The FBI Can’t Be Trusted With
the Surveillance of Americans
Bloomberg,
by
Eli Lake
Original Article
Posted By: Pluperfect,
4/2/2020 4:45:20 AM
For years, we civil libertarians were told that our concerns about the secret court that oversees the FBI’s applications to monitor U.S. citizens were overblown. So what if the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved more than 99% of all applications. The bureau and Justice Department must follow an onerous process, we were assured, that protects innocent citizens from being snooped on by their government.
Those assurances, as it turns out, were not very reliable. On Tuesday, the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued a new report that found systematic errors of fact in the FBI’s applications for warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
The Remnants 4/2/2020 5:39:00 AM (No. 365803)
There should be a period after Trusted.
But then I don't trust Bloomberg News either.
35 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
seamusm 4/2/2020 5:49:54 AM (No. 365809)
End domestic spying on US citizens - period. The FISA authorization itself is too ripe for abuse and NO ONE should be given the court-anointed privilege to prey upon our constitutional rights - not even our side. I am uncertain the genie can be put back in the bottle but we must stop deluding ourselves that anyone can be trusted with such power.
41 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Alecto2 4/2/2020 6:34:33 AM (No. 365829)
The FISA Court/Star Chamber is ripe for abuse and should be discontinued as should the FBI. How many times have we heard it's just a few rotten apples at the top causing this chaos and soon we'll hear from that 90%+ of honest actors? The IG report has put a lie to the honest actor nonsense. The institution is corrupt through and through. End it.
35 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
DCGIRL 4/2/2020 6:37:30 AM (No. 365831)
The FBI has proven that they can break the law when ever it suits them. FISA either needs to go away or rewritten to protect U.S. citizens and make the FBI provide solid evidence. Remember, the FISA judges carry a lot of the blame also. The evidence was not there and they rubber stamped the warrant. We already witnessed one retirement of a FISA judge and my bet is that it was not her decision.
30 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
WhamDBambam 4/2/2020 6:37:38 AM (No. 365832)
Unfortunately, I have come to the same conclusion. I'm still on the fence as to whether the FIB needs to be involved in law enforcement at all. My limited law enforcement background consists of my being our State Police's counsel for six years many years ago.
9 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
jeffkinnh 4/2/2020 6:45:05 AM (No. 365838)
"prosecute FBI agents and lawyers who submit falsehoods to the surveillance court .... severely punish those who commit them"
For what, typos? Is the systemic "sloppiness" in following procedures criminal or bureaucratic incompetence? How do you sort out the sloppy agents vs. the BO administration people who KNEW the system's weaknesses and deliberately took advantage of them to spy on candidate Trump, president elect Trump, and President Trump even when they KNEW the fig leaf, basis of their spying was a dem opposition document.This document was so bad that any reasonable person seeing it thought, "This is an absurd parody, a joke, right?", but the "crack agents at the FBi based their assaults on it and the wiz bang FISA judges accepted it to spy on a president when all their sense of right should have been screaming, "You don't DO things like this unless you have solid, clear evidence of compromise.".
The FBI methodology encouraged abuse. In fact, expecting an organization that is established to investigate for prosecution to also provide defense is insane. The FBI people believe ALL accusations because it might lead to evidence. They doubt all exculpatory evidence because they suspect anyone coming under their purview is likely to be guilty. It is in their DNA.
The FISA court appears to be willfully blind rubber stamp, stupidly figuring that if something gets presented to them there must be a basis for doing so.
The summation is, there is almost NO protections for the rights of American citizens and it is a fertile field for gross abuse. The process is DESIGNED to fig leaf the spying on Americans that the government wants to do. If the government actors are corrupt, as they were recently, then the FISA actions WILL BE corrupt. As the article states, this problem has been going on for almost 2 decades with various attempts to patch it. It just keeps getting worse. It is NOT fixable.
21 people like this.
A slap on the hand is not sufficient. A strong lecture by a judge is not sufficient. A forced early retirement is not sufficient. Those who claim to enforce "law and order" have knowingly broken the law. There need to be arrests and time served! A penalty never enforces is no deterrent at all.
Regarding the future of FISA, it needs to end. It is obviously too susceptible to abuse by unethical law enforcement (and apparently that is what we have now).
If you had a family member who had taken your car without permission ten times, you would be a fool to leave your keys on the counter.
31 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Bur Oak 4/2/2020 7:39:29 AM (No. 365870)
Don't forget about the FISA judges. They were willing participants in the fraud. Shows that the government can't be trusted. Wait and watch. No government employee will even so much as lose their job for this corruption and the ruination of people's lives.
23 people like this.
You can pass all the reforms you want, but if the character of the people who work there, especially the higher ups, is deficient then it will make no difference. The FBI seems to have morphed into a bunch of bureaucratic statists who are more concerned with their pensions than the well-being and security of the United States.
If 99% of them are so honorable, like Sean Hannity routinely crows, how come not one has come forward amidst all this obvious blatant corruption (so much!), that has been in the news for years? Obvious for anyone to see, books written cataloging the outrageous corruption, yet not one agent has courageously stepped forward. These modern FBI agents, who are supposed to be America's finest, pale in comparison to the men who stormed the beaches at Normandy and who held the lines at Gettysburg.
21 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Clinger 4/2/2020 8:08:01 AM (No. 365892)
This is but a small example of why you don't trust government itself. Government is a necessary evil and can do its job best when limited in scope and made of people who have other lives that came before serving in government and return to those lives after government. Essentially the founders did their job in designing a government that does the least harm while serving the essential purpose. Most of our problems stem from our divergence from form of limited government but some, a small portion, come from the inevitable abuse of power even in a limited government. Lord Acton knew.
We handed our government the power to spy on our every move and we were supposed to be "protected" under the silly notion that the FISA court would make sure we had a good reason before taking a peek at what we found. Turns out they took more than a peek at their political opponents and purged the data on real terrorists.
17 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
901AtTheRiver 4/2/2020 8:09:59 AM (No. 365895)
After at least four years of blatant abuse of the spy power, you cannot name one person who has gone to jail for it. Not ONE. That's where the system is most broken. There is no accountability. Firing is not enough.
26 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
jacksin5 4/2/2020 8:51:49 AM (No. 365937)
A Secret Court that answers to no one? That, on its face, is enough to have it disbanded as unconstitutional. The Deep State has abused powers it should never have been given in the first place.
18 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
udanja99 4/2/2020 9:02:44 AM (No. 365946)
35 years ago, an FBI agent knocked on our door. He was doing a back ground check on a friend of ours who was looking to enter the submarine service. We invited him in and answered his questions and our friend was accepted.
Today, if an FBI agent knocked on my door for any reason whatsoever, I would slam it in his face. And call my lawyer.
18 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
MickTurn 4/2/2020 9:23:24 AM (No. 365969)
The FBI Can’t Be Trusted, PERIOD.
When political bias is interwoven with law enforcement nothing is good!
13 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
h24015 4/2/2020 9:35:06 AM (No. 365979)
Subtract 10 years of service credit from all offending parties retirements.
4 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
oldmagnolia 4/2/2020 9:47:23 AM (No. 365997)
The FBI should be shut down and a good cleaning. Then start over, maybe.
5 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
chumley 4/2/2020 9:49:47 AM (No. 366001)
None of the "good agents" come forward because they know they will be destroyed and it will have no effect. The corruption is so complete they will be throwing themselves on their swords for nothing, and they all know it. Its not a question of integrity, its survival.
A great example are the prosecutions of Comey, Brennan, Clinton and that criminal enterprise. The evidence has been overwhelming from day one, but look what hasn't happened and probably never will.
10 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
fayebeck 4/2/2020 10:17:39 AM (No. 366027)
I think it's time to put the Russia thing to rest. Forget it ever happened. Forget William Barr and his swamp lawyers. Find peace and go on with life.
0 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
DVC 4/2/2020 1:18:01 PM (No. 366264)
Absolutely agree. Cancel the misnamed Patriot Act, entirely.
5 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
doctorfixit 4/2/2020 1:53:29 PM (No. 366302)
The FBI is part of the Obama KGB-Gestapo. NSA-CIA-DOJ-FBI-IRS-ATF-EPA. The entire "intelligence community" is hopelessy infested with totalitarian socialists. It cannot be reformed. Scrap the whole operation, start over.
5 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
NotaBene 4/2/2020 4:46:24 PM (No. 366444)
The FBI should be disbanded. They are the Democrat tip of the spear. We cannot trust the FBI. Wray, McCabe, Comey, James Baker, Lisa Page, Peter Strozk, Priestap nor the rank and file.
2 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
Chuzzles 4/2/2020 4:48:48 PM (No. 366447)
Kind of why there are restrictions to foreigners only. Even the hated Patriot Act has those restrictions. But Obama and his evil minions ignored all the restrictions and spied on Americans.
2 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
or gate 4/2/2020 9:24:37 PM (No. 366649)
Don tell anyone that Iḿ having tacos for dinner.
0 people like this.
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