Declassified memos show FBI illegally shared spy data on Americans with private parties

[smilesammich 10,727]

2 minutes ago, ready4ONE said:

Pardon me for being short on time to review the groundbreaking news from circa.com (a website that I have never heard of) and assuming that their earth shattering news is the kernel source for the Faux News follow up which is the 'legitimate' news source which confirms the circa.com bombshell. We have seen this movie before and it is never very good. 

they're owned by sinclair broadcast group. heard of them? 

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-campaign-sinclair-broadcasting-jared-kushner-232764

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/05/09/trump-uses-power-fcc-pay-back-friends-sinclair-broadcasting

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/trump-spokesman-boris-epshteyn-sinclair-broadcast-group-1202032200/

[Dashinka 25,887]

Just now, smilesammich said:

they're owned by sinclair broadcast group. heard of them? 

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-campaign-sinclair-broadcasting-jared-kushner-232764

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/05/09/trump-uses-power-fcc-pay-back-friends-sinclair-broadcasting

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/trump-spokesman-boris-epshteyn-sinclair-broadcast-group-1202032200/

So what?  They made up the FISA documents that the other reporters from the NYTimes, or WaPo should have been researching?

[smilesammich 10,727]

Just now, Bill & Katya said:

So what?  They made up the FISA documents that the other reporters from the NYTimes, or WaPo should have been researching?

no one's saying they made up the documents. i don't trust circa's assessment of the documents, i wouldn't trust my own assessment of the documents because 1. i don't have the attention span to read the 99 pages 2. i hardly know what the 99 pages reveal, it definitely didn't come together for me in the first couple pages ..so i need a source i trust (not sbg) to figure out what the 99 pages actually mean. you say you read the whole thing and circa's assessment is good enough for you, i'm can't say i'm surprised. but its not good enough for me.

[Dashinka 25,887]

2 minutes ago, smilesammich said:

no one's saying they made up the documents. i don't trust circa's assessment of the documents, i wouldn't trust my own assessment of the documents because 1. i don't have the attention span to read the 99 pages 2. i hardly know what the 99 pages reveal, it definitely didn't come together for me in the first couple pages ..so i need a source i trust (not sbg) to figure out what the 99 pages actually mean. you say you read the whole thing and circa's assessment is good enough for you, i'm can't say i'm surprised. but its not good enough for me.

I am not sure if you have looked lately, but there are no trusted sources in the media (Left, Right, or Center).  Personally, I hadn't heard of Circa either until they wrote this story, but going through their page, they seem much more middle of the road than anyone else out there.  Heck, they are not ignoring the Jared K. story like the (I am assuming trusted sources by your standards) NYTimes, or WaPo is ignoring this story.

 

Take it for what it is worth, but if this pans out, it is much more of assault on our democracy and 4th Amendment rights than anything those sources are covering right now.

[smilesammich 10,727]

11 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

I am not sure if you have looked lately, but there are no trusted sources in the media (Left, Right, or Center).  Personally, I hadn't heard of Circa either until they wrote this story, but going through their page, they seem much more middle of the road than anyone else out there.  Heck, they are not ignoring the Jared K. story like the (I am assuming trusted sources by your standards) NYTimes, or WaPo is ignoring this story.

 

Take it for what it is worth, but if this pans out, it is much more of assault on our democracy and 4th Amendment rights than anything those sources are covering right now.

where does one look to find that there are no trusted sources in the media?

 

you don't think there is any weight to any of the trump investigations, why would i consider your assessment that this piece is much worse? i see coverage leading back to the circa post from zerohedge and infowars. that tells me something's not right. and it's probably the assessment from circa.

[yuna628 9,873]

Let's not kid ourselves...

What do the conservative leaning individuals here that currently believe this and some information about spying on citizens contained in a couple other threads is really all about? What do they think the Patriot Act was all about? Where were they when a couple years back, the alarm bells were going off about numerous NSA programs out there to spy, steal, and share information on citizens in the interest 'of safety'? With few exceptions, under the Bush administration all of these actions and more were supported. There was some bipartisan pushback I personally recall, but all fell on deaf ears. We are told it's supposed to make us safer, and in the example of the source material for the article in this thread the FBI acknowledges that:

 

Quote

FBI officials acknowledged there have been violations but insist they are a small percentage of the total counterterrorism and counterintelligence work its agents perform.

Almost all are unintentional human errors by good-intentioned agents and analysts under enormous pressure to stop the next major terror attack, the officials said.

Which is pretty much what the government has been saying every time they make an oopsie. Think this stuff only went on during the Obama admin? Nope. It was going on before, was expanded after, and I'm pretty sure is still going on now with the current admin. There's a program called CISPA and NCFTA (that I can think of off the top of my head) but this stuff has been going even before that, maybe even late 80s into the mid 90s at least. They share info with private entities, and the entities share info with them. They also can use a private sort of 'backchannel' via the NCFTA to dump info 'indirectly-directly' to the FBI. It makes sense to me that in the course of 'investigative work' and requesting info that it would be cross-shared.

The memo which circa reviewed, also noted only one instance of an agent sharing info with a 'forbidden party'.

 

Also let's not overlook another point made in the article: That back in 2015 Amy Jeffress (former natsec advisor to Attorney Gen Holder) was appointed by the court to review and do an assessment of wrongdoing. Her findings of agents utilizing, sharing, and doing whatever with the  data collected by the NSA was pretty damning. But as the article notes:

Quote

The court thanked Jeffress for her thoughtful analysis but ultimately rejected her recommendation to impose on the FBI a requirement of creating a written justification why each search would help pursue a national security or criminal matter.

So ask yourself exactly why the court is so shocked and surprised now, when her recommendations were not taken up in the first place? And despite the most recent findings noted in this memo: the court still seems to be okay with it. This means that while circa's headline is very catchy, it ultimately means a hill of beans, if the checks and balances believe that illegal acts in a supposed 'tiny capacity' pose no significant threat to our liberties and a worthwhile tradeoff for our safety. We only have ourselves to blame.

[smilesammich 10,727]

now, ^^ this assessment ^^ i trust. very mor. i like it.

 

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

1 hour ago, Bill & Katya said:

I am not sure if you have looked lately, but there are no trusted sources in the media (Left, Right, or Center).  Personally, I hadn't heard of Circa either until they wrote this story, but going through their page, they seem much more middle of the road than anyone else out there.  Heck, they are not ignoring the Jared K. story like the (I am assuming trusted sources by your standards) NYTimes, or WaPo is ignoring this story.

 

Take it for what it is worth, but if this pans out, it is much more of assault on our democracy and 4th Amendment rights than anything those sources are covering right now.

The way I read the report, quickly, 4 US citizens were caught up in intelligence gathering where the other end of the communication was outside of the country and that information was shared with private individuals which is a violation of law and protocol.   I don't have time to read 90 pages.

 

From the report

"Almost all are unintentional human errors by good-intentioned agents and analysts under enormous pressure to stop the next major terror attack, the officials said."

Edited May 26, 2017 by ccneat

[Dashinka 25,887]

1 hour ago, smilesammich said:

where does one look to find that there are no trusted sources in the media?

 

you don't think there is any weight to any of the trump investigations, why would i consider your assessment that this piece is much worse? i see coverage leading back to the circa post from zerohedge and infowars. that tells me something's not right. and it's probably the assessment from circa.

I would consider it if there was any actual evidence, or underlying crime.  The FBI has been at it for nearly a year and nothing.  Give me something other than conjecture and I will consider it.

[Dashinka 25,887]

38 minutes ago, ccneat said:

The way I read the report, quickly, 4 US citizens were caught up in intelligence gathering where the other end of the communication was outside of the country and that information was shared with private individuals which is a violation of law and protocol.   I don't have time to read 90 pages.

 

From the report

"Almost all are unintentional human errors by good-intentioned agents and analysts under enormous pressure to stop the next major terror attack, the officials said."

Where is everyone getting 90+ pages?  It is like 33 and they are all one or two paragraphs.  Took me about five minutes to read.

 

Here is another excerpt.

 

"But a respected former Justice Department national security prosecutor questions if the searching has gotten too cavalier. AmyJeffress, the former top security adviser to former Attorney General Eric Holder, was appointed by the intelligence court in 2015 to give anindependent assessmentof the FBI’s record of compliance.

 

Jeffress concluded agents’ searches of NSA data now extend far beyond national security issues and thus were “overstepping” the constitutional protections designed to ensure the bureau isn’t violating Americans’ 4th Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure.

“The FBI procedures allow for really virtually unrestricted querying of the Section 702 data in a way the NSA and CIA have restrained it through their procedures,” she argued before the court in a sealed 2015 proceeding."

 

 

[smilesammich 10,727]

10 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

I would consider it if there was any actual evidence, or underlying crime.  The FBI has been at it for nearly a year and nothing.  Give me something other than conjecture and I will consider it.

you keep saying that and i just don't get where you're coming from. 

[Dashinka 25,887]

1 hour ago, yuna628 said:

Let's not kid ourselves...

What do the conservative leaning individuals here that currently believe this and some information about spying on citizens contained in a couple other threads is really all about? What do they think the Patriot Act was all about? Where were they when a couple years back, the alarm bells were going off about numerous NSA programs out there to spy, steal, and share information on citizens in the interest 'of safety'? With few exceptions, under the Bush administration all of these actions and more were supported. There was some bipartisan pushback I personally recall, but all fell on deaf ears. We are told it's supposed to make us safer, and in the example of the source material for the article in this thread the FBI acknowledges that:

 

Which is pretty much what the government has been saying every time they make an oopsie. Think this stuff only went on during the Obama admin? Nope. It was going on before, was expanded after, and I'm pretty sure is still going on now with the current admin. There's a program called CISPA and NCFTA (that I can think of off the top of my head) but this stuff has been going even before that, maybe even late 80s into the mid 90s at least. They share info with private entities, and the entities share info with them. They also can use a private sort of 'backchannel' via the NCFTA to dump info 'indirectly-directly' to the FBI. It makes sense to me that in the course of 'investigative work' and requesting info that it would be cross-shared.

The memo which circa reviewed, also noted only one instance of an agent sharing info with a 'forbidden party'.

 

Also let's not overlook another point made in the article: That back in 2015 Amy Jeffress (former natsec advisor to Attorney Gen Holder) was appointed by the court to review and do an assessment of wrongdoing. Her findings of agents utilizing, sharing, and doing whatever with the  data collected by the NSA was pretty damning. But as the article notes:

So ask yourself exactly why the court is so shocked and surprised now, when her recommendations were not taken up in the first place? And despite the most recent findings noted in this memo: the court still seems to be okay with it. This means that while circa's headline is very catchy, it ultimately means a hill of beans, if the checks and balances believe that illegal acts in a supposed 'tiny capacity' pose no significant threat to our liberties and a worthwhile tradeoff for our safety. We only have ourselves to blame.

So you are fine with any Administration using this for potentially political reasons?  I wasn't for the Patriot Act then, and not for it now. I would hope, although I have no faith, that the Congress would reign in the Section 702 program, but most likely they won't change it and it will just get worse.

[smilesammich 10,727]

4 minutes ago, Bill & Katya said:

Where is everyone getting 90+ pages?  It is like 33 and they are all one or two paragraphs.  Took me about five minutes to read.

 

Here is another excerpt.

 

"But a respected former Justice Department national security prosecutor questions if the searching has gotten too cavalier. AmyJeffress, the former top security adviser to former Attorney General Eric Holder, was appointed by the intelligence court in 2015 to give anindependent assessmentof the FBI’s record of compliance.

 

Jeffress concluded agents’ searches of NSA data now extend far beyond national security issues and thus were “overstepping” the constitutional protections designed to ensure the bureau isn’t violating Americans’ 4th Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure.

“The FBI procedures allow for really virtually unrestricted querying of the Section 702 data in a way the NSA and CIA have restrained it through their procedures,” she argued before the court in a sealed 2015 proceeding."

 

 

https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/icotr/51117/2016_Cert_FISC_Memo_Opin_Order_Apr_2017.pdf

[Dashinka 25,887]

1 minute ago, smilesammich said:

you keep saying that and i just don't get where you're coming from. 

I think it is pretty clear.  Show me the evidence.

[smilesammich 10,727]

Just now, Bill & Katya said:

I think it is pretty clear.  Show me the evidence.

smh. active investigations, ongoing. sit tight.