FISA court a 'rubber stamp'

[Auburnfan91 1,407]

With all the talk about the possible wiretapping of the Trump campaign, the FISA court has gotten more attention. I found an interesting article from over 3 years in 2013 in the midst of the NSA leak scandal that gave more information about the FISA court.

Here are some notable portions of the article that are relevant to the current news stories of wiretapping and 'lying' under oath :

 

Quote

Like a modern-day Star Chamber, the FISC operates “ex parte”—that is, the applications and arguments are one-sided, and only the government appears before the court. There is no one before the court to speak for the public’s interest in the privacy of its communications. And in a fight where only one side is allowed to show up, the government’s view almost always prevails. Since 2008 the administration has submitted over 8,000 surveillance requests to the FISC. Only two have been denied. The FISC has denied not a single surveillance request in the past three years. By any measure, the court is simply a rubber stamp for the executive branch.

 

Quote

Sen. Ron Wyden asked Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. about surveillance of Americans in March of this year.  Wyden gave Clapper advance notice that he would ask whether the NSA intentionally collects any kind of data on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans. The answer, of course, is “yes.” We know that NSA collects both Americans’ telephone metadata as well as a wide variety of Americans’ communications via its Prism program. Nonetheless, while under oath at a public congressional hearing, Clapper denied the existence of NSA mass surveillance programs, responding “No, sir, not wittingly” to Wyden’s question. When asked to explain this “inconsistency”—which is modern Washington-speak for a bald-faced lie—Clapper told Andrea Mitchell of NBC that the NSA uses the word “collect” only when it pulls information out of its gigantic database of communications and not when it first intercepts and stores the information.

 

Read more at:http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/24/the-secret-fisa-court-must-go.html

[TexasTiger 11,642]

5 minutes ago, Auburnfan91 said:

With all the talk about the possible wiretapping of the Trump campaign, the FISA court has gotten more attention. I found an interesting article from over 3 years in 2013 in the midst of the NSA leak scandal that gave more information about the FISA court.

Here are some notable portions of the article that are relevant to the current news stories of wiretapping and 'lying' under oath :

 

 

 

Read more at:http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/24/the-secret-fisa-court-must-go.html

You know FISA warrants are for foreigners, right?

[Auburnfan91 1,407]

27 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

You know FISA warrants are for foreigners, right?

Yeah, so why has it allowed surveillance of U.S. citizens?

Did you even read the article?

[TexasTiger 11,642]

30 minutes ago, Auburnfan91 said:

Yeah, so why has it allowed surveillance of U.S. citizens?

Did you even read the article?

Sort of.  it only surveils those talking to foreigners being monitored-- like the Russian ambassador.

[Auburnfan91 1,407]

On 3/6/2017 at 8:27 PM, TexasTiger said:

Sort of.  it only surveils those talking to foreigners being monitored-- like the Russian ambassador.

Yeah and the Obama Administration also eavesdropped on German chancellor Angela Merkel and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

[TexasTiger 11,642]

14 minutes ago, Auburnfan91 said:

Yeah and the Obama Administration also eavesdropped on German chancellor Angela Merkel and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

You object to that?

[Auburnfan91 1,407]

All FISA Court applications for electronic surveillance are signed by the attorney general, which would have been Loretta Lynch. If there was a FISA application for surveillance of Trump's associates.

 

Quote

The Stats

More than a thousand applications for electronic surveillance, all signed by the attorney general, are submitted each year, and the vast majority are approved.

 

From 2009 to 2015, for example, more than 10,700 applications for electronic surveillance were submitted, and only one was denied in its entirety, according to annual reports sent to Congress. Another one was denied in part, and 17 were withdrawn by the government.

 

“That shouldn’t lead anyone to believe it’s easy to get the order," said Matt Olsen, a former NSA official who is now an ABC News contributor. "The fact that the government is successful in almost always getting approval is just an indication the government knows what the standard is."

 

According to George Washington Law School professor and longtime FISA critic Jonathan Turley, “FISA was designed more to facilitate than to limit surveillance. It adopted a standard that was heavily weighted toward approval. You almost have to work to find a way to get turned down by a FISA court."

 

Read more at: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fisa-wiretaps/story?id=45913892

[Auburnfan91 1,407]

Also, everyone is calling Trump's claim a lie. You could say the same thing about Obama's statement put out by his spokesman:

Quote

"A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice," Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said in a statement Saturday. "As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.

Loretta Lynch would have had to sign off on any application for electronic surveillance. So the suggestion that the Obama administration had nothing to do with the wiretap of Trump associates would be false.

[TexasTiger 11,642]

39 minutes ago, Auburnfan91 said:

Also, everyone is calling Trump's claim a lie. You could say the same thing about Obama's statement put out by his spokesman:

Loretta Lynch would have had to sign off on any application for electronic surveillance. So the suggestion that the Obama administration had nothing to do with the wiretap of Trump associates would be false.

We don't know what happened, but we do know that a) the President doesn't order wire taps-- Trump's claim. b ) The AG doesn't sign off on all or even most requests. Most are from the NSA. And they are requests. A judge has to find the request valid. But FISA is for foreigners-- so when you say Trump associates, I assume you're talking about his Russian associates.

[japantiger 3,902]

I just love this round and round...if you believe the former CIA director, there was no FISA application....also, if you believe the former CIA director, there was 0 evidence that there was any collusion between Trump and the Russians...so, which is it guys?  

[TexasTiger 11,642]

12 minutes ago, japantiger said:

I just love this round and round...if you believe the former CIA director, there was no FISA application....also, if you believe the former CIA director, there was 0 evidence that there was any collusion between Trump and the Russians...so, which is it guys?  

What we do know, is Trump's team lies a lot about talking to Russians and Trump's positions align with Putin's. If he was a Dem, you'd be ballistic.

[japantiger 3,902]

12 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

What we do know, is Trump's team lies a lot about talking to Russians and Trump's positions align with Putin's. If he was a Dem, you'd be ballistic.

So not addressing the point again I see...so which is it Tex?  Do you believe the former DNI (I mistakenly said CIA director above) or not?  If there was no FISA that he was aware of...which if there was one; it's highly unlikely he wouldn't be aware; then there is also no Trump-Russia grand collusion.....you can't have it both ways....it's pretty clear that the NYT and other dem's are now trying to run from the claims of Trump-Russia collusion...they fear their former dear-leader could be implicated in illegal wiretapping...so suddenly the NYT even goes back in time and changes a headline to try to erase "wiretapping" from the headlines...you, the press and the Dems are all full of s*** on this....there never was any evidence of a Trump-Russia connection....and now the phony house of cards is starting to tumble ..... and I am just loving it....you guys are about as credible as Maxine Waters...

[TexasTiger 11,642]

39 minutes ago, japantiger said:

So not addressing the point again I see...so which is it Tex?  Do you believe the former DNI (I mistakenly said CIA director above) or not?  If there was no FISA that he was aware of...which if there was one; it's highly unlikely he wouldn't be aware; then there is also no Trump-Russia grand collusion.....you can't have it both ways....it's pretty clear that the NYT and other dem's are now trying to run from the claims of Trump-Russia collusion...they fear their former dear-leader could be implicated in illegal wiretapping...so suddenly the NYT even goes back in time and changes a headline to try to erase "wiretapping" from the headlines...you, the press and the Dems are all full of s*** on this....there never was any evidence of a Trump-Russia connection....and now the phony house of cards is starting to tumble ..... and I am just loving it....you guys are about as credible as Maxine Waters...

There you go meandering into straw man land and questioning my credibility for not following. I'm sticking to what I know. Hopefully we'll know more soon. I understand why you would deflect from the known facts.

[homersapien 10,948]

I'm confused. I don't know what's being argued.

AUfan91, can you please state your point/premise/hypothesis in a sentence or two?

 

[Auburnfan91 1,407]

19 hours ago, TexasTiger said:

We don't know what happened, but we do know that a) the President doesn't order wire taps-- Trump's claim. b ) The AG doesn't sign off on all or even most requests. Most are from the NSA. And they are requests. A judge has to find the request valid. But FISA is for foreigners-- so when you say Trump associates, I assume you're talking about his Russian associates.

So the ABC News article is wrong about the attorney general signing off on FISA applications?

[TexasTiger 11,642]

51 minutes ago, Auburnfan91 said:

So the ABC News article is wrong about the attorney general signing off on FISA applications?

I should have said most are initiated by NSA, the AG signing off is not the same as ordering.

You quoted an article that said the President nor the WH interfered, and then equated that statement with "his administration." You seem to think he's calling the shots on investigations. There's no evidence of that.

[Auburnfan91 1,407]

1 minute ago, TexasTiger said:

I should have said most are initiated by NSA, the AG signing off is not the same as ordering.

You quoted an article that said the President nor the WH interfered, and then equated that statement with "his administration." You seem to think he's calling the shots on investigations. There's no evidence of that.

He put out a statement that neither he nor a White House official (i.e. Obama administration) ordered surveillance. While technically true as far as actually ordering surveillance, the AG still signs off on FISA application's for electronic surveillance. So to think that the Obama administration had nothing to do with surveillance of Paul Manafort, who is a Trump associate, would be false.

Obama was politically motivated enough to eavesdrop on Netanyahu during the Iran nuclear deal. Btw, I think eavesdropping on allies, unless there's something bad that we might need to know about is not good for us to be doing. Netanyahu opposing the Iran nuclear deal and talking with members of Congress does not rise to the level of eavesdropping to be necessary. And this is where the FISA warrants can be used as covers to be able to look into U.S. citizens communications and have them under surveillance even though FISA is specifically for foreigners. 

It seems very unlikely that Obama wouldn't have wanted to know about any possible wrong doing on Trump's campaign so that they would be able to put that information out in order to hurt Trump.

[TexasTiger 11,642]

25 minutes ago, Auburnfan91 said:

He put out a statement that neither he nor a White House official (i.e. Obama administration) ordered surveillance. While technically true as far as actually ordering surveillance, the AG still signs off on FISA application's for electronic surveillance. So to think that the Obama administration had nothing to do with surveillance of Paul Manafort, who is a Trump associate, would be false.

Obama was politically motivated enough to eavesdrop on Netanyahu during the Iran nuclear deal. Btw, I think eavesdropping on allies, unless there's something bad that we might need to know about is not good for us to be doing. Netanyahu opposing the Iran nuclear deal and talking with members of Congress does not rise to the level of eavesdropping to be necessary. And this is where the FISA warrants can be used as covers to be able to look into U.S. citizens communications and have them under surveillance even though FISA is specifically for foreigners. 

It seems very unlikely that Obama wouldn't have wanted to know about any possible wrong doing on Trump's campaign so that they would be able to put that information out in order to hurt Trump.

The WH isn't the same as the administration. The executive branch by necessity is the only one that can do it. But there's no evidence Obama told the DOJ or any other unit whom to investigate. No evidence Bush did, either. Most Presidents have not. Trump probably thinks they're his employees.

[Auburnfan91 1,407]

31 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

The WH isn't the same as the administration. The executive branch by necessity is the only one that can do it. But there's no evidence Obama told the DOJ or any other unit whom to investigate. No evidence Bush did, either. Most Presidents have not. Trump probably thinks they're his employees.

Then what does any of this have to do with Trump then if they're not considered his associates?