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Jim Jordan Presses Jerry Nadler to Hold Hearing on FISA Abuse Following Another Damning IG Report

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Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, called on House Democrats to invite Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz to testify about his investigations of the FBI’s abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the committee, has resisted requests to invited Horowitz to testify about his office’s report of the FBI’s mishandling of surveillance against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Jordan renewed his request of Nadler after Horowitz released the preliminary results of an audit his office conducted of a sample of 29 applications that the FBI submitted to a federal court in order to spy on American citizens.

“Because of the pervasiveness and seriousness of the FISA application deficiencies — and the pending reauthorization of FISA — we renew our request that you invite Inspector General Michael Horowitz to testify at a public hearing promptly when the House returns to session,” Jordan wrote in a letter to Nadler obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Horowitz’s investigators found problems in all 29 applications selected for audit. A memo that Horowitz sent to FBI Director Christopher Wray said FBI agents failed to complete a series of procedures — called Woods Procedures — that are in place to ensure that investigators verify every piece of evidence that is cited in FISA applications. (Read more from ” (Read more from “Jim Jordan Presses Jerry Nadler to Hold Hearing on FISA Abuse Following Another Damning IG Report” HERE)

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FISA FOLLIES: “I Got This, Beyatch!” Edition

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(For more from the author of “FISA FOLLIES: “I Got This, Beyatch!” Edition” please click HERE)

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Spy Court Picks FISA Abuse Denier to Tackle FISA Abuse

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By The Federalist. The nation’s top spy court appointed an Obama-era Justice Department official who has denied and downplayed FBI surveillance abuse to assess the FBI’s response to a scathing new report cataloguing problems with how the agency secured authority to spy on a Donald Trump campaign affiliate.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) presiding Judge James Boasberg appointed David Kris to review the FBI’s proposed changes to its surveillance application process even though he spent the past few years running interference for the FBI as substantive criticism of the agency mounted.

Lengthy investigations in the House of Representatives and by the Department of Justice inspector general showed major problems with the claims the FBI made as part of an investigation into whether Trump was a traitor who had colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. Those problems include withholding exonerating evidence, undue reliance on shady sources, and outright alteration of evidence.

Kris, who served as assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s National Security Division, recently claimed the IG report that catalogued egregious abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) powers actually vindicated the FBI. He also smeared Rep. Devin Nunes in 2018, saying his initial sounding of the alarm about those abuses was incorrect, threatened national security, and should be harshly punished. . .

The appointment of a former official who served as an apologist for the FBI signals that the court isn’t particularly concerned about the civil liberty violations catalogued by Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s investigation into the year-long surveillance of Carter Page. Page is the Trump campaign affiliate whose phone and email communications federal agents wiretapped, and who had confidential human sources and overseas intelligence assets placed against him. False claims that Page was a Russian spy were leaked to the media by government officials as part of a years-long campaign to paint President Trump as a traitor who had colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. (Read more from “Spy Court Picks FISA Abuse Denier to Tackle FISA Abuse” HERE)

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FBI to Follow FISA Court Recommendations on Wiretapping

By ABC 33 40. In the wake of its surveillance abuse scandal, the FBI has said it will follow recommendations made by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. That’s the court that approves government wiretaps on U.S. citizens.

Several weeks ago, the Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) reported finding egregious errors made by the FBI in its controversial wiretap of a former Trump campaign volunteer, Carter Page. In at least one instance, the IG found, an FBI lawyer had doctored a document presented to the court. . .

FBI Agents had repeatedly gotten caught submitting false information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to justify their wiretapping or spying on U.S. citizens.

The new protections called “Woods Procedures” were named for the FBI official who helped devise them, Michael Woods. They require the FBI, all the way to the top, to strictly verify each fact in a wiretap application. According to the IG, FBI officials violated the Woods Procedures when they wiretapped Page repeating the very mistakes the Woods Procedures were set up to avoid 15 years before. (Read more from “FBI to Follow FISA Court Recommendations on Wiretapping” HERE)

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Trump Holds Nothing Back After IG Report Is Released

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By Townhall. President Trump lashed out after being briefed about the Department of Justice Inspector General’s report on FISA abuses that was finally released on Monday, saying the abuses were an “attempted overthrow of the government.”

The report stated that while the Inspector General’s office found no evidence of political bias concerning the FBI’s operation to infiltrate the Trump campaign and that the investigation was justified, they did find 17 errors and incidents of omissions in the Carter Page FISA applications. . .

Speaking at the White House, Trump said the FBI “fabricated evidence” and “lied” to the courts.

“This was something that we can never allow to happen again,” Trump said. “The report actually and especially when you look in to it and the details of the report are far worse than anything I would have even imagined. What they were doing and what they would’ve done if I didn’t make a certain move, a certain move that was a very important move because it would have been even worse if that’s possible.”

(Read more from “Trump Holds Nothing Back After IG Report Is Released” HERE)

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FISA Report Drops: 7 Takeaways from DOJ Watchdog’s Russia Probe Review

By Fox News. Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz on Monday released the highly anticipated findings from his nearly two-year review concerning the origins of the Russia investigation and the issuance of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants for a Trump campaign official. . .

The report said investigators found no intentional misconduct or political bias surrounding either the launch of the Trump-Russia investigation or as efforts to seek the controversial FISA warrant to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in the early stages of that probe. . .

Despite the inspector general’s finding that there was no evidence of political bias or improper motivation, Horowitz’s report revealed there were at least 17 “significant inaccuracies and omissions” in the Page FISA applications. . .

Steele’s now-infamous dossier and research surrounding the 2016 presidential election provided much of the information used in the FISA application and renewals, but the inspector general found that the FBI did not have any specific information corroborating allegations against Page from Steele’s reporting.

“We determined that prior to and during the pendency of the FISAs the FBI was unable to corroborate any of the specific substantive allegations against Carter Page contained in the election reporting and relied on in the FISA applications, and was only able to confirm the accuracy of a limited number of circumstantial facts, most of which were in the public domain,” the report said, noting that the information confirmed was only timing of events and dates when Page traveled to Russia. (Read more from “FISA Report Drops: 7 Takeaways from DOJ Watchdog’s Russia Probe Review” HERE)

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‘Nervous’ Leakers: Early Peak into DOJ Watchdog’s FISA Report Emboldens Trump Allies

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The leaks came quickly after Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced his long-awaited report on alleged government surveillance abuses against a member of the Trump campaign would be released in a matter of weeks.

Contrary to the allegations often trumpeted by President Trump and his allies, reports from outlets such as the Washington Post and New York Times said the watchdog is expected to find political bias did not taint the Russia investigation, absolving top officials such as former FBI Director James Comey, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and special agent Peter Strzok on this matter.

Yes, missteps and lapses in judgment were made, but the most damning revelation pertains to an FBI lawyer, identified as Kevin Clinesmith, allegedly altering a document related to the wiretapping of onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. A far cry from the “premeditated fraud” conspiracy pushed on a near-nightly basis by Fox News host Sean Hannity, Horowitz’s investigators determined Clinesmith’s actions did not taint the overall validity of a renewal application. Additionally, Horowitz determined the opening of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign in July 2016 was justified.

None of this amounts to what Trump’s closest allies have hyped up for months: A concerted effort to monitor and undermine his 2016 campaign, particularly with how the FBI relied on an unverified dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele to obtain the warrants to wiretap Page.

Democrats, fully engaged in an impeachment effort against Trump, have expressed little appetite to talk Horowitz’s report and counter Republican allegations of an effort to overthrow the president. “It looks like the evidence is going to show otherwise. It’s time for us to move on,” Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on Fox News Sunday. (Read more from “‘Nervous’ Leakers: Early Peak into DOJ Watchdog’s FISA Report Emboldens Trump Allies” HERE)

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A Newly Released Secret Opinion Shows Surveillance Courts Are Even Worse Than You Knew

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Photo Credit: National Review

Photo Credit: National Review

Last week, with little fanfare, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) released a previously secret opinion upholding the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance of telephone metadata. The opinion, which deserves more attention than it has received, is a cavalier piece of work. Judge Claire Eagan fails even to consider, let alone to rebut, the strong arguments suggesting that the NSA programs violates both the U.S. Constitution and section 215 of the Patriot Act, the statutory provision the government has invoked to authorize it. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has asked the Supreme Court to conduct an independent review of the legality of the NSA surveillance program, and Justice Antonin Scalia said yesterday that he expects the Court to eventually hear a version of the case. But because the Court may be unlikely, for technical reasons, to rule squarely on the merits, congressional reform of the FISA court is now more urgent than ever.

At a recent panel on the EPIC challenge, James Bamford, the leading chronicler of the NSA, reviewed the sorry history of the telephone metadata surveillance program that the FISA court failed even to discuss or acknowledge. The FISA Court was created in 1978 after Frank Church, head of the Church Committee, worried that technological surveillance capabilities in the hands of the government could “make tyranny total in America.” The secret court was a compromise between Democrats, who wanted the NSA to obtain warrants for surveillance in regular federal courts, and Republicans, who wanted few restrictions on surveillance. The compromise worked adequately for 30 years. But in 2001, the Bush administration, having decided that the FISA court wasn’t trustworthy enough, created a mass surveillance program of Internet and telephone called Stellar Wind that bypassed the FISA judges and only notified the Chief Judge of the Court.

One of the documents released by Edward Snowden was the NSA Inspector General’s report on Stellar Wind. Before the Snowden leak, many believed that James Comey, then deputy attorney general and now the director of the FBI, was a hero because, in 2004, he concluded that one component of Stellar Wind was illegal. This prompted White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez to rush to the hospital bed of an ailing Attorney General, John Ashcroft, who also refused to authorize the program. But as Bamford noted, we know from Snowden’s disclosures that when Comey and Ashcroft refused to sign off, NSA director Michael Hayden, under White House pressure, decided to continue the Internet and telephone eavesdropping program anyway. Eventually, in 2011, the Obama NSA shut down the Internet metadata surveillance program, concluding that it couldn’t be authorized under existing law. But it continued to collect telephone metadata, legalistically justifying it under the “business records” provision of the U.S.A. Patriot Act.

Read more from this story HERE.

Google, Facebook, Yahoo Step Up Pressure on FISA Requests

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Technology giants Facebook, Google and Yahoo presented a rare united front in filing separate motions asking to publicly disclose more details about secret national intelligence requests they receive under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

They made the motions Monday in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The companies are seeking permission to reveal the number and nature of the national intelligence requests to address growing public concern and regain the trust of users.

“We believe there is more information that the public deserves to know, and that would help foster an informed debate about whether government security programs adequately balance privacy interests when attempting to keep the public safe,” Facebook’s general counsel Colin Stretch said.

Steps taken so far to allow technology companies to release aggregate data does not address the concerns of users, Google said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Microsoft and Google to Sue Over US Surveillance Requests

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Microsoft and Google are to sue the US government to win the right to reveal more information about official requests for user data. The companies announced the lawsuit on Friday, escalating a legal battle over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the mechanism used by the National Security Agency (NSA) and other US government agencies to gather data about foreign internet users.

Microsoft’s general counsel, Brad Smith, made the announcement in a corporate blog post which complained of the government’s “continued unwillingness” to let it publish information about FISA requests.

Each company filed a suit in June arguing that they should be allowed to state the details under the first amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, and in the process defend corporate reputations battered by Edward Snowden’s revelations. Critics accused the companies of collaborating in the snooping.

“On six occasions in recent weeks we agreed with the department of justice to extend the government’s deadline to reply to these lawsuits. We hoped that these discussions would lead to an agreement acceptable to all,” Smith wrote.

The negotiations failed, he wrote, so Google and Microsoft were going to court. He did not specify when, or to which court.

Read more from this story HERE.