{"id":11611,"date":"2018-02-02T12:38:16","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T17:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=11611"},"modified":"2018-02-02T21:52:53","modified_gmt":"2018-02-03T02:52:53","slug":"usa-today-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/02\/usa-today-2\/","title":{"rendered":"USA TODAY: Nunes memo released: FBI objections lacked credibility given bureau’s shady past"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>USA TODAY, February 2, 2018<\/p>\n

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\u00a0Nunes memo released: FBI objections lacked credibility given bureau’s shady past<\/a><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

by James Bovard<\/p>\n

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is once again at the center of a political scandal<\/a>. President Trump claims the FISA court wrongfully approved secret spying on his 2016 presidential campaign, while prominent Democrats claim Republicans are\u00a0guilty of treason<\/a> if they release\u00a0a memo alleging FISA abuses by the FBI, a move the president has now approved<\/a>.\u00a0Regardless of the merits of this particular clash, FISA has long been a disaster for Americans\u2019 constitutional rights<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978 after scandals related to Nixon administration illegal wiretaps. Under FISA, the government need only show only that a person is suspected of being an agent of a foreign power<\/a> or terrorist organization to get a search warrant. This is a much lower standard than under criminal law because, unlike foreign agents, Americans\u2019 rights are protected (at least on paper) by the Fourth Amendment which prohibits warrantless unreasonable searches.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 FISA surveillance orders tend to be far more expansive than normal federal criminal searches. The secret FISA court noted that, after it grants a request, \u201cthe FBI will be authorized to conduct, simultaneous\u00a0telephone, microphone, cell phone, e-mail and computer surveillance<\/a> of the U.S. person target\u2019s home, workplace and vehicles. Similar breadth is accorded the FBI in physical searches of the target\u2019s residence, office, vehicles, computer, safe deposit box and U.S. mails.\u201d\u00a0 People surveilled under\u00a0 FISA orders rarely learn the feds have been intruding unless they are arrested as a result.<\/p>\n

The FISA court\u00a0grants 99%+ of all requests for warrants<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0only hears from one side of each case, the\u00a0governments. As a result, its proceedings have been plagued by falsehoods. In 2002, The FISA court complained that FBI agents made\u00a0more than 75 false or misleading claims<\/a> to secure warrants; a top FBI counterrorism official was prohibited from ever appearing there again.\u00a0 The court also rebuffed Attorney General John Ashcroft\u2019s proposal to\u00a0 radically transform its purpose by making it easier for prosecutors to use FISA warrants to sweep up evidence for criminal prosecutions.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 The Bush administration took the case to a specially-created FISA Appeals court which unanimously granted Ashcroft\u2019s wish and ignored the problem of deceptive federal agents. “Having found that the fox has eaten half the chickens, the court has decided that the fox should have more authority over the chicken coop<\/a>,” groused Joshua Dratel, chairman of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.\u00a0 A transcript revealed that the FISA appeals \u201cjudges generally assumed a servile posture toward the executive branch<\/a>, even consulting the Justice Department on how to handle its critics,\u201d according to Secrecy News.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After 9\/11, the Bush administration got approval for far more sweeping FISA searches but went even further. Bush\u2019s lawyers insisted the president had inherent authority to order wiretaps – regardless of a 1972 Supreme Court decision obliterating that dictatorial notion. During his 2004 reelection campaign, Bush assured audiences that the federal government was not wiretapping Americans without a warrant. But the New York Times revealed in December 2005 that the National Security Agency was conducting up to 500 warrantless wiretaps inside the U.S. at a time.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Six months later, USA Today revealed that the NSA was tracking the calls of tens of millions of Americans and constructing the \u201clargest database ever assembled in the world.\u201d The story provoked an uproar and the Bush legal team\u00a0 raced to the friendly neighborhood FISA court.\u00a0\u00a0 FISA judges accepted a bizarre assertion that the telephone records of all Americans were \u201crelevant\u201d to a terrorism investigation under the Patriot Act. Thus, the feds were entitled to secretly compel telephone companies to deliver all their calling records (including time, duration, and location of calls) to the National Security Agency.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the summer of 2007, the Bush administration railroaded FISA amendments known as the \u201cProtect America Act\u201d through Congress which authorized surveillance of any phone call or email by any Americans which the government \u201creasonably believed\u201d was contacting someone – anyone – outside the U.S. After a telephone service provider challenged that law, a FISA Appeals Court ruled that when \u201cthe government has instituted several layers of serviceable safeguards to protect individuals against unwarranted harms and to minimize incidental intrusions, its efforts to protect national security should not be frustrated by the courts.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cLayers of serviceable safeguards\u201d were all that Americans\u2019 privacy needed – or deserved.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As a presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama pledged \u201cno more illegal wiretapping of American citizens,\u201d helping establish him as a civil liberties champion. After he was elected president, Obama reversed his position and spurred the FISA court to perpetuate many Bush-era intrusions.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Obama\u2019s Justice Department vigorously fought court challenges from individuals who believed their phone calls or email had been illegally intercepted.\u00a0 A 2012\u00a0 New York Times editorial called the Obama administration\u2019s legal strategy \u201ca\u00a0 particularly cynical Catch-22: Because the wiretaps are secret and no one can\u00a0 say for certain that their calls have been or will be monitored, no one has standing to bring suit over the surveillance.\u201d\u00a0 The Supreme Court sided with Obama, insisting that there were plenty of safeguards – such as the FISA court – to protect Americans\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Several months later, Americans were shocked to learn (thanks to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden) that\u00a0 the FISA court had approved daily roundup of scores of millions of Americans\u2019 phone records. A few months later, federal judge Richard Leon slammed that FISA-approved phone records vacuum cleaner as \u201calmost Orwellian… I cannot imagine a more indiscriminate and arbitrary invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval.\u201d The NSA also vacuumed up Americans\u2019 email on the flimsiest pretexts – such as \u201csomeone searching the web for suspicious stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The FISA court complained that, in the final years of Obama\u2019s presidency, the NSA was guilty of\u00a0 \u201can institutional lack of candor\u201d connected to \u201ca very serious Fourth Amendment issue;\u201d naturally, the gory specifics were kept under wraps.\u00a0 Regardless, one of Obama\u2019s last actions as president authorized NSA to share its vast trove of data on Americans with other federal agencies.\u00a0 If political abuse of data seized via FISA has not yet occurred, Obama\u2019s \u201cshovel-far-and-wide\u201d bureaucratic bonanza makes it far more likely in the future.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The FISA court has always done a dismal job of overseeing the vast surveillance regime it helped spawn. FISA provided a stamp of legitimacy for perpetual deceit\u00a0 and perhaps the worst trampling of constitutional rights in American history. Regardless of the outcome of the current brawl, Washington must radically decrease secret surveillance of the American people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

USA TODAY, February 2, 2018 \u00a0Nunes memo released: FBI objections lacked credibility given bureau’s shady past by James Bovard The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is once again at the center of a political scandal. President Trump claims the FISA court wrongfully approved secret spying on his 2016 presidential campaign, while prominent Democrats claim Republicans are\u00a0guilty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[887,823,1337,47,270,1347,771,137,1350,1351,1349,245,1352,342,30,708,1348],"class_list":["post-11611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-barack-obama","tag-constitutional-rights","tag-email","tag-fbi","tag-fisa","tag-foreign-intelligence-surveillance-act","tag-fourth-amendment","tag-george-w-bush","tag-joshua-dratel","tag-legitimacy","tag-nacdl","tag-nixon","tag-nunes-memo","tag-snowden","tag-surveillance","tag-trump","tag-wiretaps"],"yoast_head":"\nUSA TODAY: Nunes memo released: FBI objections lacked credibility given bureau's shady past - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2018\/02\/02\/usa-today-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"USA TODAY: Nunes memo released: FBI objections lacked credibility given bureau's shady past - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"USA TODAY, February 2, 2018 \u00a0Nunes memo released: FBI objections lacked credibility given bureau’s shady past by James Bovard The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is once again at the center of a political scandal. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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