FISA Court Neck Deep In Surveillance On Trump Campaign, Knew Of Application Issues, Report
The Deep State is a real thing, and with each new report or finding we discover that it is deeper than any of us have imagined. In the most recent case, it appears that the FISA courts were aware that the applications to spy on Carter Page, an aide with President Donald Trump’s campaign. After the report of Inspector General Michael Horowitz, the head of the FISA courts, Judge Rosemary Collyer, ripped into the FBI for what it did. “The FBI’s handling of the Carter Page applications, as portrayed in the [Office of the inspector general] report, was antithetical to the heightened duty of candor described above. “The frequency with which representations made by FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable,”
But that could have just been a smokescreen to avoid getting heat on herself and the courts as it has now been found that the courts were notified of the issues with the applications beginning in 2016. NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers made it known to the court that there were issues with the way the NSA was complying with minimization procedure. That occurred on, October 24, 2016, notable as it was a mere three days that the FISA court approved a warrant to spy on Page, The Epoch Times reported.
“On October 24, 2016, the government orally apprised the Court of significant non-compliance with the NSA’s minimization procedures involving queries of data acquired under Section 702 using U.S. person identifiers. The full scope of non-compliant querying practices had not been previously disclosed to the Court,” it said. “Two days later, on the day the Court otherwise would have had to complete its review of the certifications and procedures, the government made a written submission regarding those compliance problems … and the Court held a hearing to address them,” it said. “The government reported that the NSA IG and OCO were conducting other reviews covering different time periods, with preliminary results suggesting that the problem was widespread during all periods under review,” it said.
The FISA court was unaware of the FISA “query” violations until they were presented to the court by then-NSA Director Rogers. The NSD and FBI knew Rogers was conducting his own compliance review. Rogers knew the NSD was finalizing its 2016 certification. The NSD was aware that its 2016 certification lacked material and legally required disclosure. The NSD carries the “responsibility of overseeing the foreign intelligence, counterintelligence and other national security activities of the United States Intelligence Community.” Duties include “representing the government before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).” Additionally, the Operations Section of the NSD is “responsible for preparing and filing all applications for Court orders pursuant to FISA.” The original Page FISA application, along with the three subsequent renewals, carried a signature page from a DOJ attorney, whose name was redacted, but is almost certainly associated with the NSD. The Deep State runs deep and it makes one wonder if this entire scheme had the involvement of the courts too.
https://thefederalistpapers.org/opinion/fisa-court-neck-deep-surveillance-trump-campaign-knew-application-issues-report
NSA Director Rogers Disclosed FISA Abuse Days After Page Warrant Was Issued
October 17, 2018 Updated: December 20, 2019
https://www.theepochtimes.com/nsa-director-rogers-disclosed-fisa-abuse-days-after-carter-page-fisa-was-issued_2692033.html