FISA Expansion and Abuse

"The government's been in bed with the entire telecommunications industry since the 1940s. They've infected everything. They get into your bank statements, computer files, email, listen to your phone calls...Every wire, every airwave. The more technology used, the easier it is for them to keep tabs on you. It's a brave new world out there. At least it'd better be."
--Brill (Enemy of the State)

Judge Nap offers current thoughts on happenings related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Several weeks back, the House Intelligence Committee drafted a memo summarizing results of its investigation into spying abuses by the NSA and FBI. The abuses purportedly sketched by the memo span the last year of the Obama administration and the first year of the Trump administration.

Since the memo's existence became known, calls have escalated for releasing the memo to the public so that the people can understand what the investigation and its findings entail. If what some members of Congress who have read the memo (but are sworn not to divulge its details while it remains confidential) say is true, then the findings will be quite revealing regarding the subversive activities emanating from the Deep State.

During the time that the House Intelligence Committee was sitting on its memo, Congress was putting the finishing touches on legislation that would expand FISA-related surveillance power of the federal government. After passing the House, the bill passed the Senate with no votes to spare and subsequently signed into law by President Trump.

Judge Nap contends that if the memo had been made public prior to the congressional vote, then there was no way that the 'FISA expansion' law would have passed the Senate. Further, he argues that members of the House Intelligence Committee are guilty of misconduct in office by concealing evidence of spying abuses by federal agencies while their congressional colleagues were debating and voting on the very issue of domestic spying.

The Judge also poses the question: Why would members of the House Intelligence Committee engage in such misconduct? His answer is that the intelligence community today exerts tremendous influence over elected officials. Because it possesses capacity to reveal politically charged information at its discretion, the NSA flexes its muscles in the face of government officials who are supposed to be the regulators. In reality, the NSA regulates the government officials.

Subsequent to the passage of the FISA expansion, Congress and the president have signaled their intent to release the memo. This has the intelligence community backpedaling. Several of them, including the Deputy Director of the FBI, have already hit the eject buttons.

If the memo made public and reads as advertised, the perhaps a critical number of eyes will be opened to the infringement on liberty being perpetrated by the feds.