The case for repealing FISA and reforming the FBI and CIA

Call me sceptical, but I don't think operatives in the agencies mentioned will allow reforming to the extent necessary.

I am more optimistic. I believe that they will be reformed, even though operatives will try to prevent it. President Trump has said it will happen, and he has another five years to make it happen. He is the new sheriff in town and the Republican party is becoming energized, especially since the impeachment scam is over. More Republicans have filed to run as a result, so reinforcements are coming! Democrats are destroying themselves. They are driving many of their party away, as evidenced by democrats showing up at Trump rallies in increasing numbers. It's easy to get discouraged and give up. That's what the democrat party wants us to do. They want their operatives to remain, but they are already being flushed out.

I have never understood how a secret court could be allowed under our Constitution and am in favor of disbanding it. With Roberts running it anything can be approved as he is a weakling easily influenced by liberals.

FTA: "It is the culture of law enforcement to expect independence from politics." Uh, no it's not. Politics and law enforcement are tightly intertwined. Let's take a look at Giuliani's New York and de Blasio's. No, there's nothing to see here in terms of politics and law enforcement, is there? There are few more political positions than Police Chief, or Director, FBI. The current FBI and CIA are in need of more than "reform". They need a complete and public overhaul. Anyone vaguely associated with "Crossfire Hurricane" or "Go Deep" or anything else needs to be isolated and investigated for their oath violative actions in this coup, including their silence. If we need to build more Super Max prisons to protect our secrets...hey, good for the economy. A greater trust was violated.

Such "reform" (wholesale hosing-out of the Bureaucratic Augean Stables) won't come without bloodshed. Don't believe me? Just ask Vince Foster, Seth Rich, Jeffrey Epstein, and now, Phil Haney.

It is an interesting commentary, I almost stop bothering when he showed his NeverTrump side, but went on. I am no great fan of McCarthy. He is far too uncritically credulous of the bile and propaganda spewed by the Enemedia. His comment that he apparently believes the lies of the NYT and Adam Schiffless over the facts of the Ukraine transcript further cement my view that he is a bone-deep NeverTrumper. That said, even he has grasped that the entire "Russia-Russia" coup attempt was false from the top to bottom, and a political event which massively misused the FISA and other law enforcement and intelligence powers. And yet, even this NeverTrump man, can see that the FISA system needs to be ended totally, and that there need to be massive changes at the FBI and CIA. That is a good thing. He says, accurately: "Yet there are indications we’ve reached an inflection point: The public is growing weary and not a little bit angry. The politicization of law enforcement and intelligence-gathering threatens everyone, regardless of political persuasion. And officials seem always to escape accountability." He agrees with my FBI friend, who retired about 6 months ago, that the FBI should be investigating crime, not international security issues. My friend tells me that the "intel" mission has basically taken over the majority of all efforts of the FBI. McCarthy further suggests: "The foreign counterintelligence mission should be transferred to other intelligence community components and subjected to beefed-up congressional regulation and oversight. FISA should be repealed, with the courts returned to their judicial role of providing a forum for those injured by governmental overreach, rather than aiding and abetting in the overreach." McCarthy is a lawyer, and he sees everything through a legal lens. And he clearly distrusts and dislikes Trump, and is far too credulous of the Enemedia and their blatant lies. But, in some of this, he makes excellent points. Basically he says: Put the FBI back on domestic crime, cancel the FISA court entirely, and close down the entire CIA, and transfer the international intel to to military and State Dept. His final comments are good. "What is already clear, however, is that national security against foreign powers is not a fit responsibility for police agencies and courts. Assigning it to them is a failed experiment: a temptation to intrusive surveillance of innocent citizens and politicized law enforcement."

Is McCarthy using the phone transcript as proof that Trump pressured Ukraine President Zelensky for political purposes, or is there some other incriminating evidence I don't know about?

"The intelligence community’s performance is often subpar." Yes. Further the nature of "intelligence" is not to provide facts but to tweak events into a probability analysis. That's somewhat OK when it stays in the political realm where decisions weigh on elected officials. The need to take actions is linked to the severity of the threat. The nature of law enforcement is in proof of criminality. The problem is at the intersection of intelligence facing out and law and criminality facing in. There needs to be a very sturdy wall between these two functions. It is clear that the intersection of these two things cannot be left in the hands of bureaucrats. In fact, the benefit of allowing the intersection may pale in the face of the abuse of such an intersection. The right answer may be that there should be NO spying on Americans unless there is a provable criminal involvement. Then there should be a criminal investigation using and limited to the tools normally used in such investigations. The whole idea of an FBI counterterrorism intelligence unit troubles me. Such a function should be in an intelligence unit, not the FBI. They could work in cooperation with the FBI but the resources should be separated. This would eliminate the FISA court which has proven slovenly and at the mercy of counterintelligence games.