“Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
-Benjamin Franklin
The Nixon-era Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) — revamped to target the domestic United States citizenry by the Bush administration and expanded upon by Obama during the never-ending War of Terror — is up for renewal.
Related: German Minister Announces Pre-Crime Surveillance, Prosecution of ‘Far-Right Extremists’
Its biggest cheerleader, second only to the Brandon entity (glorious bipartisanship strikes again!), is self-styled “small-government” conservative Mike Johnson, a lamentable stain upon the Speaker’s chair just as was his predecessor and his predecessor and his predecessor. If the Freedom Caucus gets its way, he and his sad little tenure may be soon be gone and forgotten, but the damage he does to the republic may not be.
At least for now, though, his efforts have been successfully thwarted by more populist members of the GOP.
Via Politico (emphasis added):
House Republicans brought down their own speaker’s third attempt to reauthorize a controversial spy power on Wednesday, marking a fresh blow to the perpetually embattled Speaker Mike Johnson.
Now, GOP leaders are scrambling to find a new plan to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act after 19 House Republicans voted to block a plan to change a section of the law that allows the intelligence community to gather and sort the communications of foreign targets without a warrant.
Johnson plowed ahead with efforts to bring the bill to the floor despite growing angst in his right flank and former President Donald Trump urging Republicans to kill the larger surveillance law. Congress now has no clear path to extending a program that administrations in both parties have touted as vital to national security before its April 19 expiration.
As Johnson prepared to pull his members into a closed-door meeting later Wednesday, he told reporters: “We will regroup and reformulate another plan. We cannot allow [the authority] to expire. It's too important for national security.”
The FISA regime, which in the post-9/11 age allows for warrantless, extraconstitutional wiretaps of U.S. citizens and has targeted hundreds of thousands of Americans (that we know of) with no due process, was wrong before it was weaponized against Trump, but the FISA-facilitated sham that kicked off the whole multi-year Russiagate hoax should have been enough for anyone — especially conservatives — to see through the unconstitutional charade.
Yet here we are.
Via Associated Press (emphasis added):
A former FBI lawyer pleaded guilty Wednesday to altering a document related to the secret surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser during the Russia investigation.
Kevin Clinesmith is the first current or former official to be charged in a special Justice Department review of the investigation into ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Attorney General William Barr appointed John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, to scrutinize decisions made by officials during that probe.
Clinesmith pleaded guilty to a single false statement charge, admitting that he doctored an email that the FBI relied on as it sought court approval to eavesdrop on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page in 2017.
The sentencing guidelines call for zero to six months in prison, but the punishment is ultimately up to U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who accepted Clinesmith’s plea. Sentencing was scheduled for Dec. 10. Clinesmith resigned from the FBI before an internal disciplinary process was completed.
The case highlights broader problems with the FBI’s surveillance applications on Page, an issue that has long animated critics of the Russia investigation.
Charging documents filed Friday say Clinesmith altered an email he received in June 2017 from another government agency to say that Page was “not a source” for that agency, then forwarded it along to a colleague. The document does not say which agency, but Page has publicly said that he had worked as a source for the CIA.
The FBI relied on Clinesmith’s representation in the email when it submitted its fourth and final application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to secretly eavesdrop on Page on suspicions that he was a potential Russian agent.
Information about any relationship Page may have had with another government agency would have been important to disclose to the FISA court to the extent it could have helped explain, or reframe in a less suspicious light, Page’s interactions with Russians.
Neocon think tank goons can do all of the sophistry they like, but the constitutional requirement is clear: to search a person or their property, a duly issued warrant based on evidence presented to a judge is required.
The Founders who signed the Constitution would be apoplectic to see what has become of the Bill of Rights.
As I said many times, I’m not in the business of propping up politicians with an (R) next to their name out of blind partisan loyalty. If that’s what you’re into, there’s plenty of that out there. Maybe start with lifelong hack Sean Hannity; he never disappoints with the pom-poms and the performative all-American red-white-and-blue routine designed to sucker well-meaning rubes into thinking he has some kind of a corner on the patriotism market.
What matters to me is what creatures of government do, not aesthetics and not rhetoric. Lindsey Graham is of no more use to me than Chuck Schumer nor Mike Johnson nor Nancy Pelosi; in fact, they are one and the same entity as far as I am concerned.
And they all need to go.
That’s what #DraintheSwamp means to me.
