Over the last couple of years we have seen the Internal
Revenue Service target conservative organizations seeking 501(c)(3) status, and
heap time delays and over-the-top demands for information on them to delay or
deny granting that status. We have seen the Department of Education sneakily
change Common Core from guidelines to policy.
These things make one wonder whether those working in the American
government understand the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and that they
are obligated to obey them and honorably serve the American people.
The answer seems to be, “yes,” as long as it suits their
purposes.
The current furor over getting permission for the government
to spy on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign appears to be a continuation of
these questionable, and possibly illegal, activities.
A CNN host has come forth to defend this activity, citing
“very real fears” of “something very suspicious” in the campaign. And he
justified the surveillance activities with the question, “don’t you want to
know” if something illegal was going on?
Brian Stelter, host of CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” told Newsmax
CEO Christopher Ruddy in an interview earlier this month that there was a
willingness to collude with the Russians that needed to be investigated. He
apparently believes that this perceived willingness justified taking away the Fourth
Amendment protections against “unreasonable searches and seizures” from some
100 people who were associated with Donald Trump in some way or another,
according to the House Intelligence Committee.
Since taking away one citizen’s privacy is a serious matter,
and taking privacy from a hundred is substantially more so, there must be a
procedure the government must first go through to protect citizens’ rights. And
there is. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requires a court
ruling to permit such invasions of privacy.
How does this procedure work? Well, here is Connecticut
Democrat Sen. Richard
Blumenthal’s description, via Politico: “On any given day in Washington, 11 judges — all designated
by Chief Justice John Roberts, without congressional advice or consent —
convene to hear surveillance applications from the United States government.
Behind closed doors and without checks or scrutiny, they balance the threats of
espionage and terrorism with Fourth Amendment protections from unreasonable
searches and seizures.”
And
what is the record of performance by the FISA court in protecting Fourth
Amendment rights? Blumenthal notes, “the odds are stacked strongly in favor of
the federal government. Last year alone, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court … heard nearly 1,800 such applications from the U.S. government; not a
single request was denied. In its entire 33-year history, the FISA court has
rejected just 11 of 34,000 requests.”
For
the non-mathematicians out there, the approval rate of applications to the FISA
court is astounding. Only .00032 percent of the applications are not approved.
But
then again, these are one-sided proceedings, with only government accusations
and evidence allowed. It’s just like hearings before a grand jury, about which
it has been famously said that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a
ham sandwich. It’s like when your favorite sports team wins a game against … no
one.
Obviously,
it is critically important that the government be allowed to pursue legitimate potential
espionage and terrorism threats, but it is equally important to protect the Fourth
Amendment rights of American citizens.
It may be the case that the government has always acted
appropriately. Or, maybe it has fudged its case before the court successfully,
on occasion. But the accusation of collusion by the Trump campaign and the
resulting court ruling clearly raises serious questions about this process.
The FBI’s “evidence” provided to the FISA court in support
of permission to spy on 100 associates of Donald Trump contains the
now-infamous and fraudulent Trump dossier. It is a document compiled by former
British spy Christopher Steele and political opposition research group Fusion
GPS on behalf of, and partially funded by, the Democratic National Committee
and the Hillary Clinton campaign through a third party.
The FISA warrant application failed to disclose to the court
exactly who had financed the dossier – a Trump political opponent – information
that should have been included in the application.
Defenders of the action against these 100 individuals claim
that the dossier was not a primary piece of evidence in the application. Okay,
fine. Then, given its scurrilous and fraudulent background, and the at-best
questionable behavior of some of the FBI’s upper management, why was it
included in the application at all?
Wouldn’t it be helpful – in recognition of the popular concept
of the day: transparency – to have access to the FISA application, so that the
American people can see what the FISA court saw?
“Created
in the wake of Watergate-era revelations about executive-branch spying on
domestic dissidents, the FISA court today operates in the shadows without
public oversight,” and “the executive branch almost never loses,” Blumenthal
wrote.
He
believes this broken system must be repaired, and is working on legislation to
fix it. It “deprives the entire system of trust and credibility in the eyes of
the American people,” he wrote.
Whether
Surveillancegate can be reversed and confidence in the system restored only
time will tell. But we must try.
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