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.
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Multiple publishers are reporting that Micky Dolenz, the last surviving member of the made-for-tv band, The Monkees, is suing the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act. He aims to get as much of the FBI's file on The Monkees as possible with the goal of uncovering what they may have on higher priority surveillance targets of the era, such as John Lennon or the MC5. According to a limited file release from 2011, The Monkees are only mentioned in two FBI documents, one of which remains fully redacted.
The Monkees may not be seem like the kind of band that would attract the FBI's attention, especially during a time when groups like Country Joe and the Fish and the MC5 were leading the movement against the Vietnam War. But the Monkees were one of the most popular bands in America in 1966 and 1967, and they sprinkled anti-war sentiments into songs like "Ditty Diego-War Chant" and even "Last Train to Clarksville," a song about a man headed off to war that fears he'll never see his love again.
"The Monkees reflected, especially in their later years with projects like [their 1968 art house movie] Head, a counterculture from what institutional authority was at the time," Zaid tells Rolling Stone. "And [J. Edgar] Hoover's FBI, in the Sixties in particular, was infamous for monitoring the counterculture, whether they committed unlawful actions or not."
-- https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/the-monkees-micky-dolenz-fbi-1234584299/
In the intervening decades, making and distributing music has become highly centralized and corporate.
Covered at:
BBC: Micky Dolenz: Last living Monkees member sues FBI for secret files on band
Bloomberg: Last of the Monkees Wants Their FBI Records Turned Over
The Los Angeles Times: The FBI had a file on the Monkees, and now Micky Dolenz is suing to find out why
TMZ: Micky Dolenz Demanding FBI File on The Monkees!!! (Yes, There Actually Is One)
Rolling Stone: The Monkees' Micky Dolenz Would Like a Word With the FBI
NBC: Surviving Monkees member Micky Dolenz sues the FBI, asks for files on him and his bandmates
Previously:
(2019) The FBI "Can Neither Confirm Nor Deny" That It Monitors Your Social Media Posts
(2019) U.S. Government Using Secretive FISA Rules to Spy on Journalists
(2017) EFF Sues FBI to Obtain Records About Geek Squad/Best Buy Surveillance
(2016) Snowden Tried to Tell NSA About Surveillance Concerns, Documents Reveal
(2014) Already a Winner in EFF's "Most Outrageous Response to a FOIA Request" Contest?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 05 2019, @04:19PM (10 children)
Maybe the shit stains will start raising hell about it now that it's being used against them instead of just against everyone else.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TheFool on Saturday January 05 2019, @04:26PM (7 children)
Or, better yet, maybe they could do some investigative journalism to actually bring some of these orders to light. Reporting on their existence is pretty low effort, but now that it's personal I hope they are motivated to put a bit more effort in.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday January 05 2019, @05:08PM (6 children)
99% of the media America consumes is CIA. You can thank Grand Emperor Baraq Hussein Soetoro Al-Malai for authorizing domestic use of propaganda against our own citizens in the last NDAA he signed.
What this means is that only independent (people who don't toe the party line) journalists are targeted by jackbooted government thugs. Being an independent journalist in itself, regardless of foreign contact, is enough to get you on the kill-list started by Baraq Hussein Soetoro, a kill-list Trump is trying to declassify and stop.
My friend was an independent journalist who exposed local government corruption Project Veritas-style, and he was executed by jackbooted government thugs. He had his hands up and tried to surrender peacefully but they filled him and his friendly Boston Terrier full of lead. Then they filled his wife full of lead while she was in the shower. Then they set his condo on fire, and shot all the residents who tried to flee the burning building. Then 2 airliners crashed into the upper floors of the building and caused the thermite in the basement to ignite, demolishing the whole building. Then they bulldozed the wreckage and the guy who bulldozed the wreckage was found dead via three-shot suicide.
This would have been your fate too, had Hillary been elected. Hillary would have turned the White house into Kefka's tower.
(Score: 4, Funny) by takyon on Saturday January 05 2019, @05:13PM (1 child)
Gee, it's a good thing you managed to record all that and upload it to WorldStar.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday January 05 2019, @05:19PM
I had no chance to pull out my phone, I ran from a distance and barely escaped with my life. I took a bullet to the buttock and now walk like Simon Belmont in CastleVania II.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 05 2019, @06:48PM
Had to think about the guy who wrote the McChrystal article for Rolling Stone, who had an unfortunate misadventure with his smart car.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by RandomFactor on Saturday January 05 2019, @07:03PM (1 child)
I was with until the three shot suicide. You know those aren't a thing right?
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 06 2019, @03:24PM
No but two shot suicides are. See David Webb.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday January 05 2019, @10:44PM
If it's any consolation to you, you can kill Kefka in one action--not one round, one *action*-- with the proper setup. He's kind of a wimp. Equip Tina with the Genji Glove and Master's Scroll in her Accessory slots, have her hold an Ultima Weapon and an Illumina in either hand, and Trance her when her turn comes up, then select X-Fight. 8 x 9999 = instant win. Poor Kefka only has 65,000-some-odd HP because the console physically can't handle more than that in a single integer.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 05 2019, @08:10PM
Except that it isn't against "them". This is targeting journalists reporting for networks like Pacifica, not corporate propaganda outlets like Fox, NBC, or the NYT. These are mostly freelance journalists who either live and work, long term, in the countries they report from, or are actually from these places. Contrasted to airlifted corporate news reporters who believe (or are just too lazy to bother to get better information), the propaganda fed to them by the US military, US State Department, and the wealthier more powerful folks who have access to the safe areas where these corporate reporters hide e.g., the "Green Zone".
Besides, these corporate "news" outlets have a second line of defense for the rich and powerful interests they defend-- editors.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 06 2019, @05:36PM
It makes me so happy to see you still holding court in this little, dying echo chamber of yours. And it seems to have gone pretty far off into evidence-free conspiracy land! You must feel so much smarter than everyone else!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 05 2019, @04:27PM
There is a long tradition of abuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday January 05 2019, @05:05PM (2 children)
Raise your hands, all 5 rubes who are actually surprised by this. Of course they targeted journalists - the Three-Letter Agencies invest a lot of time and our money into covering up their own mistakes, then in covering up the cover-up, then in covering up those cover-ups, etc.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 05 2019, @08:46PM
I suspect at least half the US gov budget is spent on fixing problems they create for themselves. ~$2 trillion literally down a black hole and they always need more taxes rather than become more efficient or stop fucking up. War on terror -> more terrorists, war on drugs -> more drugs, etc
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 06 2019, @05:08AM
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Saturday January 05 2019, @06:01PM
The only thing that could break through the corporate media's groupthink is to appeal to their all-consuming narcissism. if they don't pick up on this story then we'll know exactly how many minutes to midnight we are.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bradley13 on Saturday January 05 2019, @08:26PM (6 children)
The very existence of a secret court tells us everything we need to know. Such things do not exist in republics or democracies.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 05 2019, @11:35PM (5 children)
Apparently they do, citizen.
(Score: 2) by Lester on Sunday January 06 2019, @11:36AM (4 children)
No, they don't.
They exist in nations that are democracies only in appearence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 06 2019, @02:15PM (3 children)
In other words, they exist in every democracy.
I think democracy is like communism. Nobody can implement the pure ideal in a real government.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday January 06 2019, @04:48PM
Well, amazingly enough, the U.S. existed for roughly two centuries without a secret court. Sure, there have been cases where some documents in a case were sealed or partially redacted to the public. But an entire court operating in secret? The U.S. functioned fine without one for a long time. (Whether or not the U.S. qualifies as a "democracy" is a separate question -- it depends on what you mean by "democracy.")
What changed? Well, the FISA court has its roots in the Nixon scandal. Nixon (and some presidents before him) had been using the FBI and other agencies to order surveillance without oversight. The idea of the FISA court was to provide oversight for that process -- so rather than unilateral decisions made within the Executive Branch, there should at least be some judicial oversight with warrants.
Of course, we know what happened then. The FISA court became a "rubber stamp" for such actions anyway; the first appeal of the government where they were denied didn't happen for 24 years after the court started in 1978, so that tells you how lenient the FISA court was even before 9/11.
Perhaps it is impossible in the real world for all court documents to be released without redaction in all cases. But that's far different from having dedicated secret courts that exist permanently in secret. And perhaps even more disturbing and problematic with the FISA court is that its proceedings are basically all "ex parte," that is, without representation of the accused or those impacted by its proceedings.
I personally would argue that's an even greater concern than an occasional sealed case file in a court. (Even SCOTUS has various sealed or partially redacted briefs/documents before it frequently, though that number has gone up significantly in recent years.) At least the basic records of adjudication should ALWAYS be available for public review, and the Due Process requirement should allow an opportunity for those who are accused or affected by court actions to have a representative to defend themselves or argue on their behalf.
The Bill of Rights built in a number of phrases deliberately targeting against such secret actions (as had been common in, for example, the English Star Chamber). And while I'm not going to claim there weren't occasional absuses in the court system over the first 200 years or so of the U.S., by and large "secret courts" were not a part of the U.S. during that time.
It's a bit absurd and paradoxical -- and I daresay mysterious -- that SCOTUS continues to release occasional rulings that do rein in law enforcement warrants and surveillance, while the FISA court (who is appointed by the Chief Justice) just rubber-stamps massive surveillance.
Of course, the problem with an "ex parte" court is that it's difficult if not impossible for defendants to get standing to challenge something in court, which is partly the reason why a lot of this stuff never comes under review by SCOTUS.
(Score: 2) by Lester on Monday January 07 2019, @09:59AM (1 child)
No, they don't. At least in my country, Spain, there is no secret court. There are terrorism laws that allow more power to police, but sooner or later, they are accountable.
Every government wants the power and not being accountable. Democracy Governments are not different. That is what democratic institutions were made for: to control government. They don't always work and governments try to circumvent them and many times they success. But a secret court is not trying to circumvent discreetly democratic institutions, it is saying "Democratic controls are applied only when I want"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:37PM
Are you sure that "things" don't "happen" because there is no secret court to authorize it? As in, this cannot be allowed to happen and get out in the open courts, so we'll do it but hide it anyway?
Given the relatively recent (historically), murderous, fascist history of Spain (Franco), I have my doubts that attitude doesn't still exist in certain pockets.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 05 2019, @11:38PM (1 child)
Boring... let us know when they start chopping these journalists up in embassies and then we'll get concerned.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Sunday January 06 2019, @08:20AM
They've shot a few in the back and suicided at least one that I can think of. Good enough?
(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.