Comey Lied? Trump Vindicated? Nobody's Safe From The PATRIOT Act...

[Dschrute3]

What a mess, right? This surveillance stuff is so out of control.

 

[flacaltenn]

What a mess, right? This surveillance stuff is so out of control.

Of course it's out of control. And the public and the media don't understand the terminology. Bulk collections means spying indiscriminatly on every electronic communication in America by the world's BEST spy agency. It's authorized by sections of Patriot Act and INTERPRETED to be much more power than originally intended. These bulk collections of massive amounts of data are authorized by a "BLANKET" FISA warrant. They are constantly ongoing and require NO declared investigation to collect and store the data. There is no other judicial review to "collect and store" all this information.

Where the discretion and legality of LOOKING AT or analyzing or transcripting, or REVEALING any of this info comes in -- is that any of those mentioned actions have to fit a short list of situations for ANY CLEARED person to initiative an action. So when the Congress Critters say things like these "political conversations" might have been "incidentally collected" there are not lying. But when they take the step and claim the data was "LEGALLY OBTAINED" --- that's debatable. Because a lot of folks are convinced that hiring NSA to spy domestically is a TERRIBLE abuse of Civil Liberties in the 1st place and likely unconstitutional.

So -- there are authorized "legal and debatable" collections of MOST electronic communications. Where it goes HORRIBLY wrong is if political partisans are triggering action items on doing the "analyzing, transcripting, and release" part without cause. Certainly we were told that there were transcripts of privileged convos that should NEVER have been analyzed or acted on from this system. If you DO that -- you're a traitor and criminal. But it's HIGHLY likely that the last minute Exec Orders from Obama greatly EXPANDED the circle of folks making these decisions. Taking the decisions OUT of the largely a-political Intel Deep areas and putting it into agencies with too many POLITICAL APPOINTEES running around.

That's the danger we're looking at here. That this bulk collection system which was authorized ostensibly to prevent the Islamic hordes from invading (and ONLY that reason) -- has now been weaponized and USED for political purposes.

So while all of you were arguing about whether Team Trump was "wiretapped" -- the real question is -- were they SPIED ON? In the legal sense of wiretap -- it does not APPLY to the PATRIOT act blanket FISA authorization. It's a term of art that been PURPOSELY lied about and obfuscated because the vast MAJORITY of Wash D.C. leaders -- on BOTH of the aisle --- don't ever want the American people to learn of any abuse of these awesome powers. So they will deflect and argue in public about whether it was a wiretap or collections -- But in private CLASSIFIED meetings --- they ALL know the difference.

And because the majority of Fed leadership just LOVES THEMSELF some Big Brother capability like this, BOTH sides will defend the PATRIOT Act provisions and keep us in the dark. This will either go real quiet real quick -- or it will escalate into a MAJOR nuclear showdown on political blackmail obtained from the HUGE mistake of allowing Domestic Spying to exist at all in the USA.

 

[Dschrute3]

What a mess, right? This surveillance stuff is so out of control.

Of course it's out of control. And the public and the media don't understand the terminology. Bulk collections means spying indiscrimatly on every electronic communication in America by the world's BEST spy agency. It's authorized by sections of Patriot Act and INTERPRETED to be much more power than originally intended. These bulk collections of massive amounts of data are authorized by a "BLANKET" FISA warrant. They are constantly ongoing and require NO declared investigation to collect and store the data. There is no other judicial review to "collect and store" all this information.

Where the discretion and legality of LOOKING AT or analyzing or transcripting, or REVEALING any of this info comes in -- is that any of those mentioned actions have to fit a short list of situations for ANY CLEARED person to initiative an action. So when the Congress Critters say things like these "political conversations" might have been "incidentally collected" there are not lying. But when they take the step and claim the data was "LEGALLY OBTAINED" --- that's debatable. Because a lot of folks are convinced that hiring NSA to spy domestically is a TERRIBLE abuse of Civil Liberties in the 1st place and likely unconstitutional.

So -- there are authorized "legal and debatable" collections of MOST electronic communications. Where it goes HORRIBLY wrong is if political partisans are triggering action items on doing the "analyzing, transcripting, and release" part without cause. Certainly we were told that there were transcripts of privileged convos that should NEVER have been analyzed or acted on from this system. If you DO that -- you're a traitor and criminal. But it's HIGHLY likely that the last minute Exec Orders from Obama greatly EXPANDED the circle of folks making these decisions. Taking the decisions OUT of the largely a-political Intel Deep areas and putting it into agencies with too many POLITICAL APPOINTEES running around.

That's the danger we're looking at here. That this bulk collection system which was authorized ostensibly to prevent the Islamic hordes from invading (and ONLY that reason) -- has now been weaponized and USED for political purposes.

So while all of you were arguing about whether Team Trump was "wiretapped" -- the real question is -- were they SPIED ON? In the legal sense of wiretap -- it does not APPLY to the PATRIOT act blanket FISA authorization. It's a term of art that been PURPOSELY lied about and obfuscated because the vast MAJORITY of Wash D.C. leaders -- on BOTH of the aisle --- don't ever want the American people to learn of any abuse of these awesome powers. So they will deflect and argue in public about whether it was a wiretap or collections -- But in private CLASSIFIED meetings --- they ALL know the difference.

And because the majority of Fed leadership just LOVES THEMSELF some Big Brother capability like this, BOTH sides will defend the PATRIOT Act provisions and keep us in the dark. This will either go real quiet real quick -- or it will escalate into a MAJOR nuclear showdown on political blackmail obtained from the HUGE mistake of allowing Domestic Spying to exist at all in the USA.

Dump the Patriot Act and NDAA. They're anything but 'Patriotic.'

 

[flacaltenn]

What a mess, right? This surveillance stuff is so out of control.

Of course it's out of control. And the public and the media don't understand the terminology. Bulk collections means spying indiscrimatly on every electronic communication in America by the world's BEST spy agency. It's authorized by sections of Patriot Act and INTERPRETED to be much more power than originally intended. These bulk collections of massive amounts of data are authorized by a "BLANKET" FISA warrant. They are constantly ongoing and require NO declared investigation to collect and store the data. There is no other judicial review to "collect and store" all this information.

Where the discretion and legality of LOOKING AT or analyzing or transcripting, or REVEALING any of this info comes in -- is that any of those mentioned actions have to fit a short list of situations for ANY CLEARED person to initiative an action. So when the Congress Critters say things like these "political conversations" might have been "incidentally collected" there are not lying. But when they take the step and claim the data was "LEGALLY OBTAINED" --- that's debatable. Because a lot of folks are convinced that hiring NSA to spy domestically is a TERRIBLE abuse of Civil Liberties in the 1st place and likely unconstitutional.

So -- there are authorized "legal and debatable" collections of MOST electronic communications. Where it goes HORRIBLY wrong is if political partisans are triggering action items on doing the "analyzing, transcripting, and release" part without cause. Certainly we were told that there were transcripts of privileged convos that should NEVER have been analyzed or acted on from this system. If you DO that -- you're a traitor and criminal. But it's HIGHLY likely that the last minute Exec Orders from Obama greatly EXPANDED the circle of folks making these decisions. Taking the decisions OUT of the largely a-political Intel Deep areas and putting it into agencies with too many POLITICAL APPOINTEES running around.

That's the danger we're looking at here. That this bulk collection system which was authorized ostensibly to prevent the Islamic hordes from invading (and ONLY that reason) -- has now been weaponized and USED for political purposes.

So while all of you were arguing about whether Team Trump was "wiretapped" -- the real question is -- were they SPIED ON? In the legal sense of wiretap -- it does not APPLY to the PATRIOT act blanket FISA authorization. It's a term of art that been PURPOSELY lied about and obfuscated because the vast MAJORITY of Wash D.C. leaders -- on BOTH of the aisle --- don't ever want the American people to learn of any abuse of these awesome powers. So they will deflect and argue in public about whether it was a wiretap or collections -- But in private CLASSIFIED meetings --- they ALL know the difference.

And because the majority of Fed leadership just LOVES THEMSELF some Big Brother capability like this, BOTH sides will defend the PATRIOT Act provisions and keep us in the dark. This will either go real quiet real quick -- or it will escalate into a MAJOR nuclear showdown on political blackmail obtained from the HUGE mistake of allowing Domestic Spying to exist at all in the USA.

Dump the Patriot Act and NDAA. They're anything but 'Patriotic.'

NDAA is just a funding mechanism for the Pentagon. But the PATRIOT concept in total needs to be re-evaluated. There was a blanket agreement that any of the major US Intel agencies were PROHIBITED from domestic operations prior to 9/11. They could tip off FBI and the Nat Counter-Terrorism agencies if they collected OVERSEAS communications, but couldn't run collections and spying and listening on EVERYTHING that gets said in America..

Certainly EXPANDING the "gate-keepers" like Obama did was a cynical, sadistic thing to do and needs to be put back in the box. And then -- a review of the ENTIRE Patriot Act is in order.

We have 3 major counter-terrorism centers already. Let them get WARRANTS on specific investigations that they want to conduct. OUTSIDE of the real Intel agencies. Places like CIA, DIA, NSA should be only focused on foreign intel and collections.