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US Government Using Secretive FISA Rules to Spy on Journalists
Documents recently obtained by the Freedom of the Press Foundation reveal troubling facts about how the government is secretly using the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to spy on journalists. The documents were released as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by the Freedom of the Press Foundation and Columbia University's Knights First Amendment Institute. These newly declassified memos confirm suspicions long held by civil liberties advocates that the government is using and abusing FISA court orders to conduct intrusive surveillance on reporters they deem as "foreign agents" and on those reporters' contacts.
By using FISA, the Department of Justice circumvents traditional court systems that have long protected journalists from invasive and illegal spying practices. [...] Memos made public through the FOIA request reveal that it is highly likely that both the Trump and Obama administrations have spied on journalists they considered "foreign agents" and anyone with whom they may have been in contact.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 06 2019, @04:40AM (1 child)
It seems pretty obvious that a great way to spy on the USA would be to pose as a journalist. The spy could even do a bit of legit journalism, possibly working for a nationalized news agency.
What foreign country wouldn't try it?
FISA is entirely appropriate for such cases.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 06 2019, @03:58PM
The difference is whether your intentions are public. You aren't a spy if you make the state look bad, provided you told them that was what you were going to do before you did it.
Of course that would technically make Snowden a journalist, since undoubtedly he swore an oath the the constitution, and ultimately released information revealing state unconsitutional behavior. Essentially his oath was a disclosure of intent, and a contract. More to the point, given the oath and the occupation, pretty much everybody working for U.S. spy agencies could technically call themselves journalists in the event of being prosecuted for a leak. They predisclosed that intent when they took the oath. In fact being a journalist was a condition of employment.
The oath says you will do X. You boss told you to subvert X.
In this case the question is whether the employment contract contraveens the oath, which itself is technically a contract. The oath is contract under criminal statute, the employment contract is a commercial contract. The oath precedes the employment contract. Of course the courts can be relied on to just make shit up, so procedure doesn't really matter here I would imagine.
The way they try and get around this, is to create rat lines. Then they pass laws that say "If you don't use the ratlines you're a spy". Which is to say that they've two criminal statues that contradict eachother. In the first case, if you violate the oath your committing a crime. The second is a crime against the state, contingient on the violation of a commercial contract. Which would suggest that the state would presume, that in the case of analysts somehow a commercial contract is elevated to the level of criminal statute. Which is STILL bullshit. But again, you'd have to factor in whether the judge would have even gotten his posting if the intel agency didn't have dirt on him.
The law can only stand up to the level of integrity of the men who practice it.