovered that the program had also been gathering domestic messages for three years. Judge Bates found that the agency had violated the Constitution and declared the problems part of a pattern of misrepresentation by agency officials in submissions to the secret court.
The release of the ruling, the subject of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, was the latest effort by the Obama administration to gain control over revelations about N.S.A. surveillance prompted by leaks by the former agency contractor Edward J. Snowden.
The collection is part of a broader program under a 2008 law that allows warrantless surveillance on domestic networks as long as it is targeted at noncitizens abroad. The purely domestic messages collected in the hunt for discussions about targeted foreigners represent a relatively small percentage of what the ruling said were 250 million communications intercepted each year in that broader program.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I think the odds of that happening are mightly slim. The legal system is set up to protect the swamp dwellers. On FISA abuse ...
50 USC 1809(b) DefenseIt is a defense to a prosecution under subsection (a) that the defendant was a law enforcement or investigative officer engaged in the course of his official duties [check, FBI did this "officially and by the book] and the electronic surveillance was authorized by and conducted pursuant to a search warrant or court order of a court of competent jurisdiction [check, see approved FISA warrant].
Illegal FISA snooping is legal. If you don't trust the secret court and the FBI, you are committing sedition.
I dither between beyond pissed and passive aggression (the Gandhi method), either way, I view the federal government as my mortal enemy.
“A lot of these judges just might be in the coup. “
I was thinking about this. Whatever judge okayed the FISA investigation did it twice after he was elected President. Why would any judge do that?
I read somewhere that the FISA court hasn't rejected a single warrant presented to it.
If true, that's certainly abuse!
It’s all to make us safer, don’t ya know.....
The veneer of law and order is mighty thin, and at bottom depends on either brute force, or trust of the public. The trust angle is ner shot, but the brute force angle is holding up just fine.
We don’t know if it was the same judge every time. They rotate.
But each judge that did approve these warrants should be questioned. And if FBI citation of a Yahoo News article didn’t raise their concern, they should be made to explain why publicly.
Apparently so, however, I think we have special circumstances here that motivated them to use that as their excuse to continue. Don’t you?
It appears you are right. They seem to actively work toward a police state.
Precisely
It seems they should be made to explain why they were approving warrants on a sitting President based on original information on a person not even connected with his administration.
Sometimes I think President Trump and his generals should just shut down the government, arrest everyone and start anew.
Of course that’s only when I’m depressed at all the bad news/bad actors. I am still a firm believer in the Constitution. The only Constitutional way to do that is for the people to march on Washington. imo
Clinton perjury defense redux LOL!
“Everybody does it!”
Next they’ll be saying “It’s only about sex!”
“I’ll bet it really got going starting Jan 20, 2009.”
I’ll take that bet. They didn’t need any stinkin warrants to spy on people. Look what these marxists did with the IRS in 09.
“I was thinking about this. Whatever judge okayed the FISA investigation did it twice after he was elected President. Why would any judge do that?”
Because the courts are filled with rabid lefties...Obama appointees.
“Judges do very well in a police state. Plus, they get to be in charge. The vast majority of judges are leftists who will twist law and precedent to get the outcome they want.”
I may have misjudged you Choldt.
We are going to be finding out for years all the damage he did to our country aren’t we?
A similar event happened in the run up to the Iraq war. We relied on slim to nothing. Where it was pushed up and in the end, was a complete failure. Nobody was held accountable in the past. And only now, is there some outrage. Because, it affects a political party. Yet, losing our brothers and sisters to the deserts, brought us nothing in justice.
I’m not sure we relied on anything in either case. I think we made up information to support the path we were taking. And then passed it off as intelligence gathered.
And yet we just renewed and extended FISA wiretap powers.
Compare the NYT reader top comments from this article today, vs the comments on the linked article posted from 2013:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/us/2011-ruling-found-an-nsa-program-unconstitutional.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/us/politics/trump-fbi-memo.html
When it benefits them, it’s ok.
The promotion process to top jobs in the FBI/DOJ favours Ivy League elite lawyers, and this cohort of the liberal Deep State will barely be cleaned out before another infiltrates and takes its place.
They will do it again if allowed. And there might not be another Trump to stop them.
There needs to be some sort of separation of powers or majority party/minority built into a reformed and REDUCED scope FISA.
“We are going to be finding out for years all the damage he did to our country arent we?”
If we survive, yes we are.
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