Surveillance Comments

Surveillance Comments By Congresspeople Wyden, Feinstein

FISA, The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

FISA is a cornerstone surveillance act, on which the Patriot Act, Library Lists, Plane Lists and other surveillance acts and laws rest.  Remove FISA and their legal capability becomes very shaky.  Repeal FISA and then end these intrusive, invasive harmful methods of spying on innocent American citizens.  If FISA is not repealed, these acts and laws may remain for years.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA seems a rebirth of the Cointelpro program and the Blacklist.  The elements of each are the same.  One’s placement in any of those programs is based on a subjective interpretation of everyday common events, at some point deemed anti-American or subversive (without a judge or jury). These same activities, originally called Cointelpro, now, have become secret, through Title 50 Chapter 36.

To be placed on the Blacklist (1956), an innocent comment, such as actor Will Geer made, praising the Russian theater, resulted in him being placed on the Blacklist.  This negatively impacted his acting career. Lucille Ball’s grandfather was on a Communist Party roll.  That got her placed on the “List”.  Similarly, in 2018, with FISA enacted, it is possible that one’s conversation with an Afghanistani or Iranian  taxi driver, about life and war, and one’s perceptions, could get one on the FISA list.

We all have thoughts on the theater, Russian or other, life, and war.  Should voicing them, put U.S. military intelligence in our bedrooms – and put us at the risk of directed energy surveillance devices/ weapons, which DARPA furnishes to military contractors doing the surveillance, as allowed by Title 50, Chapter 36? 1.

Normally, warrants require “probable cause”, that a crime is being planned or committed.  But FISA warrants do not.  They require only that the FBI show probable cause to believe that “the target of the electronic surveillance is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.”2.  This was the same prerequisite of the earlier Cointelpro activities.  Will Geer praised the Russian theater, therefore, “he must be a Communist.”  Flawed reasoning, then, had these people placed on a “list”, resulting in their lives and careers, being ruined.

Ramasastry at Findlaw, writes of this non-evidential process leading to surveillance: “Amazingly, even if the defendants move to suppress evidence resulting from the wiretaps and microphones from being offered at trial, they may still not have a chance to see the warrant applicants.  The government will show them only to a “FISA Judge” – along with the underlying evidence, and an affidavit from the U.S. Attorney General’s Office stating that releasing the material would harm national security.

Without the benefit of adversary briefing, the judge will then rule on whether the warrants satisfied the law.  Defendants will still remain in the dark – and when the motion is decided, they’ll receive yet another ruling based on secret evidence.” 3.  IBID

All of the elements of Cointelpro, are present in FISA, only they have become secret.  Placement on the FISA list takes the place of individual warrants and these people are accused of no crime.  Those acts which infringe  rights for a criminal thief, or drug dealer, in the FISA situation, can occur, to unknowing uncharged citizens.  – this infringement/denial of rights, under FISA, includes due process and Fourth Amendment rights.