Category FISA Court focused on Americana Political Enemies

May 5 2024

Peak Mueller – DOJ Concealing Legal Predicate to Investigate Congressional Staff in 2017


Posted originally on the CTH on May 5, 2024 | Sundance 

Jason Foster has filed an interesting “motion to intervene” in a court filing against the DOJ effort to keep the legal rationale for a 2017 subpoena hidden. tldr version HERE

Mr Jason Foster was one of Chuck Grassley’s congressional lawyers on the Senate Judiciary Committee and a key Grassley research staffer when the background of the DOJ/FBI spygate operation against Donald Trump was at its apex.

In a COURT FILING Jason Foster notes in September 2017 the DOJ requested and received a court order which it leveraged against Google and Big Tech to gain access to the phone and electronic data of House and Senate staff members. The DOJ then filed Non Disclosure Orders (NDOs) blocking the notification of the target(s), in this example Mr Foster himself.   Foster wants to know what justification the DOJ gave the judge to get the warrants and subpoena.

I find this motion/filing exceptionally interesting because the originating DOJ action was in September ’17, when the Mueller cover-up was in full bloom, the Mueller team essentially controlled all of Main Justice (per Rosenstein testimony) and the effort of the DOJ was to keep a bag over the FBI/DOJ activity in the 2016 election.

As Jeff Carlson notes, the “DOJ has kept sealed their “legal rationale” for targeting the communications of congressional staff attorneys for GOP oversight committees.”

Foster notes this DOJ subpoena appears related to the leak of the “Top Secret” FISA application used against Carter Page.  The media received that leak in March 2107, and the FBI (Washington Field Office) was investigating how the TS-SCI classified leak originated.  At the same time, the DOJ (“Mueller team”), now in September 2017, had a vested interest monitoring ‘who knew what’ not only about the leak (James Wolfe and Mark Warner), but also about the motives of the special counsel coverup operation.

In the filing, Empower Oversight writes:

“At the time DOJ began collecting their communications records, Mr. Foster and his fellow colleagues on both sides of the aisle were communicating with confidential sources and whistleblowers whose willingness to share information with Congress is essential to its oversight function. The Legislative Branch has a constitutional interest in protecting the identity of those confidential sources and whistleblower just as journalists do under the First Amendment. Yet due to the secrecy demanded by DOJ, and granted ex parte by the Court, the nondisclosure orders deprived Congress of an opportunity to object at the time or even to know until years later that telecommunications providers had complied. Providers like Google, and perhaps even the Court, yielded to DOJ demands for secrecy without knowing the full context and constitutional implications of the subpoenas.” (more)

The Mark Warner and James Wolfe leak of the FISA application to media was one of the biggest untold stories of the 2017 Trump targeting and DC coverup operation.  Factually, the media had the full and unredacted FISA application from March 17, 2017, throughout all of their pretense reporting as if they didn’t know the details.

The greatest likelihood is that Mueller’s team headed by Andrew Weissmann wanted to keep tabs on who in Washington DC was circling the truth.  The subpoena against Jason Foster and other House and Senate committee lawyers and staff would help the DOJ keep tabs on who knew the details at a very key time in the coverup operation.

Within Main Justice DOJ at the time Andrew Weissmann (Mueller team) would want to know what Chuck Grassley and Devin Nunes had uncovered and who would potentially be assisting them.

The DOJ search warrants in Sept 2017 (the warrants of interest to Jason Foster) likely do not relate directly to the James Wolfe investigation, despite the timeline being very similar.  U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu from the USAO in Washington DC was conducting the Wolfe investigation and the Washington Field Office (WFO), FBI Agent Brian Dugan was the lead investigative unit.  These subpoenas were something else.

Apr 22 2024

Good Grief, Worse than Warner – Unhinged Senator Lindsey Graham Loses His Marbles Over FISA-702


Posted originally on the CTH on April 21, 2024 | Sundance

This combative gaslighting from the US Senate about what FISA-702 does is off the proverbial charts.  In this interview, Senator Lindsey Graham starts foaming at the mouth yelling about something that doesn’t even exist.  This is nuts.

FISA-702 ONLY pertains to the private conversations of AMERICANS, not – I repeat – not any intercept or communication method that has to do with a foreigner or foreign adversary.

The only time FISA-702 applies is when an American person is captured in an intercept that has targeted a foreign person. Surveillance of foreign actors, foreign persons and intercepting communication of foreign entities does not require any FISA authority at all.  Foreign actors do not have constitutional protection.

FISA-702 only applies when the intercept of a foreign person is connected to communication with an American person. In that specific scenario FISA-702 gives the U.S. government the authority to query the database of the American person.

However, the database search queries of Americans, people who have no contact with any foreign person, is the privacy aspect that has been abused by the intelligence apparatus. Senator Lindsey Graham comes unglued as he starts gaslighting on this issue.  WATCH (prompted):

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZHq3jXFip_Q%3Fstart%3D310%26feature%3Doembed

.

The Deep State supporters are so committed to keeping the unconstitutional surveillance system of the American people in place, they will lie and makeup any fictitious scenario imaginable to retain it.  This is nonsense.

Apr 22 2024

Speaker Mike Johnson Believes “History Will Judge Well” Extending Warrantless Searches and Giving Ukraine Unlimited Funds


Posted originally on the CTH on April 21, 2024 | Sundance 

I’ve said this so frequently it almost becomes obscene to keep repeating it.  Many of the most professional political class in Washington DC just flat out believe the echo-chambering bubble created by the intelligence apparatus inside the beltway. The Republican political leadership, in this case Speaker Mike Johnson, genuinely believes they are doing what the American people want them to do.

I can say this with certitude, because I have looked at their eyes when challenging their assumptions and mindset, and I can tell they truly do not think they are lying.  They are so detached from comprehending anything adverse to their worldview, they genuinely believe what they are saying is factually accurate and true.  It’s not; all of it is total nonsense, but the pressure from the intelligence apparatus is so strong and encompassing, these politicians cannot fathom it’s wrong.

To be sure, there are some like Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, John Cornnyn, John Thune etc. the UniParty leadership, that know the IC narrative is completely false; they know what they are doing is corrupt and wrong, but they dare not challenge the administrative state apparatus that controls them. However, in the case of Johnson and others like Scalise, he really doesn’t know. He’s a believer in this fraud.  WATCH (1 minute):

https://youtube.com/watch?v=NH-_nuNGzjI%3Ffeature%3Doembed

The 30 Republican Senators who voted to authorize FISA surveillance and simultaneously authorize funding an insufferable and unwinnable conflict in Ukraine are:

John Barrasso of Wyoming, John Boozman of Arkansas, Katie Britt of Alabama, Ted Budd of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, John Cornyn of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Mike Crapo of Idaho, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, John Kennedy of Louisiana, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Mike Rounds of South Dakota, Marco Rubio of Florida, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, John Thune of South Dakota, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Todd Young of Indiana.

The ROLL CALL VOTE IS HERE.  Please remember these names.

These are the same Senators who said nothing while the weaponized system of government organized a corrupt intelligence operation against candidate Donald Trump in 2016.  These are the same Senators who are looking for any reason to support the removal of Donald Trump from the GOP ticket.  These are the same Republican senators who refuse to contemplate representative government.   They live in a bubble of deceit, and they despise the American electorate.

This is the same GOPe crew who: hated the Tea Party, supported the IRS targeting of conservative groups, supported the IC targeting of candidate Trump, supported the Senate Intelligence Committee participating with the IC to attack Trump, and who oppose any effort to diminish the power of the upper chamber from U.S. politics.

There is no way to talk these Republican senators into different approaches or convince them to stop participating in the weaponization of government.  These Republicans support government first; the American electorate are much lower in their eyes.  They have convinced themselves they are righteous in all aspects.

There is no volume of unquestionable evidence you can put in front of them that will change their opinion or change their behavior.  Talking to them about the flaws in their mindset is akin to discussing the risks of the COVID-19 vaccine with a person in line to get their 5th booster shot.  It’s a really difficult reality to accept, but this is just the way it is.

They do not answer emails; they refuse to take phone calls; they ignore constituents on issues of the Deep State; their sense of individual identity is dependent on retention of a collective premise that is fundamentally fraudulent.

I’m not sure what can be done, other than replacing them, and their very existence is a case study in why the bankers of 1913 constructed the 17th amendment.

I am asked all the time what can be done to correct this messed up system of government that has become the USA.  My only answer continues to be, “repeal the 17th amendment.”   There is not a singular issue that would so comprehensively deconstruct every single aspect of government corruption as would happen with a one paragraph repeal of the 17th amendment.

Apr 11 2024

President Trump Opposes FISA 702 Reauthorization – Surveillance Authority Expires April 19th


Posted originally on the CTH on April 10, 2024 | Sundance

Let me be very clear about something.  FISA-702 authorization expires April 19th.  Almost every single person of influence in DC knows the Intelligence Community will not stop exploiting the NSA database, regardless of the expiration.

Meaning, with or without authority, the Gang-of-Eight, Office of the Presidency (Executive branch), Legislative Branch, and every institution within the DC system, all collectively accept the FBI, DOJ, NSD, DNI and DHS will still use the database.

From that perspective, reauthorization of 702 only seeks to make lawful what the IC will do unlawfully without it.

Please think about that last sentence carefully as you consider who runs our system of government.

[SOURCE]

Thankfully, President Trump understands how the FISA system is used as the main tool of the IC to retain power.  Specifically, without legal use of 702 authority – and if the IC was held to account for the violations therein – all of the power could shift dramatically in the DC system.

However, key people in congress make money from reauthorizing 702.  Think about how those 10,000 workstations are used, and for what purposes over 1.1 million “illegal database searches” could be exploited in Biden’s first year.

Office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz testified April 27, 2023, that more than 3.4 million search queries into the NSA database took place between Dec. 1st, 2020 and Nov. 30th, 2021, by government officials and/or contractors working on behalf of the federal government. These search queries were based on authorizations related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

[OIG Testimony HERE]

Approximately 30% of those 3.4 million search queries were outside the rules and regulations that govern warrantless searches, what the politically correct government calls “non-compliant searches.”  That means more than 1 million searches of private documents and communication of Americans were illegal and outside the rules.

Additionally, IG Horowitz also admitted that somewhere north of 10,000 federal employees have access to conduct these searches of the NSA database; a database which contains the electronic data of every single American, including emails, text messages, social media posts, instant messages, direct messages, phone calls, geolocation identifiers, purchases by electronic funds, banking records and any keystroke any American person puts into any electronic device for any reason.

If we were in a functioning system of government everything would be stopped and no conversation would be taking place that was not about this issue. This is the total and complete surveillance state being talked about as if we were discussing what’s for dinner.

This was beyond jaw-dropping.

Context: In 2018 CTH revealed through research of their own documents that FBI and DOJ/FBI contractors had done more than 1,000 illegal searches using the NSA database, targeting Republican primary candidates from November 2015 through May 2016. These stunning admissions were from the DOJ’s own reporting to the FISA court.

Few were paying attention.

Although the number of the illegal search queries were redacted, we know the number is four digits from the size of the redacted text. More than 1,000 and less than 9,999.

FAST FORWARD TO 2023 – April 27, 2023,

IG Horowitz outlined that more than 1.1 million illegal searches of this database were conducted in 2021 during the first year of the Joe Biden administration.

Additionally, and perhaps more consequentially, to give scope to how the process of total domestic surveillance has expanded, Horowitz now admits in 2021 the number of federal government employees with access to this total metadata collection system now exceeds 10,000 people.

STOP THE PRESSES!

Yes, congress is talking about this ‘as if’ there is some level of importance.  However, the basic questions are not being asked, or have perhaps just become so accepted that legislators have become oblivious to the insanity of it.   Beyond the blood boiling questions about searching the NSA database, questions like:

In order for these search queries to take place, there has to be a housing facility to capture it.

Where is all of this electronic data being stored?

Why is all of this electronic data being stored?

Who is in control of this all-encompassing electronic data collection?

Forget the searches for a moment, what act of congress authorized the capture of this private data collection?  Essentially electronic intercepts of communication systems that flow throughout our life.

The background context here is congress debating the renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the power of the DOJ and FBI to intercept American citizen communication and electronic data via the “702” authorizations, that permit the NSA database to be searched and queried.

If the inspector general is now admitting the FISA laws have been so comprehensively corrupted such that 3.4 million searches by more than 10,000 federal employees and government contractors now have access, there is no way that any reasonably intelligent person should support such reauthorization.  Even contemplating this request is absurd, beyond absurd.

The United States government is admitting to the public that a total and comprehensive surveillance state is currently in place, and 10,000 federal government agents have the authorization to monitor everything we do.

This is the admitted and current status of RIGHT NOW.  And we are worried about ‘digital currencies’ or ‘social credit scores’ sometime in the future?

Have we totally lost connection to the reality of our current condition?

Can you see the insanity of it?…  Or should we just ask, “what’s for dinner?”

Gaetz: It seems every time you write a report then the DOJ comes in and tells us they’ve now fixed everything

Dec 12 2023

46 Deep State Officials Including Rosenstein, Clapper and Morell Urge Congress to Pass HPSCI Version of FISA-702 Renewal to Expand Domestic Surveillance


Posted originally on the CTH on December 11, 2023 | Sundance 

For those confused. There are two bills to modify the FISA702 reauthorization in the House.  (1) HR 6611 from the House Intel Committee and (2) HR 6570 from the House Judiciary Committee.  The intel committee bill expands domestic surveillance authority under the modifications; the judiciary committee bill requires the DOJ to get a search warrant before they can look at the incidental collection of American citizens.

Both bills came out of committee and were scheduled for a floor vote tomorrow, which has been cancelled due to public outcry (good job).  Speaker Mike Johnson initially planned to let both bills get voted tomorrow and the bill with the most votes advances to the Senate.  That’s a hot mess.

The House Intel Committee bill organized by Chairman Mike Turner is absolutely horrible. It expands FISA702 surveillance and makes things much worse.  The House Judiciary Bill organized by Chairman Jim Jordan is not structurally that much better, but it does put strong curtailments on the 702 surveillance authority by forcing the DOJ to get actual court approved search warrants on American citizens.

It should not come as a surprise to see a panel of 46 experts in Deep State weaponization come out in support of the Intelligence Committee bill, and then decry the insufferable 702 limitations put into place in the Judiciary Committee bill.   The bad guys want the House Intel version.

That’s a who’s-who list of 46 Deep State weaponization operatives, all supporting the Mike Turner version.

Turner lied when he said his HR 6611 bill was supported by John Ratcliffe and Devin Nunes.  It’s not, and they don’t.   Both Nunes and Ratcliffe support a panel within the process who have eyes on everything that is being done and can conduct immediate oversight.  Chairman Mike Turner is a big fibber, and y’all can tell him I said that.

The Deep State folks love the Turner bill (6611) because it makes the surveillance even easier by granting even more authority in their warrantless searches.  The Deep State folks do not like the Jordan bill (6570) because it requires a search warrant to look at the material, which means a predicate justification must exist.

Both bills suck, but the Jordan bill sucks less.

Speaker Johnson abandoned the competing same-day floor vote effort, and no one is sure where it goes from here; but that’s probably why the Deep State guys are writing a letter trying to influence Johnson on what bill to permit a vote.

In the meantime, the current FISA-702 authorization will likely be “short-term” renewed through April 19, 2024, as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), while congress figures out which long-term reform bill to send to the Senate.

It’s all a hot mess.

We The People just don’t want to be under surveillance, but we have no representation.

Jul 23 2023

Action Alert – ODNI Release of FISA Court Review Reveals Alarming Disconnect That Must Be Discussed Before FISA-702 Reauthorization


Posted originally on the CTH on July 23, 2023 | Sundance 

There is a major issue within the use of the FISA-702 authority that must be immediately understood.  A silo problem that is not being discussed within Congress as the potential for FISA-702 reauthorization is looming.

I’m setting aside my opinion of the entire process in order to just outline the facts as they appear.  I am not in support of any of this FISA process; nor do I support the baseline premise of the NSA database capturing the private electronic communication of Americans, which I do not believe is legislatively authorized to exist.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) recently released the 2023 FISC opinion on FISA-702 activity as reported by the NSA, FBI and to a lesser extent CIA and NCTC [REPORT HERE].

In this report, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) is reviewing legal compliance by the NSA and FBI in accessing the NSA database that houses the private electronic records, metadata, of every American.  This is the core of the FISA-702 authorization, where 702 indicates an American citizen protected from illegal searches and seizures by the Fourth Amendment.

The NSA database contains the private electronic data (metadata) of every single American – including emails, text messages, social media posts, instant messages, direct messages, phone calls, geolocation identifiers, purchases by electronic funds, banking records and any keystroke any American person puts into any electronic device for any reason. [A big issue here is the use of Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) but that’s for a different article.]

The 2023 FISC report reviews the action of the FBI and NSA to ensure compliance with rules and restrictions in the search of this database.

The NSA and FBI report violations of the process to the FISA Court; this is somewhat of an honor system.  You may have heard FBI Director Christopher Wray recently saying they have reduced the number of unauthorized searches of this database by 80%.  The FBI has presumably tightened up the rules and restrictions on who and how this database can be searched.

The ODNI release only covers the compliance of the NSA and FBI (and the CIA and NCTC) to the FISA-702 rules.  The CIA and NCTC are foreign mission authority only, therefore they should never even be involved in searching American citizens.

FISA-702 is not supposed to apply to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and/or National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), because they are not supposed to be looking at American citizen data directly.  If the CIA or NCTC want to search the database for records of Americans, they are supposed to turn over their predicate intelligence (a foreign subject in contact with an American citizen, so they want depth on the American citizen) for determination by the FBI or NSA, who then conduct the search.  At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

The FISC review covers the results of the NSA and FBI as reported to the FISA Court.  The congressional oversight process looks at this FISC review as part of the reauthorization process.  The FISC report is legislatively required to be conducted and released as part of this compliance review prior to Congress considering reauthorization.  Congress may legislatively change the 702 rules prior to reauthorization or negate the 702 authorities completely, by not reauthorizing it.

Congress (House and Senate) weighs the FISC review heavily.

Here’s the issue.  There are exponentially more violations taking place than are contained in the reporting from the NSA and FBI to the FISA Court.  The FISC is only seeing one small part of the overall compliance picture.   There are way more violations taking place than the court is aware of.

This is a silo issue, where the court is isolated in a silo without receiving information from the Dept of Justice (another silo).  How do we know this?

Because the Dept of Justice Office of Inspector General (DOJ-OIG) reviews the entire U.S. government as part of the new, Trump initiated, OIG oversight of the DOJ National Security Division (DOJ-NSD).

Inspector General Michael Horowitz doesn’t just look at the FBI or NSA using the database; the OIG looks at the entire government and who has access to this NSA database to perform searches.  There is a massive disparity between the number of unauthorized searches conducted and self-reported by the NSA and FBI silos, when compared to the whole of government.  The FISA Court only hears about the NSA/FBI violations, not the unauthorized searches conducted outside the NSA/FBI by people who have access to this database.

How big is the disparity?  HUGE! 

Office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz testified April 27, 2023, that more than 3.4 million search queries into the NSA database took place between Dec. 1st, 2020 and Nov. 30th, 2021, by government officials and/or contractors working on behalf of the federal government. These search queries were based on authorizations related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Within his congressional testimony, OIG Horowitz stated, “Approximately 30% of those 3.4 million search queries were noncompliant,” that is outside the rules and regulations that govern warrantless searches.  The government calls these “non-compliant searches.”  Additionally, IG Horowitz also stated that somewhere north of “10,000 federal employees have access to conduct these searches of the NSA database.”

While DOJ-OIG Horowitz is looking at the entire government, he reports these violations only into the silo of the Dept of Justice.  Horowitz does not report his findings to the FISA Court.  The violations by Horowitz, in this example over a million illegal or “noncompliant” searches, is reported internally to the DOJ (Main Justice).  The DOJ (an information silo) does not turn these findings over to the FISA Court (another information silo).

As a result, the FISC opinion of the database compliance audit is only reached with a limited perspective on the totality of the violations taking place within government.

As a result, the FISC report does not contain discussion of the violations discovered by IG Horowitz.

As a result, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) do not debate the FISA-702 reauthorization with the fulsome scale of the jaw dropping abuse of the database outlined by IG Michael Horowitz.   FISA-702 reauthorization is debated in congress based on the 2023 FISC report which does not include the Horowitz review.

The 2023 FISC report is a compliance review of a very limited subset of database search queries, and only includes those done by the NSA and FBI.

Why is this only just now coming to light?

Simple answer, despite the DOJ National Security Department creation in the first year of President Obama’s term (2009 by AG Eric Holder), the Inspector General was never permitted oversight.

Despite his requests, the IG office was blocked by the DOJ-NSD for the entire Obama term in office. In 2015 the OIG again requested oversight, and it was Sally Yates who responded with a lengthy 58-page legal explanation saying essentially, ‘nope – not allowed.’ (PDF HERE) All of the DOJ is subject to oversight – except the NSD.  The claimed justification was “national security,” and the information was too sensitive.

It was not until 2017, when President Trump and AG Jeff Sessions took office, that IG Michael Horowitz was granted oversight into the DOJ-NSD.  With this oversight authority Horowitz first started his review of the FISA application used against Carter Page (2017/2018).  Then, using the problems discovered within the Page FISA application, the IG expanded the review to the entire FISA application process in the entire DOJ (2019). The initial review of the process was horrible {SEE HERE} resulting in a major report of criticism [SEE HERE] in late 2021.

From there, in late 2021 IG Horowitz began the very first compliance review, outside of the limitations of the NSA/FBI self-reporting, and looked at the totality of the FISA-702 process as it was used to access the database from December 2020 to December 2021.  His first full report was generated only a few months ago, and the IG testified to Congress. [LINK]

None of the FISA-702 reauthorizations, that have taken place between origination to today, have ever included a review of the entire government access, until Horowitz testified in late April.

More than 3.4 million search queries into the NSA database took place between Dec. 1st, 2020, and Nov. 30th, 2021, by government officials and/or contractors working on behalf of the federal government. This number is much, much larger than the search queries produced by NSA/FBI review to the FISA Court.

Additionally, as noted by IG Horowitz around 10,000 federal employees have access to conduct these searches of the NSA database, and his review of the searches revealed that 30% of them, that’s over a million, were noncompliant.

ACTION:  At the very least, we immediately need to contact our congressional representatives and senators and inform them the FISA-702 reauthorization cannot be appropriately debated, considered or reviewed, without the FISA Court first receiving the information from the DOJ Inspector General review of the FISA-702 process.   No FISC opinion is worth anything when it is based on a minimal subset of the actual violations that factually take place.   This is at a minimum! 

The FISC silo must receive the violation information from the silo at the DOJ.

I’ll have more on this, but for now this point is super important.