Posted on 12/21/2019 7:51:13 PM PST by george76
The FISA court has awakened from its deep slumber. Too damned late… and not enough.
Finally, the FISA court has awakened from its deep slumber. Too damned late… and not enough.
On Tuesday, presiding judge Rosemary Collyer issued an order slamming fired director James Comey’s FBI for presenting “false information,” concealing exculpatory evidence, and misleading the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. But her judicial fix is feckless. She is now demanding that the FBI present the steps it will take to remedy these problems in future surveillance warrant applications. If this is her idea of a solution, it’s a joke. And shameful.
A year and a half ago when the redacted FISA applications were first made public, it was obvious that the FBI relied almost entirely on Christopher Steele’s phony “dossier” and that the FISA court was being lied to. Back then, Collyer should have immediately ordered a “show cause contempt” hearing demanding that Comey, Sally Yates, Andrew McCabe, Dana Boente and Rod Rosenstein all appear before the court to explain why they should not be held in criminal contempt for deceiving judges in the four warrant applications they signed. They swore that the information was true and verified when they knew or should have known it was not. Collyer still isn’t ordering a contempt hearing. This is an appalling abdication of judicial duty.
It means that the FISA court doesn’t really care that it was lied to by the FBI. If it did, Collyer would hold these FBI & DOJ officials legally responsible for defrauding the court. The message here is this: you can lie to the FISA court and there will be no accountability or punishment. If you get caught, the court will merely demand remedies for the future.
This will not go over well in Congress among those who feel that FISA has become a serious and chronic danger to civil liberties. They are right. The currently constituted FISA court must be abolished. A new system should take its place –one that does not rely on the FBI to be honest and trustworthy because the bureau has proven that it cannot be.
The FBI was caught lying before back in 2002. In more than 75 cases, the FBI had deceived judges in sensitive surveillance warrants. Then-director Robert Mueller appeared before the FISA court and promised reforms. He vowed that it would never happen again.
Predictably, it has.
Any new system that replaces FISA must embrace an adversarial element. It is imperative that a specially appointed public advocate be empowered to scrutinize FBI warrant applications and, when necessary, challenge the dubious claims made by FBI officials. Hearings must be required —no more paper submissions by the FBI wherein the judges simply accept as truth any representation made. The days of rubber-stamping the FBI must end.
Comey and his confederates abused the trust vested in them and have done incalculable damage to the FBI and the nation. Only genuine, systemic reform will put a halt to future acts of lawlessness and corruption.
Time to punish the monkeys.
But you leave those organ-grinders alone!
Public Advocate says: "Heck, looks good to me!!"
Should have never been started.
Secret courts have no place in a free country.
I believe in the tool but something has to change. It should be that the actual advocates of the warrant MUST become between the court and explain...just as if it was a special court...which it is.
The FISA Judges are claiming they were hoodwinked. Nonsense. They are a part of the Deep State and knew they were being “deceived”.
Who would be the one to shut it down? Trump? The senate? The SCOTUS? I don’t know
Congress. The FISC law of 1978 would have to be repealed.
Congress would have to undo it and they won’t.
“Rudy is on the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court]!” Page excitedly texted Strzok on July 25, 2016. “Did you know that? Just appointed two months ago.”
“I did,” Strzok responded. “I need to get together with him.”
“[He] said he’d gotten on a month or two ago at a graduation party we were both at.”
“[REDACTED] suggested a social setting with others would probably be better than a one on one meeting,” Strzok told Page. “I’m sorry, I’m just going to have to invite you to that cocktail party.”
“Have to come up with some other work people cover for action,” Strzok added.
It is called Long Prison Terms .
Proper remedy to discourage others from commmiting this crime.
If the fbi will not follow current law who with a brain expects them to follow new laws?
More laws will not cure ‘lawlessness’...
Bull.
It’s Congress and the Executive that should be punishing the miscreants who signed off on these requests.
The courts and lawyers are corrupt.
TOTALLY CORRUPT and in on it from the beginning.
Probably were raping children on tape to control them.
They should have been cited forcontempt, perjury referrals dispatched, and the warrants quashed. All that followed was fruit of the poisonous tree. Anything less is just telling the bailiff to whack his peepee.
I think it's pretty obvious at this point that the court was in on it.
I also think these evil oligarchs are going to find out they screwed with the wrong president.
Agree! And the head should be removed from the judiciary!
Tie this around the FISA court supervisor/administrator’s neck.
Hint: Traitor Roberts...
I suspect one of the reasons for the feeble response to this whole debacle is that there is almost no measurable damage from illicit FISA surveillance. I’d be surprised if there is a single person anywhere in the U.S. who has been prosecuted n the basis of information obtained through a FISA warrant. With all of the advanced technology out there today, I think a FISA warrant does nothing more than provide legal window dressing for intrusive surveillance that our intelligence agencies conducts routinely on all forms of electronic communication.
The fact its a star chamber secret court that the public doesnt know the judges and can’t vote on them or even have representatives vote for them, makes it enough to be disbanded.
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