https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/04/10/inside-baseball-stuff-on-fisa-702-reauthorization-the-stuff-you-never-see-explained/
Inside Baseball Stuff on FISA 702 Reauthorization – The Stuff You Never See Explained
[snip]
First, the Intelligence Community (IC) tells congress, particularly the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, that all hell will break loose if they don’t reauthorize full electronic surveillance of Americans. Congress is petrified of the IC.
Speaker Johnson and all of the key participants are totally siloed from understanding that 702 has nothing to do with incidental collection of American data whilst the honorable IC were doing foreign intercepts. Johnson and most Republicans believe the IC nonsense. They really do.
The politicians and their key staff cannot fathom how the FBI, DOJ, NSD, DHS and contractors use this database to conduct political and “other” (think corporate espionage for sale) surveillance. They really do think the IC is full of honorable rank-and-file. They are inside a DC bubble.
Second, the IC argument is now something akin to we have let thousands of terrorists into the country through the southern border crisis. They say: “My god, we need to monitor the terrorists, and if you take away 702 the foreign terror cells will activate and start killing us all. Do you want that blood on your hands?” You cannot take away surveillance tools.
Third, FISA 702 reauthorization is used as a bargaining chip by people who don’t want to get caught up in the surveillance.
The DC conversations are something like, “Ok, we’ll reauthorize it, but you cannot use it against us – and all the sex parties and perverted stuff we do when no one is around, you must promise to keep our secrets hidden“… Yes, this is why the IC agree to accept a reauthorization that exempts Congress. The IC keep the blackmail – just promise not to use it.
We The People do not have any friends in DC on this issue. The Democrats will reauthorize 702 to continue exploiting surveillance authority – don’t forget over 10,000 log-in portals with access to the NSA database exist, including the workstation at Perkins Coie that ties into the NSA database.
President Trump finally opposes the FISA system – writ large – and THAT is progress.
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Related:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/04/10/president-trump-opposes-fisa-702-reauthorization-surveillance-authority-expires-april-19th/
President Trump Opposes FISA 702 Reauthorization – Surveillance Authority Expires April 19th
[snip]
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).
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.
[snip]
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.
[more]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRxLC1EMzsk
Mike Johnson Is Fighting to Protect the Government Spy Program Used on Trump