Tag: FISA court

Bipartisan Effort to Reform FISA, End Abuses Could be Iced by GOP Outrage of Durham Report Findings

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Congressional Democrats have joined in bipartisan effort to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amid abuses but GOP outrage over the findings in the Durham Report, including recent calls to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland over such matters, has likely hurt such efforts.

Congressional reauthorization of FISA is due in December, with particular focus on Section 702 of the law, which permits the government to conduct targeted surveillance on foreign people outside the U.S., with the assistance of electronic communication service providers, to acquire foreign intelligence information.

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Commentary: Congress and President Must Oversee the FISA Court and All FISA Warrants After Durham Report Revelations

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Special Counsel John Durham has finished his voluminous report outlining the Justice Department, State Department, intelligence agencies and FBI’s “confirmation bias” that led to a years-long investigation of former President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, transition and then administration falsely alleging that Trump and his campaign were Russian agents who had helped Moscow hack the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and put their emails onto Wikileaks despite the fact that the FBI could not “corroborate a single substantive allegation in the [Christopher] Steele dossier reporting,” which was sourced to the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC.

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Commentary: Senate Should Adopt Sen. Rand Paul Amendment to Ensure FISA Abuse Never Happens Again

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Reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is once again up for consideration and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has an amendment to fix it — and is urging President Donald Trump to veto the renewal legislation if the Senate doesn’t adopt it.

What makes the Paul amendment unique — and why it must be adopted — as summarized by Lawfareblog.com is that it would “require that electronic surveillance, use of a pen register or trap-and-trace device, production of tangible things, or targeting of U.S. persons for information can be done only pursuant to a warrant issued by a non-FISA federal court and only under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.”

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Commentary: Did Anyone REALLY Believe the Steele Dossier?

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George Rasley, CHQ Editor As a veteran of over 300 political campaigns I’ve compiled dozens of opposition research memos. Almost every time I did one someone would come forward with salacious charges. Running down these allegations never revealed proof; no affidavits from spurned lovers, no credit card receipts from the Chicken Ranch, etc., so I refused to include those allegations in my work product. From what I’ve read from the Steele dossier very little of it passes those most basic tests of sourcing. No candidate I’ve ever worked with would have paid me for such a document, unless of course they didn’t care if it was true or not. This experience begs the question: Given the problematic sourcing, did anyone involved on the FBI or Hillary Clinton side really believe the allegations in the Steele dossier? Or was it always known to be a cynical lie? Certainly, Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson went to great lengths in his testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) to avoid saying he believed the Steele dossier was true – credible was as close as he would go. On Page 9 of the transcript of Simpson’s testimony before HPSCI he responded to…

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