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Trump Backs Limits on Secret Surveillance Court
- alexfromapex 7y agoNice to have politicians help the people and not the cabal for once
- new_realist 7y agoHe is helping himself, by removing oversight on his activities with respect to covert contacts with Russian agents.
- kyleee 7y agoHow so?
- roenxi 7y agoAdmitting to not being an expert in American politics; but the FISA court was obviously going to be a disaster when it was established. It has been discovered that in recent times it was used to investigate an incoming presidential candidate (!) and set up years of harassment that seem to have eventually sorta died down to a general background murmuring based on it not being a major component of his impeachment. The worst-case path forward is for Trump to organise for Bernie Sanders, or whoever the next Democratic candidate is, to be secretly investigated via the FISA court for potential Russia links. Any move towards limiting (or ideally disbanding) the FISA court really should transcend politics. The worst case of the FISA court is horrific, and the expected case (which is really where we are now) is bad.
- cvwright 7y agoRight wingers used to post a low effort meme along the lines of, “WTF I love ____ now” or “WTF I hate ____ now”. Now for whatever reason, people in this thread have decided to prove them right, by acting out the meme in real time.
- benmmurphy 7y agoI think the FISA court was originally introduced because the State was abusing its power by illegally spying on citizens and the FISA court was meant to replace this unregulated illegal spying with legal spying regulated by a court. I guess the better solution may have been to stop the spying all together but FISA court was probably an improvement on the existing practices.
- tic_tac 7y agoIsn't anyone who opposes secret surveillance with minimal oversight "helping themselves"?
- new_realist 7y agoWarrants are required for FISA activities, and the surveillance is limited to non-citizens.
- staticautomatic 7y ago> the surveillance is limited to non-citizens How many times have we heard that one before?
- new_realist 7y agoThe FBI and local law enforcement can already investigate citizens in accordance with due process. Are you saying the FBI shouldn’t also have the power to investigate foreign governments or agents?
- 8note 7y agoisn't it communications with non-citizens? I imagine the government can twist that to mean that if a non-citizens could see it, then the government can access it legally.
- derision 7y agoSo Carter Page is a non-citizen? Because the FBI was granted a FISA warrant to surveil him, and the Trump though the two hop rule? Not to mention it's been stated publicly by the OIG that the FBI used falsified evidence to receive those warrants
- tic_tac 7y agoThe Leftist aligned media that many (most?) on HN follow, like MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, etc do not report on these things, so what you're describing will either be ignored completely or derided as a "conspiracy theory".
- mc32 7y agoAre you saying that pretty much Nixon should have been okay to have his intelligence organs spy on his opponents? The fact that some intelligence apparatuses were spying on congress people[1] is something that should not have happened; it did but there have been no repercussions for that. How did Brennan get away with that? [1]https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/a-brief-history-of-the-cias-unpunished-spying-on-the-senate/384003/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/a-brief...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- luxuryballs 7y agoBut he’s the President so even without the flawed premise what you’re saying makes no sense.
- soraminazuki 7y agoYou don’t need unconstitutional mass surveillance to investigate any of those things. I’m sick of people using terrorists, foreign agents, child exploiters, bigtech, or whatever else they come up with to justify government abuses.
- hristov 7y agoThat is cute, but until the law passes, it means absolutely nothing. Trump has changed his mind and done 180 degree reversals so many times that this means nothing.
- kyleee 7y agoDo you support the change?
- ajross 7y agoI don't understand why downvotes on this site are so partisan. The above statement is objectively correct: since inauguration, the Trump administration has "signaled support" (the standard of evidence in the linked article) for: gun control legislation, marijuana legalization, infrastructure stimulus, "insurance for everybody" (yes, really), judiciary term limits, and the list goes on. Statements come out of this white house that have absolutely no grounding in political reality, and positions change as soon as his support base in congress gets the president on the phone. The phrasing may be glib, but the point is real: no one trust this white house. Not democrats, not republicans. Statements of support mean absolutely nothing, and I'm willing to be very large sums that McConnell will simply kill this silently. Paul will just stop talking about it, and we'll all forget.
- duckMuppet 7y agoYes... But you see he's on the wrong team. The reality is you're exactly right.. His administration is essentially a policy clone of JFK or bill Clinton even... Ironically, he's pulled most of the Republicans that far left with him. The democrats are essentially progressive socialists, they've been there since the Bush era. True conservatives (smaller more limited govt, less spending, less foreign intervention) are tragically homeless. But most of the time feel compelled to vote with big red, because the other side, as the Bernie bro said on camera, are looking to put anyone not part of their camp into reeducation and labor training. And they all are ok with it, they just get angry at Bernie for saying it out loud.
- Fjolsvith 7y agoIts not what you say, its what you do.
- dragonwriter 7y agoI'm more concerned with limiting executive surveillance than limiting the court that oversees certain executive surveillance.
- Fjolsvith 7y agoExactly. Make it apply to all current and future presidents.