The bigger issue is FISA’s evisceration of the Fourth Amendment.
Guest post by Robert Gore at Straight Line Logic
2/4/18
Due to the sensitive nature of foreign intelligence activity, FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] submissions (including renewals) before the FISC [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] are classified. As such, the public’s confidence in the integrity of the FISA process depends on the court’s ability to hold the government to the highest standard—particularly as it relates to surveillance of American citizens. However, the FISC’s rigor in protecting the rights of Americans, which is reinforced by 90-day renewals of surveillance orders, is necessarily dependent on the government’s production to the court of all material and relevant facts. This should include information potentially favorable to the target of the FISA application that is known by the government. In the case of Carter Page, the government had at least four independent opportunities before the FISC to accurately provide an accounting of the relevant facts. However, our findings indicate that, as described below, material and relevant information was omitted.
House Intelligence Committee FISA Memorandum, 1/18/18, Declassified 2/2/18
It’s hard to read the above without laughing. The only people who think that the government in a non-adversarial, secret, non-reviewable judicial proceeding will produce “all material and relevant facts,” including “information potentially favorable to the target of the FISA application,” are those pathetically deluded souls who believe that when rules, regulations, and laws are promulgated everyone complies, including the government that promulgated them. They’re always shocked when reality proves otherwise.
The rest of us might want to consider what it took for this exposure of potential government wrongdoing before the FISC. The House Intelligence Committee (HIC) pressed for months and was forced to threaten subpoenas before the Department of Justice and the FBI turned over the evidence upon which its memorandum is based.
If this wasn’t such a high-profile partisan battle, impinging on the presidency, that effort never would have been made. Had Hillary Clinton been elected or Democrats controlled Congress, none of this would have seen the light of day. The intelligence agencies and the FBI can rest assured, it will be business as usual before the FISC: non-adversarial, secret, non-reviewable proceedings in which they can allege, unchallenged, pretty much anything they want, their surveillance requests rubber-stamped by the court (historically it’s approved over 99 percent of all requests).
It is a measure of President Trump’s contempt for civil liberties that he just signed a reauthorization of the FISA law that was used to infringe his civil liberties. The reauthorization expands the government’s surveillance and bulk data capture of Americans’ personal information pursuant to general warrants that do not “require probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” (Fourth Amendment, US Bill of Rights).
Most importantly, the reauthorization “would permit the use of evidence of crimes in federal court even when it is discovered during mass surveillance authorized by general warrants.” Trump will overlook that little infringement of his rights in the interests of expanding his access to information and the power implicit in such access. He pursues power and is quite proficient at it. Civil liberties can be a real hindrance.
Incidentally, the HIC released its memo to Congress after FISA was reauthorized. HIC Republicans favored that reauthorization, despite what they have alleged about nefarious activities before the FISC. Their memo might have changed some votes. Anybody think the timing was a coincidence?
The FISC enables the government to end run Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights. The HIC memo is a tree, FISA’s destruction of civil liberties the forest. Investigations, possibly indictments, trials, and convictions, will grind on for years and provide plenty of grist for plenty of commentators’ mills. The investigations will eventually wind down, but FISA may be forever. Comey and the Clintons might be in jail, but we all could be, based on evidence obtained without probable cause via general warrants, the government’s data gathering rubber-stamped by its kangaroo court.
As for the HIC’s memo, it’s a fine piece of legal craftsmanship, although it’s not a legal document per se. It confines itself to one matter: the DOJ and FBI’s request for a probable cause order—and three subsequent renewals—authorizing electronic surveillance of Trump campaign volunteer advisor Carter Page.
In the understated, cautious style that is the hallmark of competent legal investigatory work, the memo makes a prima facie case that certain individuals broke various laws. While the evidence underlying conclusions about various DOJ and FBI officials’ misrepresentations and omissions to the FISC, their biases, and ties to Fusion GPS has not been made public, there is almost certainly an ample evidentiary basis for those conclusions.
That evidence, the Democrats’ “counter-memo” and their evidence, and the FISA application and renewals should all be released to the public. The classified information isn’t protecting vital state secrets; it’s protecting officials from embarrassment and possible criminal charges. The American people are smarter and more honorable than those arguing for continuing secrecy; they can handle the truth.
It’s been claimed that the HIC memo plays into Russia’s or Putin’s hands, or that US intelligence capabilities have been or could be irreparably damaged if information was released, without explaining how those consequences could flow. An unfortunate aspect of the American establishment is that it seals itself off from hostile questions in adversarial settings. Never underestimate the power of a question. It would only take one or two to demonstrate that intelligence flunkies, Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, John McCain, and a host of media commentators are either lying through their teeth or have no idea what they’re talking about.
Speaking of big issues, the biggest issue of them all, unsustainable global debt, made an unbidden appearance last week as bond yields broke long-term trend lines to the upside and stocks gave way to the downside. Possible subversion of a duly elected president and even FISA’s evisceration of the Fourth Amendment may amount to playing on the beach as the tsunami rolls in. You can’t do much about what’s going on in Washington. For the tsunami, on the other hand, you can move to higher ground if you have not already done so.
I trust the gubmint.
As far as I can throw it.
But it’s pretty big.
And I’m pretty sure it wants to hurt me.
So I guess I don’t trust anyone claiming to represent me.
Right Robert, pardon my lack of enthusiasm for Trump to have total privacy, while all Americans recieve none.
The Suicide of PePe Le Frog – As He Jumps From the Frying Pan Into the Fire – Andrea Iravani
Peace,
Andrea Iravani
This guy Andrea is a real tool. I don’t mind people holding opposing points of view. I mind but can tolerate spammers who infest the whole intra-webs with their screed, but to have some cuck post the same shit all day every day as if it was god’s gift to mankind is truly beyond the pale. Please dude…just stop. Or find some place else to deposit your refuse.
Well Hollywood Rob, since you are entitled to have articles posted here, why don’t you author an article on the dangers posed by a fascist military police state, so that I do not feel obligated to inform people of the inherent dangers that we would face as a result of such action? It’s not about me Rob. It’s about the future of our country. Get that through your head.
Wrong gender. I think.
Just yesterday (again) it said that the government stole it’s eggs …. right out of it’s ovum. Really.
Some think Andrea Iravani (AI) is a bot (AI = Artificial Intelligence).
Take your pick. Or, just go with Full Retard.
Full Metal Jacket Retard might fit the spectrum.
Iravani may be crazy but she has been pounding on this subject for quite a while. Lesser mortals and barking seals have focused on the problems of 1.8M dreamers while the government screws 330M Americans.
https://youtu.be/8ecE1UML1q8
Just based on the couple of Q 4chan articles here on TBP, I would be inclined to believe that Q is a high-ranking military official, perhaps Kelley.
It appears that there are rogue operatives in the military that are planning a military coupe d’etat which would be the kiss of death to our country. Military dictatorships never end well. Not once! The dustbins of history have been littered with failed military dictatorships! You are fooling youself if you believe that this time will be different! Our military has proven to be ripe with corruption.
It’s “rife”, as in: “Rife with corruption.”
Or …. the tree of corruption is ripe.
Yeah, that’s the ticket!!
Rdawg- Or ripe as in rotten. Rife is just trite. I didn’t realize that using exhausted phrases was part of the facist ideology. Now I know.
Websters:
Definition of ripe
riper; ripest
1: fully grown and developed : mature ripe fruit ripe wheat
2: having mature knowledge, understanding, or judgment
3: of advanced years : late a ripeold age
4a : suitable, appropriate the time was ripe for the attempt
b : fully prepared : ready the colonies were ripe for revolution
5a : brought by aging to full flavor or the best state : mellow ripecheese
b : smelly, stinking
6: ruddy, plump, or full like ripened fruit a ripe figure
Nice try.
Nice try. Glad that you are focussed on such important topics. To whom much given much is expected. Where does that leave you Rdawg the facist?
Run out of benzos and booze already?
Maybe Imodium and cough syrup will tide you over?
Futures down again
https://m.investing.com/indices/indices-futures
Rdawg the narcissistic facist:
Run out of people to humiliate? Drank to much? Your team lost? Or just part of your narcissistic personality disorder abuse aimed at those who don’t idolize you? Or, all of the above?
Psst.
I have your eggs.
Who is paying you to antagonize me Rdawg? I find it hard to believe that any normal, well adjusted person would spend so much time antagonizing a single poster on TBP. So are you just totally maladjusted, or is someone paying you to do this?
I am a contractor for the NSA.
I have been given the task of harassing you in an attempt to silence you. Unfortunately, the chip we implanted in you is not working properly, and you have proven resistant to our normal control methods.
Hence we have to fall back on HUMINT methods. If you want to see your eggs again, stop posting the truth about the deep state.
Rdawg, Post your name, address, and phone number, and I will see if I can make arrangements for someone to pick them up for me.
This is my duty as a citizen, in attempt to prevent anymore future victims, by showing the guilty parties that it is riskier than they had perceived it to be.
Rdawg and Andrea, get a room.
You hadda blow ur cover?
John Brennan featured on soon to be defunct NBC, his new employer, on high-alert, paranoid, pathological lying, and utter desperation in fear of all of his evil dirty deeds being exposed for the world to see:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-04/ex-cia-chief-lashes-out-nunes-he-abused-his-office
Dedicated to Rdawg, LFPOC, and my impersonator:
Don’t make me angry Andrea. That chip has capabilities far beyond simple tracking.
AI – Actually read your link and it’s dead on w/regard to military dictatorships. Not a road we want to take. Don’t really understand the hostility to your posts as, objectively, some have been good, some not-so and some not entirely understandable. None, however, have been such (to me) as to justify the hysterical responses you seem to provoke. I would suggest that you just ignore the truly idiotic ones and try to engage w/the ones that are actually responding to your actual comments. This site isn’t designed to be popularity contest anyway. Best Regards – RW
You could sum it up as simply as, Hillary and her minions got a little ahead of themselves (fortunate for us) preparing to go full police state on us. But it would have been a smiley face police state where you get to vote for the police state vetted police state candidates.
I despised Hillary ask Jim Quinn for proof of how much.
Why are people so stupid to believe that if I am not happy with Trump, that I was a Hillary supporter? I voted for Trump. Trump has lost support from his base, and while you may not be included in that group, denying it is a fools errand. His approval rating is 36%. I normally wouldn’t have voted for Trump , however, it appeared that Hillary was intent on starting ww3, so in this rare instance, I voted for Trump, which I will not do again. He has filled the swamp with the MIC and Goldman Locks. He has increased the wars, the cold war against Russia, attempted to start war with Iran and NK, increased surveillance and police state fascism, armed Saudi Arabia and Israel, is currently supporting ISIS and Ukranian Neo-Nazis, created unfathomable turbulance in the Middle East over the Jerusalem capital and embassy issue, the list is endless.
Maybe if I were a profitable business owner or had an enormous stock portfolio, I would feel differently, however, it appears that the latter may not be among his supporters for much longer either.
Why would anybody ask Admin how much you despise Hillary? What would he say that you can’t?
So Trump’s approval rating is 36%? Would that rating come to us courtesy of the folks that predicted by 90% or some shit that Hillary would win?
Oh, and it’s Goldman Sachs you moran.
WTF dude? You tell me to leave the stupid alone then you spend two days swinging from that tree?
The charge: hypocrisy.
The verdict: guilty.
I throw myself on the mercy of the court.
Hey airhead Rdawg the narcissistic facist. I know the actual name of the company. Airhead rdawg- goldi locks economy, more like Goldman Locks economy.
Oh, got it. An attempt at humor.
Fail.
Psst. I have your eggs.
Because I emailed photos of my FOIA request denial from the DoD dated May 2015 to the NSA for any and all of Hillary Clinton’s emails during her tenure as Secretary of State . I told him that he could post them here.
Hahahahahahaha! Android thinks she will get copies of the Sec of State’s emails! Funny.
Android, get help.
I guess that we can add illiteracy to your list of disqualifications lfpoc. It said that I recieved a denial from the DoD. Maybe denial is too big of a word for you. It means no.
I also sent a FOIA for the nuclear codes in, too. I am expecting the codes any day now. It is the law. They have to provide me the information.
Was it the San Bernardino terrorist couple whose iPhone the FBI asked Apple to help unlock and Apple ( publicly ) refused. I mention this because of all the caterwauling about ‘revealing sources and methods’. What could be more ‘revealing’ than the FBI admitting it couldn’t open a terrorist’s cell phone. Hello! Maybe a little discretion was in order here Mr. Comey! How about a secure telephone call to Tim Cook asking for help instead of a front page story in the New York Times. Well, as we’ve seen that’s not how Jim Comey rolls.
The hypocrisy and sanctimony spewing out of Washington and the media now is breathtaking. Devin Nunes and Trump are undermining both law enforcement and national security by revealing a criminal conspiracy among senior officials at the DOJ and FBI. If so we must also believe that Carter Page suddenly became the most dangerous man alive in the summer of 2016 because he went to Moscow! OK the guy was a Russophile and, like a lot of people in Washington, wanted to make some money selling influence but, as John ‘Pizzagate’ Podesta would be the first to say, in order to sell influence you have to have some so Page was busy trying to cultivate at least the appearance of influence by going to Moscow and volunteering to serve on some Trump foreign policy advisory board! That’s how Washington rolls.
“Devin Nunes and Trump are undermining both law enforcement and national security by revealing a criminal conspiracy among senior officials at the DOJ and FBI.”
Is that right? Okey Dokey, closet Demoncrap.
I do believe it’s time for me to just scroll past your posts.
Unit has not gotten the attention he so richly deserves, unit472 is his private room in the mental ward on the 4th floor.
Stucky, I believe Unit was saying that the hypocritical/sanctimonious media and Washington (that is, the D’s and neverTrumpers) are positing that claim about Nunez and Trump, not Unit himself. [I know it’s not Z, but tell that to my insistent, authoritarian spell-checker]
I guess didn’t make it clear. The New York Times story yesterday was what I was alluding to. It is was their claim that Trump and Nunes were waging a ‘war on law enforcement’ not I. I thought tempering that by pointing out that Nunes and Trump’s so called war against law enforcement and national security only consisted of documenting a criminal conspiracy by the FBI against a duly elected president.
I realize not everyone reads the New York Times but you don’t have to to read what they print to know what they said because it is the main talking point for every Democrat talking head appearing on TV that day.
You’re correct. You didn’t make it clear.
I have Good News. This will make your day. I will now NOT just scroll past your comments ….. except when you say stupid shit about Russia/Putin. ?
Stuck – don’t be totally dense – the sentence was IRONIC.
Stuck spells irony with a 2×4, Mkay? unit messed up. You can’t be cute around here, this is not a circle jerk club of barking seals. You should expect some pushback. Be prepared with answers.
“Possible subversion of a duly elected president and even FISA’s evisceration of the Fourth Amendment”
“Possible”, Robert??? This was high treason before, during, and after Trump’s election, and involved the DOJ, FBI, FISA court itself, and Congress…Nothing less than an all out attempt to rig, and when that failed, overthrow an American Presidential election…
In my writing, especially that of a legal nature, I try to maintain a certain objectivity, regardless of what I subjectively believe. My model is recently deceased Robert Parry. It will help me through the long, slow slog I know is ahead before those responsible for “high treason before, during, and after Trump’s election” are indicted, tried, convicted, incarcerated, and perhaps executed. At this point, all you can say is what I said: a prima facie case has been made that certain people in the DOJ and FBI broke the law. I’m sure I’ll write many articles about the proceedings, and it diminishes my credibility as a commentator and lawyer if I state legal conclusions long before the judicial process does. That may sound stodgy and overly cautious, but the internet is full of people making wild-ass, legally unsubtantiated claims, and I see no reason to add to them. I believe eventually, reality will be more wild-ass than even the current ranters and ravers can envision.
“At this point, all you can say is what I said: a prima facie case has been made that certain people in the DOJ and FBI broke the law.”
Of course true justice must be rendered but how does one achieve this when the DOJ and the former Attorney General have been implicated in a conspiracy to commit treason? Is there any justice left in the Department of “Justice” or is it totally corrupt? This is much, much more than a few people breaking the law. The evidence presented just far – and this is just the tip of the iceberg since the FISA Memo is only a summary without supporting documentation of one aspect related to the subversion of the FISA court – indicates a conspiracy to commit treason that goes all the way up to the highest offices of the United States of America including the Obama presidency.
Noboby said it would be easy.
FISA’s evisceration of the Fourth Amendment? This is what Administrative Law does to the Bill of Rights of the Constitution. We have to stop being stupid. Administrative Law is being used against the people. We have to bring back the constitutional courts and clean our house. But first because time is short we may have to convene military tribunals to clean the criminals out of the government. And who can initiate this process? I believe only the President can do that.
It seems we are living in grave times.
The FISA court was established and given its authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.
That is Legislative Law, not Administrative Law.
Carter Administration? Iran hostage crisis day number #? Anyone get what I am suggesting?
There are no Constitutional Courts because there are no citizens qualified to appear in them. Equity Courts are enforcing contracts. You all have contracts with your adversaries and you will be forced to perform. If you want to restore the Constitution, avoid contracts.
When (possible) high treason is treated as just another talking point in DC, you need to adjust your perspective.
It is the typical normalcy bias when facing the beginning of the end of an empire. I’m sure the Romans felt the same around 375 AD.
Sadly, just like 375 AD, there is no other better place to be, except outside of large metro areas.
We cannot escape the cycles of history into which we are born.
Indeed. Way, way outside of large metro areas. Surrounded by people of like minds.
“Speaking of big issues, the biggest issue of them all, unsustainable global debt, ”
God bless you, Robert Gore!
Stuck, HF said recently that money is unlimited. Along those lines, how else how can they create billions or trillions of QE cash? I love you, man but this has been my idea for a long time –>
They spend the money freely on war, then make you feel guilty about the public debt. This “unsustainable debt” is the new mantra designed to hypnotize you into accepting what’s coming, a deliberately staged global crash. Wow, what a wonderful opportunity to turn the world into Venezuela.
I know, I sound like Iravani. OTOH nobody has harvested my eggs.
War always gets top consideration , schools suck, roads and bridges falling apart, crime out of control, no problemo but the MIC and TPTB get ever increasing funding.
YoBo says Iravani is a bot, you know how those bots lie. 🙂
“OTOH nobody has harvested my eggs.”
Yet.
The German word for testicles is “Eier” … which is also the same word for egg. I have a feeling the sexy Mulatta will soon harvest your Eier.
HF is right, as long as there’s cotton and linen, the money is infinite.
You don’t say? Is that what Mexicans mean when they talk about their ‘huevos rancheros’?
Money is the Emperor’s clothes
[img[/img]
Robert (QSLV)
It is a measure of President Trump’s contempt for civil liberties that he just signed a reauthorization of the FISA law that was used to infringe his civil liberties. The reauthorization expands the government’s surveillance and bulk data capture of Americans’ personal information pursuant to general warrants that do not “require probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” (Fourth Amendment, US Bill of Rights).
I agree that on the surface this seems to be a very poor choice, and at first I was enraged at Trump when he did this. However, in the quasi fantasy-reality part of my brain (don’t ask what else is in there), I cannot help but wonder if he did this with the intent of encouraging more of the bad actors in Washington D.C. (“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany…”) to continue their bad behavior, so they can be caught. Ordinarily I wouldn’t give this much credit to anyone in government, but Trump is not just anyone. It is not beyond the imagination that there are a great many more swamp rats who haven’t been dragged to the surface yet who are also participating in this type of information collection for nefarious purposes, such as trying to overthrow a duly-elected president. It is possible that the surface has only barely been scratched.
It doesn’t really matter what Trump was thinking or planning. The intelligence agencies are now authorized to obtains general warrants to engage in the bulk collection of data about every American without probable cause, and to use that data as evidence in criminal investigations and proceedings. This is exactly why we have the Fourth Amendment, to prevent the despised general warrants that were used by the British against the Americans. FISA will be on the books long after Trump and this batch of villainous scum are gone.
No, indeed not. Trump is one man, with a handful of loyal associates, in a swamp full of the nastiest vermin that ever crawled out of a sewer. This same hegemonic Marxist vermin that wants to control every aspect of our lives, and is so desperately paranoid that they must know our every thought. The same hegemonic Marxist vermin that has the unbridled support of nearly half of our population.
Wow. That’s actually pretty scary. The worst part is that we won’t wake up to it until it’s way too late to repair.
Good night everyone. Sweet dreams…
I suspect a FISA judge or two are corrupt.
Indentured, I came across this while surfing. I put it here because I think it’s something we need to keep in mind today, regardless of whether someone watches it or not. I’ll bet this happens at every single Super Bowl.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/02/04/fbi-sting-rescues-missing-children-from-super-bowl-sex-trade.html
Not the FBI rescue but the missing children and sex trade.
Sorry it seems off topic but I don’t think so, when you really think about it.
That would go better with my 2:50pm comment here:
I copied it over there.
@ Anonymous
Thank you for correcting me that the FISA court is a Legislative Court; not an Administrative court. So what does that mean in regard to the Bill of Rights? Probably that this court does not recognize the Bill of Rights nor does it practice “due process of law” just like the Administrative Courts don’t.
You know we seem to have a problem with amoral or unethical men creating court systems that ignore the rights of the people. How do we the people deal with that?
Why is this court so secret? Why is it so unaccountable.
We have had a big problem in this country with the Administrative courts issuing probable cause warrants because of the testimony of unreliable and questionable informants. This has led to deaths and breaking into residences of many innocent people. What would make anyone think that the FISA court would handle probable cause warrants any better than the administrative courts? There is no evidence that confirms they would. In fact they just got a black eye with the current MEMO. The secrecy of this court makes them dangerous to the american people.
We are a country of laws but we are also a country of morals based on Christian values.
We seem to have people at the highest level of our government that are bad. What safeguards does the FISA court have in place to protect us from bad people misusing this court to their own ends? Apparently nothing.
So sane and ethical people in government need to act to remove these bad apples.
The Memo is damning. No argument can be made to excuse these people from their conduct. They need to be removed from office. And the FISA court needs to be closed down.
Thunderbird, I agree with you completely.
“We are a country of laws but we are also a country of morals based on Christian values.”
“Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the hearts of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.”
Usury is an evil work embraced by Christians. I used to think Eccl. 8:11 was talking about evil people, but it’s not limited to them.
Collecting usury is a sin [1John 3:4]. Paying it may not be a sin but if you are causing/helping someone else to commit sin you are at least blameworthy.
Maybe Trump is allowing the media and the Democrats to publicly endorse his next campaign strategy.
If Elizabeth Warren wins the Democratic ticket in a few years in a bid to become America’s first female president, Trump can just have the RNC pay Roger Stone to give a dossier to the FBI that claims Warren blew Kim Jong Un-der a table in Singapore and is now susceptible to blackmail by the North Koreans.
Then Trump can have Chistopher Wray and Jeff Sessions get a FISA warrant and spy on Warren’s campaign. If she wins, the Trump supporters in the FBI and the DoJ can leak falsehoods that will cause Warren’s new National Security Advisor to step down and her newly appointed Attorney General to recuse herself from any investigation into the alledged election hacking by the North Koreans.
Then Trump’s successor to Rod Rosenstein as Deputy Attorney General, can appoint Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, as the Special Counsel to investigate Warren’s collusion with the North Koreans.
This may have been Trump’s plan all along? And now, the mainstream media and the Democrats are all on the record in support of that plan.
Isn’t that awesome?
This comment was posted on SLL by SWRichmond. It’s a high quality comment and I’m posting it here.
From SWRichmond:
Thanks for highlighting the very serious unconstitutional nature of the secret courts (I hope I have not paraphrased you too loosely). Of course government wants its actions to be secret; non-reviewable is even better.
It is both astonishing and terrifying that anyone can imagine that such power should be given to any person or group of people, let alone a group claiming a monopoly on the use of force.
Equally astonishing and frankly more terrifying is the heretofore little-known revelation that FBI agents conduct interviews and do not record them, they transcribe their version of the events after the interview and submit those notes as documented factual representations of what the interviewee said. This in 2018 when anyone can record anything on a cell phone. Under such circumstances, why would anyone ever speak to an FBI agent about anything at all unless they were under duress (and especially NOT then)? It’s unimaginable.
The secret court system provides ample opportunity for parallel construction of “evidence”, and it is a virtual certainty that the system is used in this manner. I must also mention the entrapment nature of the “cases” against Trump people (and certainly others, Martha Stewart being one example); get documentary evidence, then conduct interviews and “catch” them not remembering something exactly the same way as the other documentation says it happened. The information gathering systems, coupled with obscurity and parallel construction, together mean that literally anyone can be arrested at any time.
Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged: “Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We *want* them broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against… There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws…But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”
What is to be done by average Americans? How do we respond to this? Some knowledge of history provides guidance as to how an all-powerful government views and treats its “citizens”:
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
Great article, Robert.
I agree there should be no FISA courts. I also think there should be no FBI or CIA.
With the Internet, today’s law enforcement can collaborate on all cases that cross state lines. There’s no reason for a federal bureau. When it’s time for court, the state with the earliest date in crime goes first, then the next state, and so on. If convicted, the prisoner serves his sentence in the first state and, when that’s over, he moves on to the next state to serve his time, and so on. Federal laws duplicate state and local laws and can be done away with. Any actual federal crime, such as treason, piracy and counterfeiting, as laid out in the Constitution, could be handled by the Secret Service. Easy.
As for the CIA, there’s no reason for a civilian spy agency. The military has historically handle spying and enemy infiltration, along with gathering intelligence. All of the CIA’s duties could easily be handed off to military intelligence. That’s one reason we have a military. And like (supposedly) the CIA, they are not supposed to operate on U.S. soil. Easy.
I absolutely agree with that. The FBI has shown gross incompetence time after time after time. A free society does not need a federal police force, and should not have one. That’s way too much power for a single entity.
If we protected our borders, local law enforcement should realistically be able to handle anything that happens. If we stayed out of other nations’ shit, we wouldn’t need the CIA.
And if we could destroy fuckmonkeystan once and for all, then we not have the islamonazi trash to deal with.
BTW, anyone know the difference between a progressive marxist and a muslim fundamentalist?
Anyone?
I realize that sounded like a contradiction above… what I meant to say was that we should stay out of other nations’ shit AFTER we destroy fuckmonkeystan. No hypocrisy, just priorities.