The House Rules Committee is releasing text of proposed changes to FISA (full pdf below). The “deal” is intended to reauthorize the FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], all parts of the Patriot Act.
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Michigan (125 delegates), Idaho (20), Mississippi (36), Missouri (68), North Dakota (14), and Washington State (89) all vote today. If you are on the ground in one of these key states feel free to share your own ground report in the comments section.
How is turnout? What is the sense in your area, town, region or precinct?
Treeper ground reports have proven to be some of the most accurate real time analysis and much better than the MSM spin. So, what do you see going on?
When candidate Joe Biden was questioned by a Michigan auto worker today about his promise to take guns away and put Beto O’Rourke in charge of his gun confiscation program (both of which he did), Biden comes unglued and tells the Fiat Chrysler plant worker “you’re full of shit”. But it gets worse…
Joe Biden keeps poking his finger in the mans face, the auto worker tells Biden “this is not ok”, waving off the finger. Then Biden threatens to “take this outside”. Unreal, this candidate is very unstable. WATCH – (video might not last long):
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The campaign team immediately realized things were spiraling out of control and took up positions to remove the candidate, but in such close quarters things didn’t work out well. Joe Biden’s unstable anger was very visible.
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The Democrat-Socialist Party loves diversity, but their two front-runners for the nomination are very old white men.
One of them, Biden, has a history of plagiarism, corruption, and gaffes. Joe’s confused bumbling has worsened with age. He sounds like an old man suffering from the onset of dementia. Both candidates stand little chance against Trump.
This is according to plan. Hillary’s plan, that is.
Bernie and Biden will probably receive a similar amount of delegates, which will help bring about a brokered convention. If this doesn’t occur and either one obtains a large lead, look for a last minute health problem. Bernie may announce his heart problems have returned. He’ll drop out and enjoy a new beach house.
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If Biden is the front-runner he’ll announce he must drop out due to the beginning of Alzheimer’s disease. Either way, Hillary will be running again. She has avoided the rigors of debating and campaigning, but the Clintons still control the party and the party will do as it is told. Why else would Hillary remain in the public eye since Trump’s election? Her book tour, her documentary, her opinions on everything under the sun forced into the mass media. She’s running again and she’ll try to make sure her operatives do a better job at rigging the game this time. She doesn’t care how much she’s hated. She will force herself upon us once again and she will lose to Trump again. It will be glorious.
Meanwhile, one must wonder if Biden isn’t going along with her scheme by playing up his forgetfulness. His mumbling and fumbling may be on purpose. Such displays could then be offered up as proof as his mental incapacity, thus allowing him to avoid prosecution for his Ukraine graft.
Whatever the case may be, it has all been a stage play. Look for Hillary to end up taking a bow.
—Ben Garrison
Most intellectually honest people have noted the leading Democrat front-runner for the DNC presidential nomination, 77-year-old Joe Biden, is slowly losing mental acuity. He might not have lost all his marbles, but there’s definitely a worsening hole in the bag.
As a direct result when Biden gives speeches he ends up speaking in what can best be described as jibberish.
Media covering for the loss of mental acuity have taken to calling the bouts of extreme jibberish “gaffes”; however, the scale and scope of the awkward word-salads has started to outpace the ability of the media to cover for them.
A plan of action, something more substantial, is going to be needed if the Democrats and their aligned media are going to successfully nominate a cognitively challenged candidate.
The Washington Post outlines the latest campaign strategy, which, one might think doesn’t exactly inspire a great deal of confidence. The Club solution: limit Biden’s visibility and stop him from talking.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As Joe Biden cradles a delegate lead through the handful of primary states that will vote Tuesday, he has unleashed a rarely used weapon in what has become a two-man battle for the Democratic presidential nomination:
Brevity.
Biden’s event in St. Louis, framed by the Gateway Arch, clocked in at around seven minutes Saturday. A short time later, at a windswept event in Kansas City, people were streaming for their cars after Biden wrapped up in 12 minutes.
[…] Most voters who hear Biden’s stump speech are experiencing it for the first time and are thus unaware of the newly abbreviated nature of his remarks. (read more)
In November of 2019 buried deep in the congressional budget Continuing Resolution (CR) was a short-term extension to reauthorize the FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], all parts of the Patriot Act. As a result of the FISA CR inclusion the terminal deadline was pushed to March 15, 2020.
AG Bill Barr traveled to Capitol Hill today for meetings with House and Senate leadership. However, Tom Fitton is correct in this interview. Nothing currently being called “reform” is going to address abuse when those who abused the system are not held accountable.
An interesting Axios article starts to explain how Joe Biden was able to catapult from a stammering, incoherent message candidate into the position of unified front-runner. Amid earlier reporting on Team Obama dispatching phone calls ahead of the Super Tuesday vote, things do certainly make sense.
While the Axios report is a general citation of people “in and around the Biden camp”, an extension of Team Obama, the explanation of promising key positions to influence people to get in line does make sense.
According to the inside talk, Elizabeth Warren would be handed Treasury Secretary; Pete Buttigieg a U.N. ambassador position; Kamala Harris as a likely Attorney General (or deputy); Mike Bloomberg to head the World Bank; etc.
Additionally the Vice-Presidential nominee, likely a black female, would be selected by South Carolina black-caucus leader Jim Clyburn who was the critical component of Biden’s resurgence.
Indeed this approach of putting the gang back together, with former President Barack Obama taking control over The Club network and playing the role of puppeteer, does make sense as to how everyone was so quickly brought to heel. It would also explain who would ultimately be running a Biden administration, and that would not be Joe Biden.
Pollster Patrick Murray of Monmouth is predicting a catastrophic loss for Bernie Sanders in Michigan tomorrow with Joe Biden crushing Bernie 51 to 36 percent. Two previous polls show even worse results according to Politico.
MICHIGAN […] “We’ve had this huge ground game here for Bernie, tons of people canvassing and phone-banking. It’s a much better campaign this time, much more professional, much better funded. But it’s still going to come down to the millennials, the young people,” said Bruce Fealk, a longtime progressive activist and Sanders organizer in Michigan. “In some states they’ve turned out, in other states they haven’t. So, you know, I’ve been encouraged to see so many of them volunteering here with us, but obviously, they need to actually vote. If they do, Bernie can win. If they don’t, Biden wins.” (more)
The stakes are high for Bernie in Michigan with 125 delegates on the line; and The DNC Club is gleefully expecting to use tomorrows election results to eliminate Sanders from the race once-and-for-all. Michigan (125 delegates), Idaho (20), Mississippi (36), Missouri (68), North Dakota (14), and Washington State (89) all vote tomorrow.
The Club wants Bernie eliminated with extreme prejudice and they want it done now; much sooner than could organically be accomplished. The end goal as it currently appears is total capitulation by the Sanders campaign quickly; and all forces are being brought down upon the candidate to achieve that goal.
In many ways it makes sense for the Club to attempt this now as they will need the maximum amount of time available to heal wounds and herd the unwieldy Bernie coalition into the tent of Joe Biden. Capturing and controlling Sanders’ grassroots enthusiasm the Club needs to achieve their November objective is a very challenging task; and a DNC Convention battle against progressives is the worst case scenario. It simply cannot be allowed.
“Only thing we have to fear is fear itself” FDR 1933
As I write this the Dow futures are down 1,200 points. Oil is down over 20 percent. Gold is way up—no wait, it’s going sideways and silver back down under $17. So much for safe havens. Precious metals are also considered commodities and are now treated as such. Everything is getting punished and many bubbles will get popped.
The coronavirus is the trigger that is causing the crash. It’s a crash that should have happened in 2008. Instead the banks were bailed out and even rewarded for their criminality with taxpayer-paid bonuses. Lower rates and never-ending QEs caused the stock market to skyrocket to outrageous highs. It seemed like it would only go up and the party would never end.
Now the party’s over. Debt is turning out the lights. There’s a huge amount of debt everywhere in the system. Everyone got way too greedy and overextended including the ChiComs. Some conspiracy theorists are saying they released the virus intentionally to do away with a few hundred surplus workers. Their economy was due to crash and they know the virus is a good distraction from that.
In America we have a $23, soon to be $24 trillion national debt. It’s so much that most ignore it as something meaningless. A billion is a number that’s difficult enough to comprehend. A billion minutes ago, Jesus walked the Earth. Every two hours, the US Government spends $1 billion. It’s all debt money, and the interest must be paid back to the Federal Reserve’s private central bankers. Maybe this crash will open eyes and we can finally jettison the vile system of money that has plagued hard-working US citizens for over 100 years. Our corrupt banking system also allows fractional reserve lending, which means more debt. Corrupt politicians have given the ’too big to fail’ big banks permission to become casinos and now they’ve run up over a quadrillion in derivative bets.
The average consumer is nearly maxed out on credit cards and paying the robber baron bankers an outrageous interest rate. The bankers create that ‘unsecured’ debt money out of thin air.
It’s all a con game. It’s all fake. Still, as Ayn Rand once said, “We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.
We should have faced those consequences long ago. Hold on—we’re in for a rough ride that will be difficult to ignore.
—Ben Garrison
An assembly of government reports and public records now indicates a political exploitation of the NSA database, for weaponized intelligence surveillance of politicians, began mid 2012. After an initial attempt to exploit IRS records, the legal tool used to access the NSA database was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.
With research files on the ’15, ’16 and ’17 political surveillance program; including information from the Mueller report and information from the IG Horowitz report; in combination with the Obama-era DOJ “secret research project” (their words, not mine); we are able to overlay the Obama-era domestic IC operations & gain a full understanding of how political surveillance was conducted over a period of four to six years.
The FISA-702 database extraction process, and utilization of the protections within the smaller intelligence community, became the primary process only after a previous DOJ effort ran into trouble. The established record from the 99-page FISC opinion rendered by Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer on April 26, 2017, helps explain the details.
I would strongly urge everyone to read the FISC report (full pdf below) because Judge Collyer outlines how the DOJ, which includes the FBI, had an “institutional lack of candor” in responses to the FISA court. Very specifically, the court outlined how the Obama administration was continually lying to the court about both their activity, and the rate of fourth amendment violations for illegal searches and seizures of U.S. persons’ private information. These violations continued for multiple years throughout Obama’s terms.
Unfortunately, due to intelligence terminology Judge Collyer’s brief and ruling is not an easy read for anyone unfamiliar with the FISA processes outlined. The complexity also helps the media avoid discussing, and as a result most Americans have no idea the scale and scope of the issues. So we’ll try to break down the language.
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For the sake of brevity and common understanding CTH will highlight the most pertinent segments showing just how systemic and troublesome the unlawful electronic surveillance was.
Early in 2016 NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers was alerted of a significant uptick in FISA-702(17) “About” queries using the FBI/NSA database that holds all metadata records on every form of electronic communication.
The NSA compliance officer alerted Admiral Mike Rogers who then initiated a full compliance audit on/around March 9th, 2016, for the period of November 1st, 2015, through May 1st, 2016.
While the audit was ongoing, due to the severity of the results that were identified, Admiral Mike Rogers stopped anyone from using the 702(17) “about query” option, and went to the extraordinary step of blocking all FBI contractor access to the database on April 18, 2016(keep these dates in mind).
The key takeaway from these first paragraphs is how the search query results were exported from the NSA database to users who were not authorized to see the material. The FBI contractors were conducting searches and then removing, or ‘exporting’, the results. Later on, the FBI said all of the exported material was deleted.
Searching the highly classified NSA database is essentially a function of filling out search boxes to identify the user-initiated search parameter and get a return on the search result.
FISA-702(16) is a search of the system returning a U.S. person (“702”); and the “16” is a check box to initiate a search based on “To and From“. Example, if you put in a date and a phone number and check “16” as the search parameter the user will get the returns on everything “To and From” that identified phone number for the specific date. Calls, texts, contacts etc. Including results for the inbound and outbound contacts.
FISA-702(17) is a search of the system returning a U.S. person (702); and the “17” is a check box to initiate a search based on everything “About” the search qualifier. Example, if you put a date and a phone number and check “17” as the search parameter the user will get the returns of everything about that phone. Calls, texts, contacts, geolocation (or gps results), account information, user, service provider etc. As a result, 702(17) can actually be used to locate where the phone (and user) was located on a specific date or sequentially over a specific period of time which is simply a matter of changing the date parameters.
And that’s just from a phone number.
Search an ip address “about” and read all data into that server; put in an email address and gain everything about that account. Or use the electronic address of a GPS enabled vehicle (about) and you can withdraw more electronic data and monitor in real time. Search a credit card number and get everything about the account including what was purchased, where, when, etc. Search a bank account number, get everything about transactions and electronic records etc. Just about anything and everything can be electronically searched; everything has an electronic ‘identifier’.
The search parameter is only limited by the originating field filled out. Names, places, numbers, addresses, etc. By using the “About” parameter there may be thousands or millions of returns. Imagine if you put “@realdonaldtrump” into the search parameter? You could extract all following accounts who interacted on Twitter, or Facebook etc. You are only limited by your imagination and the scale of the electronic connectivity.
As you can see below, on March 9th, 2016, internal auditors noted the FBI was sharing “raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information”.
In plain English the raw search returns were being shared with unknown entities without any attempt to “minimize” or redact the results. The person(s) attached to the results were named and obvious. There was no effort to hide their identity or protect their 4th amendment rights of privacy:
But what’s the scale here? This is where the story really lies.
Read this next excerpt carefully.
The operators were searching “U.S Persons”. The review of November 1, 2015, to May 1, 2016, showed “eighty-five percent of those queries” were unlawful or “non compliant”.
We can tell from the space of the redaction the number of searches were between 1,000 and 9,999 [five digits]. If we take the middle number of 5,000 – that means 4,250 unlawful searches out of 5,000.
The [five digit] amount (more than 1,000, less than 10,000), and 85% error rate, was captured in a six month period, November 2015 to April 2016.
Also notice this very important quote:
…”many of these non-compliant queries involved the use of the same identifiers over different date ranges.”…
This tells us the system users were searching the same phone number, email address, electronic “identifier”, or people, repeatedly over different dates.
Specific people were being tracked/monitored.
Additionally, notice the last quote: “while the government reports it is unable to provide a reliable estimate of” these non lawful searches “since 2012, there is no apparent reason to believe the November 2015 [to] April 2016 coincided with an unusually high error rate”.
That means the 85% rate of unlawful FISA-702(16)(17) database abuse has likely been happening since 2012.
2012 is an important date in this database abuse because a network of specific interests is assembled that also shows up in 2016/2017:
Now it becomes important to remember in 2016:
Tens of thousands of searches over four years (since 2012), and 85% of them are illegal. The results were extracted for?…. (I believe this is all political opposition use; and I’ll explain why momentarily.)
OK, that’s the stunning scale; but who was involved?
Private contractors with access to “raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to FBI’s requests“:
And as noted, the contractor access was finally halted on April 18th, 2016.
[Coincidentally (or not), the wife of Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson, Mary Jacoby, goes to the White House the next day on April 19th, 2016.]
None of this is conspiracy theory.
All of this is laid out inside this 99-page opinion from FISC Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer who also noted that none of this FISA abuse was accidental in a footnote on page 87: “deliberate decisionmaking“:
This specific footnote, if declassified, would be key. Note the phrase: “([redacted] access to FBI systems was the subject of an interagency memorandum of understanding entered into [redacted])”, this sentence has the potential to expose an internal decision; withheld from congress and the FISA court by the Obama administration; that outlines a process for access and distribution of surveillance data.
Note also: “no notice of this practice was given to the FISC until 2016“, that is important.
Important summary of this aspect: •The FISA court identified and quantified tens-of-thousands of search queries of the NSA/FBI database using the FISA-702(16)(17) system dating back to around 2012. •The NSA database was repeatedly used by persons with contractor access who unlawfully searched and extracted the raw results without redacting the information and shared it with an unknown number of entities. •The same people had multiple searches performed against their private information from November of 2015 to May of 2016, the exact time of the Republican presidential primary.
The outlined process certainly points toward a political spying and surveillance operation; and we are not the only one to think that’s what this system is being used for.
Back in 2017 when House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes was working to reauthorize the FISA legislation, Nunes wrote a letter to ODNI Dan Coats about this specific issue:
SIDEBAR: To solve the issue, well, actually attempt to ensure it never happened again, NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers eventually took away the “About” query option permanently in 2017. NSA Director Rogers said the abuse was so inherent there was no way to stop it except to remove the process completely. [SEE HERE] Additionally, the NSA database operates as a function of the Pentagon, so the Trump administration went one step further. On his last day as NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers -together with ODNI Dan Coats- put U.S. cyber-command, the database steward, fully into the U.S. military as a full combatant command. [SEE HERE] Unfortunately it didn’t work as shown by the 2018 FISC opinion rendered by FISC Judge James Boasberg [SEE HERE]
There is little doubt the FISA-702(16)(17) database system was used by Obama-era officials, from 2012 through April 2016, as a way to spy on their political opposition.
Quite simply there is no other intellectually honest explanation for the scale and volume of database abuse that was taking place; and keep in mind these searches were all ruled to be unlawful. Searches for repeated persons over a period time that were not authorized.
When we reconcile what was taking place and who was involved, then the actions of the exact same principle participants take on a jaw-dropping amount of clarity.
All of the action taken by CIA Director Brennan, FBI Director Comey, ODNI Clapper and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter make sense. Including their effort to get NSA Director Mike Rogers fired.
Everything after March 9th, 2016, had a dual purpose: (1) done to cover up the weaponization of the FISA database. [Explained Here] Spygate, Russia-Gate, the Steele Dossier, and even the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (drawn from the dossier and signed by the above) were needed to create a cover-story and protect themselves from discovery of this four year weaponization, political surveillance and unlawful spying. Even the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel makes sense; he was FBI Director when this began. (2) They needed to keep surveillance ongoing.
The beginning decision to use FISA(702) as a domestic surveillance and political spy mechanism appears to have started in/around 2012. Perhaps sometime shortly before the 2012 presidential election and before John Brennan left the White House and moved to CIA. However, there was an earlier version of data assembly that preceded this effort.
Political spying 1.0 was actually the weaponization of the IRS. This is where the term “Secret Research Project” originated as a description from the Obama team. It involved the U.S. Department of Justice under Eric Holder and the FBI under Robert Mueller. It never made sense why Eric Holder requested over 1 million tax records via CD ROM, until overlaying the timeline of the FISA abuse:
The IRS sent the FBI “21 disks constituting a 1.1 million page database of information from 501(c)(4) tax exempt organizations, to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” The transaction occurred in October 2010 (link)
Why disks? Why send a stack of DISKS to the DOJ and FBI when there’s a pre-existing financial crimes unit within the IRS. All of the evidence within this sketchy operation came directly to the surface in early spring 2012.
The IRS scandal was never really about the IRS, it was always about the DOJ asking the IRS for the database of information. That is why it was transparently a conflict when the same DOJ was tasked with investigating the DOJ/IRS scandal. Additionally, Obama sent his chief-of-staff Jack Lew to become Treasury Secretary; effectively placing an ally to oversee/cover-up any issues. As Treasury Secretary Lew did just that.
Lesson Learned – It would appear the Obama administration learned a lesson from attempting political opposition research through the IRS database. The timeline reflects a few months after realizing the “Secret Research Project” was now worthless (June 2012), they focused more deliberately on a smaller network within the intelligence apparatus; and through “contractors” they began weaponizing the FBI/NSA database. If our hunch is correct, that is what will be visible in footnote #69:
Fusion GPS was not hired in April 2016 to just research Donald Trump. As shown in the evidence provided by the FISC, the intelligence community was already doing surveillance and spy operations. The Obama administration already knew everything about the Trump campaign, and were monitoring everything by exploiting the FISA database.
However, after the NSA alerts in/around March 9th, 2016, and particularly after the April 18th shutdown of contractor access, the Obama intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to create a legal albeit ex post facto justification for the pre-existing surveillance and spy operations. Fusion GPS gave them that justification in the Steele Dossier.
That’s why the FBI small group, which later transitioned into the Mueller team, were so strongly committed to and defending the formation of the Steele Dossier and its dubious content.
The Steele Dossier, an outcome of the Fusion contract, contains two purposes: (1) the cover-story and justification for the pre-existing surveillance operation (protect Obama); and (2) facilitate the FBI counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign (assist Clinton). That became more important after the election when the same players needed to get a special counsel. An insurance policy would be needed.
The Steele Dossier becomes the investigative virus the FBI wanted inside the system. To get the virus into official status, they used the FISA application as the delivery method and injected it into U.S. person Carter Page; a former Trump campaign advisor. The FBI already knew Carter Page; essentially Carter Page was irrelevant, what they needed was the FISA warrant and the Dossier in the system {Go Deep}.
Fusion GPS was not only hired to research Trump, the intelligence community was already doing surveillance and spy operations. The intelligence community needed Fusion GPS to give them a plausible justification for already existing surveillance and spy operations.
Fusion-GPS gave them the justification they needed for a FISA warrant with the Steele Dossier. Ultimately that’s why the Steele Dossier is so important; without it, the DOJ and FBI would be naked with their FISA-702 abuse as outlined by John Ratcliffe.
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“Mistakes were made”, is the ridiculous excuse. The FBI knew all along the Steele Dossier was garbage, but they were dependent on using it… Their willful blindness was by design; they needed the dossier to get to the Mueller phase:
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