Thats an entire nothing burger as it relates to what the FISA courts do.
What was the crime?
I’m all for expanding the scope of things that are “illegal” in law enforcement/law, but this really doesn’t feel like it has an issue with actual law in anything, save how it makes law enforcement/investigators feel like they can’t trust each other or can’t cooperate with each other on a case when they’ve been “crossed” in some way. Which seems to me to be more likely to occur as a matter of human nature, and not the law.
@Zach – Yeah, the whole thing about the FISA court just does not pass the smell test, and you could do a lot worse than to read the book, “The Shadow Factory”. It really will help you to understand what is going on. And it is a matter of fact that the FISA court was used to investigate journalists, and journalists were spied upon by the FBI.
You can’t keep saying that stuff from the Whitehouse (and the Justice Department) without there being a reason to do so, other than political point scoring.
@Joe – There is no such thing as not being able to trust someone else with the knowledge of what it is you have. So the idea that you won’t be able to cooperate with someone on a case because they have crossed you is bullshit.
So you won’t ever give anyone access to any information they want to share about your case, or talk about it on a regular basis, with anyone. Good luck with that.
@Mike in DC – Yeah, there was no crime here, and the only one who knew that was Comey. There really shouldn’t have been anything there that required an extra secret court to make law enforcement more comfortable.
I’m not for this at all… but do think that the secret court needs to be fixed. And this might be a place for that. At least the secrecy of the proceedings. And of course the power that they hold over our lives.
A bit further into the transcript, and I cannot help thinking that this is another way of using the FBI and DOJ to attack the Trump administration in every way possible. But a more sinister way.
@Laura – I’m not talking about having to give up everything – that would be unconstitutional. I am talking about the idea of a judge making a decision that can result in someone getting killed, and only them knowing about it for years.
I am really not sure why Comey thought that this was such a bad idea. He didn’t even know why it was bad, other than it would affect the investigation – so why would you go with such an uninformed idea?
@Evan – Because Comey is too stupid to know what a judge should be able to do or not do in such a case?
But you can be sure that he knew that this was a crap idea and that it would set a bad example.
Which will make a judge want to make a decision which results in an investigation of someone who is not even a person the judge knows.
@Cynthia – It is no secret to anyone in the US that the US is currently engaged in foreign espionage, not only in Russia, but in other countries as well. And, frankly, who does not know that the US is spying on everyone in the world. And everyone on Earth knows that the US government collects large volumes of information on everyone who might conceivably pose a security risk to the US.
What we do not know is how much data the FBI, DOJ and other federal agencies are collecting about citizens of the US.
@DannyD – I wasn’t saying anything of the sort. But if I may say so, I do not believe this is just some one off case, or a one off situation.
One of the main reasons I think Comey took the action he did, and why he would keep quiet about it for over a year – until Trump and Sessions got elected, is that the fact he is a partisan. He works for the DNC.
Trump is not happy about this, nor is he happy about Comey’s actions during the election, which may have tipped it for Hillary.
Don’t think Comey is dumb. He is simply playing a partisan role, and for reasons, like most people who are working for the DNC, they are on the right side of history.
Trump is the antithesis of a progressive, and he and the GOP have no real policies – just bigotry against people who look or sound different or who do not hold exactly the same religious and political beliefs as they do.
So if he were to go after a progressive-leaning, progressive politician in a very public way that makes him look bad, it would do him no good. Just the opposite. So he is playing by the rules, which at the moment has been to go after those on the left in the most negative way possible – from the outside, out of power.
@RachelC – I agree, we have no idea what the rules actually say. And even Comey admits this was no standard procedure.
But there has always been an idea in all countries that there has to be a balance between security and freedom.
The idea of a secret court that is not known about is also not new, or a bad idea. And you don’t want a judge actually making any decisions in the first place.
But I still do not know the procedure for making decisions by the FISA court and what the FISA court did here – because Comey never mentions it.
I don’t know about the FISA court, because I haven’t seen the report. The only information I have seen was in the memo, which doesn’t really give much more info.
And the FISA court only makes decisions when it comes to wiretaps.
I do know for certain that I will find out the truth of this case when it is officially made public and presented to the public. Because the American people should have the right to know the truth, or if there is something wrong with how our government is run.
@Robert – The president has no ability to protect the president, or anyone else, from spying by a foreign power. We are caught in a kind of cold war now, in which the power to spy on everyone has been given to intelligence agencies by a foreign power, and has now been subcontracted to the president.
The United States is not in charge of its own affairs anymore. We cannot expect to protect our national interests.
@Cynthia – We are not so much in the cold war era as we are in a civil war between the deep state, and the rest of the population.
It is becoming clearer to me that we will become nothing more than a totalitarian government controlled by what used to be called a “deep state.”
@Laura – But as people who had a hand in how this went down, they need to take responsibility for their actions and stop trying to create more fake news.
The FBI is not a law enforcement agency; it is a political entity that has taken the power of the people, because the law is never going to say that the president of the US can not be assassinated.
And Comey has said that it is okay for the FBI to do so – that there are no rules on it.
So the FBI is the secret police. And its leader is the director of the FBI.
@Aaron – What, they cannot go after a socialist candidate or someone who has spoken out against the NSA or spied on our own citizens because he or she is a US citizen?
And again, Comey isn’t stupid. He is just a partisan. And has taken a political job in which he has to take sides.
I know people may think that I am taking a partisan view, but I really don’t want to. I am just trying to get to the truth in this case.
@Evan – A lot of the people around Trump were and are Republicans.
But the Republican party has never been about the Constitution, or the laws of the land. The party has always been about winning elections. And winning elections by any means necessary.
If they win – the American people can have their republic back.
For those who think I am biased or trying to put them in a box, I would like to say that I don’t know who you are or where you stand, but your ideas on America and its future should be welcome on these pages, and I would encourage you to get involved with others who are on the same page you are.
@Aaron – I just thought of something: How would you feel if this happened to a progressive candidate, Republican or Democratic, who is running for President in the future? Do you think this is fair?
I have no doubt that this is about the NSA spying on people who
