FISA, FISC and Section 702 (Spying)

“People’s hair would curl if they knew about the tools the government has to spy on people.” CIA analyst statement

It is essential to understand the laws and due process protections guaranteed to all U.S. citizens in this digital age. Secret or unauthorized surveillance is not a new issue for the intelligence community. The problem that plagued the FBI two decades ago still lingers into today. At its core, a FISA abuse involves the deliberate omission of material facts, by the agents applying for FISA warrants in sensitive counterterrorism and counterintelligence cases.

Shortly after America was attacked on September 11, 2001, it became apparent after an oversight review that widespread omissions in the FISA process were being abused. A declassified FISC order from 2002, revealed just how dangerous the omission abuses were. In one case, the FBI failed to tell the court that the person they were seeking a FISA warrant to surveil, was in fact, one of their own informants. The court also expressed concern that “misinformation found its way into the FISA applications and remained uncorrected, despite procedures to verify the accuracy of FISA pleadings.”

Such omissions are a serious matter at the FISC court since it is the one court in America where the accused has no representation or chance to defend themselves. That means the FBI is obligated to disclose in the warrant, evidence of both guilt and innocence, leaving the court to decide probable cause.

Around 2003, the FBI created a new system called the Woods Procedures, that set to ensure FISA warrant applications to surveil U.S. citizens were accurate and did not omit material information.

Different from a FISA warrant, Section 702 permits the government to target surveillance against foreign persons located outside the United States, without a FISA warrant or going to the FISC Court. Foreign person’s identities are not hidden in the foreign data collection for the purpose of acquiring intelligence information.

By law, the names of U.S. citizens are hidden (masked) from Section 702 foreign meta-data collection, whether they are in the United States or abroad. The only way to unmask U.S. citizens in Section 702 meta-data collection and intelligence gathering is to present evidence to the FISC court that they are potentially doing something wrong with foreigners.

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The confusion created during the 2016 election, exposed unauthorized back channels into the NSA, which the FBI was utilizing to spy on U.S. citizens with unrestricted access illegally. The “contractor” portal was discovered and then shutdown in 2016, in the middle of the “Russian Conspiracy” operation. Spying on the opposition-candidate and campaign associates played an essential silent-role in executing the Russian Collusion narrative. The NSA contractor fallout revealed that the FBI had to apply for warrants using the FISA court (legal) process to re-establish surveillance on U.S. citizens.

Civil Rights Activists? Anyone? Buller? Crickets. …  

It’s easy to accept something you usually wouldn’t when it’s done against something you don’t like, isn’t it?

 

FBI timeline of surveillance 

The FBI had no choice and was forced to use the salacious and unverified Steele Dossier, which was initially designed for spreading smears through the media, not the FISA courts. To use the dossier's allegations as the basis for the FISA warrant request, the FBI had to present evidence that the accusations were “corroborated.” Steele passed the dossier to Kathleen Kavalec at the State Department and to Harry Reid, they both passed it back to the FBI, providing the FBI with two additional government sources to create the illusion of verification. The FBI also cited its own scooped up leaks to the media.   

However, to fully complete the FISC court surveillance warrant requirements, the FBI had to manufacture evidence, receive pre-approved applications, and omit known exculpatory information. All of which is illegal, not to mention a violation of U.S. citizen’s civil rights and due process. 

Click on the dates to examine the FBI timeline of surveillance abuse.

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March 9, 2016

Department of Justice oversight personnel became aware that the FBI had been employing non-FBI contractors, who had access to raw (unmasked) Section 702 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) data, and retained that access after their work for the FBI was completed. They determined that it was not an isolated incident, and the improper access granted to outside contractors “seems to have been the result of deliberate decision-making.”

On the same day that the NSA discovered the unmasked access the non-FBI contractors were using, FBI lawyer Lisa Page and FBI agent Peter Strzok texted to each other.

Page to Strzok: “Need to try to fix a HUGE who f-up.”

Page corrected her typo by texting: “Wfo” (an abbreviation for the FBI’s Washington field office)

Page would later send another text to Strzok, noting: “Need to go meet with Andy again now.”

Andy was then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

 

Following the discovery of contractors accessing raw (unmasked) FISA data, then-National Security Agency (NSA) Director Adm. Mike Rogers, directed the NSA’s Office of Compliance to conduct a “fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with Section 702,” in early April of 2016.

Adm. Mike Rogers served concurrently as director of the NSA, commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, and Central Security Service Chief, from April 2014 to May 2018. Rogers was previously the Director for Intelligence, for both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and U.S. Pacific Command, and as commander of the U.S. Fleet Cyber Command and the U.S. 10th Fleet.

 

April 18, 2016

Following the baseline review of compliance associated with Section 702, Rogers moved aggressively in response to the disclosures. He abruptly shut down all outside-contractor FBI access. Both the FBI and the DOJ’s National Security Division (NSD) became aware of Rogers’s compliance review.

 

October 20, 2016

 Mike Rogers was briefed by the NSA compliance officer on the full findings from Section 702, NSA compliance audit. The audit had uncovered a large number of issues, including numerous “about query” violations and access to raw (unmasked) surveillance data. “About queries” are particularly worrisome, since they occur when the target is neither the sender nor the recipient of the collected surveillance data, but instead is being passed between two other communicants.

 

October 21, 2016

Adm. Mike Rogers shut down all “about query” activity in the NSA database.

On the same day, the DOJ and FBI sought and received approval for a Title I FISA warrant on the volunteer campaign adviser, Carter Page, citing the alleged “Russian contacts” in the Steele dossier.

With the FBI unrestricted surveillance access shut down, the warrants had to be submitted and approved to continue spying on the opposition-candidate and the campaign. It is 2003 FISA abuse all over again and here are a few examples of how they manipulated the FISA application:

The FBI falsely told the FISC court that they were aware of no derogatory information contained the Steele Dossier, which they used as the basis to request the surveillance warrants on Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. Even though Christopher Steele, was a retired British intelligence operative working simultaneously as an FBI source, paid for by the Incumbent Candidate and Democrat National Committee, through Fusion GPS, and that the research was political.

Through the congressional testimony of James Comey and other FBI officials, it was revealed that the dossier’s contents had not been corroborated or verified by the FBI when it was used in the FISA application, allowing misinformation to get into the intelligence system. 

There were omissions in the FISA process, when the FBI was in possession of exculpatory evidence suggesting the innocence of both campaign advisers, Page and Papadopoulos, but did not include it in the application.

The Woods Procedures setup in 2003 would have caught all of this, and protected U.S. citizen’s civil rights from unauthorized spying and surveillance abuses. Now, imagine if Mike Rogers hadn’t discovered and shut down the illegal, unrestricted, contractor surveillance tunnel, which the FBI was using – like a Google deep-state search tool – against anyone they wanted.

 

Based on Congressional testimony from FBI Lawyer Trisha Anderson, this is how the abuse of power on the FISA court got through. 

Trisha Anderson signed off on the original FISA application to spy on campaign adviser Carter Page, before the application went to FBI Director James Comey, despite not having read it.

During her Congressional testimony, Anderson highlighted the unusual nature of the Carter Page FISA application and the curious roles of Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, who provided pre-approvals for the Page FISA warrant, before regular FBI and DOJ approvals had been obtained.

Ms. Anderson stated: “All necessary approvals, including up through and including the leadership of the FBI and the leadership of the DOJ, by the time I put that signature on the cover page had already been obtained.”

Anderson and others were supposed to provide FISA warrant approvals before they were presented to senior FBI and DOJ officials for final sign-off. High-level pre-approvals were distinctly outside of the standard FISA warrant procedure.

October 24, 2016

The FISC court was orally apprised of significant non-compliance with the NSA’s minimization procedures (“about queries”), involving Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) data collected under Section 702 rules, using U.S. person identifiers (unmasked U.S. citizens). The full scope of non-compliant querying practices had not been previously disclosed to the Court.

While Adm. Mike Rogers was preparing to present his findings for the FISA court, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter, submitted a recommendation that Mike Rogers be removed from his position as NSA Chief. The move to fire Rogers failed.

 

October 26, 2016

Adm. Mike Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings of his audit. Two days later, the government made a written submission regarding the compliance problems, and the Court held a hearing to address them.

Directly following the 2016 election, while the President-elect began preparing for the administration transition, one final interesting event occurred.

 

November 17, 2016

One week after Trump won the election, Mike Rogers traveled to meet the President-elect and his transition team at the New York Tower. However, Rogers did not inform DNI James Clapper about the meeting. That evening, the President-elect announced that they were moving all administration transition activity to the National Golf Club in New Jersey.

I wonder what Rogers told the President-elect to make them leave the New York Tower? That they were being spied on? Yes.

 

April 26, 2018

The FISA court ruling was declassified by the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

The audit was massive, including these two disclosures:

“NSA estimates that approximately 85 percent of those queries, representing [Redacted] queries conducted by approximately [Redacted] targeted offices, were not compliant with the applicable minimization procedures.”

“The FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information, to a [Redacted] … is largely staffed by private contractors … the [Redacted] contractors had access to raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI’s requests.”

The court revealed these practices had been going on since at least November 2015 and noted:

“Illegal NSA database searches were unprecedented. Private contractors employed by the FBI were given full unrestricted access to the NSA database. Once in their possession, the FISA data couldn’t be traced.”

The law states, if a U.S. citizen is contacted by a “known” foreign asset, the FBI is required to notify the U.S. citizen and brief them. No one in the Trump campaign was ever approached by the FBI or briefed about potential foreign interactions – as required by law. Instead, the FBI requested the unmasking of over 300 U.S. citizens in the data collection and spying operation.  

 

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