Live in Obedient Fear, Citizen!

I am shocked, shocked, I find that the FBI is routinely abusing the FISA process to engage in unconstitutional search and seizure. (Note: I know that this guy is a right-winger, but the facts are solid.)

This is the nature of any law enforcement agency, they will abuse their powers.

This is even more true for the spawn of the twisted mind of J. Edgar Hoover:

Today, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued a new report on the FBI’s “Execution of its Woods Procedures for Applications Filed with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Relating to US Persons.” It’s damning for the FBI.

Before we get to the Inspector General’s findings, a bit of background is important. The FISA Court is a secret court where the government is present but the accused is not. As IG Horowitz explains:

“Unlike the use of other intrusive investigative techniques (such as wiretaps under Title III and traditional criminal search warrants) that are granted in ex parte hearings but can potentially be subject to later court challenge, FISA orders generally have not been subject to scrutiny through subsequent adversarial proceedings.”

Because this is an ex parte hearing, the DOJ/FBI have heightened duties of candor. According to the FISA Court’s local rules, the government is required to disclose all material facts and correct any misstatements of material facts:

Last year, IG Horowitz reviewed 29 random FISA applications. He found “that the FBI was not meeting the expectations of its own protocols.” As he reported in March 2020:

………

More concerning are the latest discoveries after an audit of more FISA applications. These include:

“over 400 instances of non-compliance with the Woods Procedures in connection with those 29 FISA applications”

“over 7,000 FISA applications authorized between January 2015 and March 2020, there were at least 179 instances in which the Woods File required by FBI policy was missing in whole or in part”

I'm not expecting much to come from this, after all, as the author notes, when an FBI lawyer got caught falsifying evidence, all he got was probation.