Jon Hall – Back in March, President Trump ignited a firestorm by accusing the Obama administration of having tapped his phones at Trump Tower. Mainstream media outlets were quick to call Trump’s accusation “baseless” and backed by “no evidence”. Top leaders of both the Democratic and Republican parties even went so far as to reject Trump’s wiretapping claim completely.
However, recent reporting by circa detail the reality behind the gross abuses perpetuated by Obama’s NSA.
Declassified memos obtained by Circa not only show that the FBI illegally shared spy data on Americans with private parties; but also that the NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years.
The declassified FBI memo shows that the FBI shared raw intel on Americans with third parties and depicts the numerous violations and abuses overreached by the FBI under former Director Comey. Although the FBI is normally forbidden from surveilling Americans without warrants, an update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 2008 allowed the NSA to share spy data collected without cause that includes the communications of Americans with “foreign targets”.
FISA court watchdogs, however, suggest the problems with accountability and FBI compliance on privacy and digital rights began only months after the revised FISA became implemented. Alongside this, the Inspector General called the FBI’s first self-reported oversight report “deficient” and urged better accountability.
Amy Jeffress – former Justice Department National Security Prosecutor – appointed to give an independent assessment of the FBI’s compliance with privacy found the breaching of NSA intel and sharing of data as unconstitutional. U.S. courts, however, rejected her claim and found that the violations and abuses were constitutional under FISA. Go figure, right?
Jeffress observed:
“I don’t think that the FBI will voluntarily set limits on its querying procedures, because law enforcement agencies tend not to take steps to restrict or limit what they can do, for obvious reasons.”
Jeffress is entirely correct. The FBI or NSA will be the last to set limits on themselves. They only achieved their power by gross abuse and corruption.
More than 1 in 20 searches conducted by the National Security Agency during the Obama administration violated safeguards Obama and his intelligence chiefs vowed to follow in 2011.
Many Americans were also swept up in incidental collection of foreign intelligence and unmasked, having their online privacy shredded.
Although mainstream outlets are slowly picking up on this story, uproar over any of this has been nearly non-existent.
On May 31, the House Intelligence Committee issued subpoenas to three former Obama administration officials:
- Susan Rice, National Security Adivser
- John Brennan, CIA Director
- Samantha Power, U.N. Ambassador
Rice and Brennan – both embroiled in the unmasking scandal – have been with this story since the beginning; however, Power’s name being thrown into the ring is new.
Fox News reports:
Investigative sources on the committee’s Republican majority staff told Fox News that the unmasking subpoenas do not reflect a “fishing expedition,”…
Nancy Pelosi called for Trump to apologize to Obama and the American people for his accusations of being spied on. However, it’s looking more like Obama owes Trump and U.S. citizens an apology for outright ignoring the Fourth Amendment.
SF Source The Burning Platform Jun 2017