What concerns me is that apparently a large number of people in the FBI knew about what amounts to a witch hunt on a presidential candidate and no whistle blowers ever came out to expose it, even after the fact. This guy retired years ago and has nothing to lose so I’m not particularly impressed. The FBI should be reformed from the ground up or replaced with a new explicitly non political organization.
It really is unbelievable, and unacceptable, that so many people took part in this and not a single one step forward to stop it.
And so it’s sort of the same type of situation with this other program. I have no doubt, or very little doubt that it was used for political spying or political espionage.”. – Retired FBI Special Agent Bassem Youssef
Like I dunno, you suppose Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn?
Also this: Youssef said that in September 2014, shortly before he retired, he was invited to brief Comey privately about his concerns in the director’s office.
“It was a very lengthy briefing,” Youssef recalled. “He was very interactive. He asked very good questions. And after I explained everything to him, his only concern was not that we should shut it down, or that we should change it so that we can protect civil liberties … his concern was, do you have a problem or concerns with the statutory authority?”
Because Comey had a duty to a higher authority?
The whole FISA mechanism is broken. But I think it would be unwise to go back to what we had before FISA. Rather I’d like to see it reformed and given real teeth. I’d fire all the existing judges who misunderstand their role as primarily administrators and facilitators, with real bench judges drawn from the appellate courts and appointed by the Supreme Court Justices. There should be a pool of FISA judges to pull from and the job rotated between them with fixed terms. Also there should always be three judges sitting to hear the petitions and require a majority vote to approve a warrant. (That may be the case now) There also MUST be installed a public defender (also drawn from a pool of seasoned federal prosecutors with a fixed term and appointed by the Supreme Court) with the power to request subpoenas to be issued by the court. and to argue against cases brought by the intelligence agencies for domestic spying. Warrants issued by the court can remain sealed only up to 50 years. Then they are publicly archived as part of the federal judiciary. The court MUST have the power to remand criminal behavior in violation of the law to the federal criminal courts. And furthermore I would remain skeptical of the whole process until such a prosecution was brought and an abuser of the system sent to jail for criminal malfeasance. No FBI agent should dare be cavalier about the FISA court ever again.
What concerns me is that apparently a large number of people in the FBI knew about what amounts to a witch hunt on a presidential candidate and no whistle blowers ever came out to expose it, even after the fact. This guy retired years ago and has nothing to lose so I’m not particularly impressed. The FBI should be reformed from the ground up or replaced with a new explicitly non political organization.
It really is unbelievable, and unacceptable, that so many people took part in this and not a single one step forward to stop it.
And so it’s sort of the same type of situation with this other program. I have no doubt, or very little doubt that it was used for political spying or political espionage.”. – Retired FBI Special Agent Bassem Youssef
Like I dunno, you suppose Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn?
Also this:
Youssef said that in September 2014, shortly before he retired, he was invited to brief Comey privately about his concerns in the director’s office.
“It was a very lengthy briefing,” Youssef recalled. “He was very interactive. He asked very good questions. And after I explained everything to him, his only concern was not that we should shut it down, or that we should change it so that we can protect civil liberties … his concern was, do you have a problem or concerns with the statutory authority?”
Because Comey had a duty to a higher authority?
The whole FISA mechanism is broken. But I think it would be unwise to go back to what we had before FISA. Rather I’d like to see it reformed and given real teeth. I’d fire all the existing judges who misunderstand their role as primarily administrators and facilitators, with real bench judges drawn from the appellate courts and appointed by the Supreme Court Justices. There should be a pool of FISA judges to pull from and the job rotated between them with fixed terms. Also there should always be three judges sitting to hear the petitions and require a majority vote to approve a warrant. (That may be the case now) There also MUST be installed a public defender (also drawn from a pool of seasoned federal prosecutors with a fixed term and appointed by the Supreme Court) with the power to request subpoenas to be issued by the court. and to argue against cases brought by the intelligence agencies for domestic spying. Warrants issued by the court can remain sealed only up to 50 years. Then they are publicly archived as part of the federal judiciary. The court MUST have the power to remand criminal behavior in violation of the law to the federal criminal courts. And furthermore I would remain skeptical of the whole process until such a prosecution was brought and an abuser of the system sent to jail for criminal malfeasance. No FBI agent should dare be cavalier about the FISA court ever again.