CovOps
Location : Ether-Sphere Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator Humor : Über Serious
| Subject: Growing concern about FISA courts Sun Dec 29, 2019 3:43 am | |
| Congress has a duty to weigh whether the FISA courts should be allowed to continue, since they obviously cannot be trusted to protect Americans’ civil liberties. If they remain, there must be much stronger safeguards than heretofore. And those who willfully deceive the court must face severe consequences.
The notion of a secret federal court granting vast powers to U.S. security and intelligence agencies to spy on people, including American citizens, is inherently chilling — the stuff, really, of police states. Yet the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (also known as “FISA courts” based on the act that authorized them) has been doing this since its inception in 1978.
We were told this is necessary for our security. FISA courts rule on surveillance requests against suspected spies. To hold the hearings in public would be to out secret intelligence and to tip off potential targets. But because of their secretive nature, FISA courts must be closely watched to prevent outrageous government skulduggery from occurring.
Consider the findings of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.
Horowitz detailed the means used to obtain warrants from the secret FISA court. Opposition research — funded by Democrats and filled with unsubstantiated rumors — was used to commence an investigation into the Trump campaign and, later, administration. When the investigation turned up no evidence of wrongdoing, and significant problems with the research’s accuracy came to light, that was hidden from the court, which kept issuing warrants.
More: https://www.waltonsun.com/opinion/20191228/our-view-growing-concern-about-fisa-courts _________________ Anarcho-Capitalist, AnCaps Forum, Ancapolis, OZschwitz Contraband “The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.”-- Max Stirner "Remember: Evil exists because good men don't kill the government officials committing it." -- Kurt Hofmann |
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