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The secret federal court that approves orders for conducting surveillance on suspected foreign terrorists or spies issued a strong and highly unusual public rebuke to the FBI on Tuesday, ordering the agency to say how it intends to correct the errors revealed last week by a Justice Department report on one aspect of the FBI's investigation of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said the FBI made serious and repeated mistakes in seeking under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to conduct surveillance of Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.
The FBI's submission to the court made assertions that were "inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation," the report said.
Rosemary Collyer, presiding judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, said in the unusual public order that the report "calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable." She ordered the FBI to explain in writing by Jan. 10 how it intends to remedy those problems.
Document here: https://www.scribd.com/document/440156909/Fisa-Court-to-FBI
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 18 2019, @11:37AM (4 children)
It is no surprise that these FISA courts are being abused, time to get rid of the secret courts altogether. The DOJ should be pared to its original size to a single person (the attorney general) which means getting rid of multiple TLAs such as the FBI, DEA, and ATF. The CIA, NSA, and ICE are all also up to no good.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday December 18 2019, @11:00PM (3 children)
This sort of abuse has likely been happening from day one, the only reason it comes to light now is because the subject is part of a larger political battle. Had the subject of the investigation been some guy working in a gas station named Mohammad or such, the same people complaining now would be perfectly fine with it. It's only supposed to be abused to investigate poor or unpopular people!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 18 2019, @11:42PM (2 children)
Everyone I know has been complaining about these secret courts, PATRIOT ACT, TSA, etc since they began. Some people are supporting it now just because "stop Trump".
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Thursday December 19 2019, @02:23AM (1 child)
Another reason I'm an ex-democrat. These things are objectively evil no matter who does them, but the Obama reign taught me with crystal clarity that Democrats don't oppose evil policies, they oppose Republicans doing the evil policies Democrats themselves wish they were doing.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday December 21 2019, @11:04PM
You'll usually find more Democrats opposing these sort of policies before they get voted into place, their constituency is far more likely to make noise about them, but once they are in place, power will use them no matter where they come from. Would the FISA courts have come about if Gore had been president? Would an independent president, even a Green, not use them if they were in place once elected? These sort of policies tend to be supported among the rank and file conservatives, until they learn they will be used against them as well as "the enemy".