Congress, FISA and the Nunes-Schiff memos — Constitution-defying cabals at work

© 2018 Peter Free

 

08 February 2018

 

 

Did you see anyone out protesting — when Congress reauthorized abolition of much of the Fourth Amendment?

 

No. Even the energetic Pussy Hat Brigade was quiet.

 

Instead, 'we' were indulging the theatrically partisan foolishness that I addressed yesterday:

 

 

Russian Puppet Trump (on the one hand)

 

and

 

the Deep State's Anti-Trump Coup (on the other).

 

 

Relevant to the 'Russian Puppet Trump' allegation

 

Don't you think it is interesting that the Russian Federation symbolizes everything awful about totalitarianism (from the Democratic Party's perspective) — yet we are exactly emulating its snooping style — without a peep in opposition?

 

 

The Senate approved a six-year extension of the controversial Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [see here] on Thursday.

 

The vote was 65-34. The bill now heads to the White House for President Donald Trump's signature.

 

Section 702 allows the US government to collect communications, such as emails and phone records, of foreigners on foreign soil without a warrant. While the law targets non-US citizens, critics warn the government may incidentally monitor US citizens who are communicating with non-US citizens outside the United States. Its proponents have argued the program helps keep Americans safe.

 

© 2018 Ted Barrett and Ashley Killough, Senate passes FISA Section 702 reauthorization, CNN (18 January 2018)

 

 

President Trump signed that bill into law.

 

 

Former Judge Napolitano had this to say

 

Writing in The Unz Review:

 

 

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was enacted in 1978 as a response to the unlawful government spying of the Watergate era, was a lawful means for the government to engage in foreign surveillance on U.S. soil, but it has morphed into unchecked government spying on ordinary Americans.

 

If you call a bookstore in Florence from a telephone in New Jersey, the government’s computers will be alerted. A federal agent will download the digital copy of your conversation, even though it was only about ordering a book. Then that communication may be used to justify surveillance of you whenever you talk to anyone else, in the U.S. or in any foreign country.

 

The government has convinced the FISC [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] that it should grant warrants based on probable cause of talking to someone who has ever spoken to a foreign person, whether an agent of a foreign government or an innocent foreign bookseller.

 

That judicially created standard is so far afield from the Fourth Amendment as to render it legally erroneous and profoundly unconstitutional.

 

Yet the FISA expansion that the president signed into law last month — after the debate during which House Intelligence Committee Republicans intentionally remained mute about their allegations of FISA abuses — purports to make this Stasi-like [— meaning the former East Germany's Staatssicherheitsdienst —] level of surveillance lawful.

 

© 2018 Andrew Napolitano, It Can Happen Here, Unz Review (08 February 2018)

 

 

Congress' totalitarian-inspired, anti-Constitutional uselessness

 

Instead of corralling Government intrusiveness, congressional Republicans and Democrats voted for the FISA extension.

 

And then to top that, the House Intelligence Committee stole selected bits of intelligence from the FISA Court's activities to support both political parties' (competing and mostly imaginary) points about the Looming Coup (the Nunes Memo) or Puppet Trump (the Schiff Memo).

 

In other words, we saw the worst of all worlds:

 

 

Congress authorized unconstitutional spying on Americans

 

and then stole snippeted FISA Court (purported intelligence) secrets

 

without divulging any real evidence in their support —

 

evidently so as to

 

screw with whomever these oligarchically malevolent people want to.

 

 

If you are looking for cabals, there are those two in plain sight.

 

 

The moral? — Most of Congress has no idea what the US Constitution means

 

Nor does our Commander in Chief.

 

Or, for that matter, the public that he 'kings' over.

 

In the American Homeland, it is all clever illusion and coy deception (in aid of thievery) all the time.