With the jaw-dropping revelation of former DOJ-NSD head Mary McCord being enlisted by the FISA Court as an Amici Curiae (advisor to the court) it is worthwhile revisiting this previous video explanation of the FISA Court.

John Spiropoulos does a great job outlining the history of the FISC looking the other way when the fourth amendment protections against searching American citizens electronic communication are violated by the FBI.  “Mistakes were made”… and made, and made, and made, and made….

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Prior to the December 9, 2019, inspector general report on FISA abuse, FISA Court judges Rosemary Collyer (declassified 2017) and James Boasberg (declassified 2019) both identified issues with the NSA bulk database collection program being exploited for unauthorized reasons.  Neither of them took any action against the FBI for warrantless searches of American citizen information.

So it should come as no surprise the 2020 report written again by James Boasberg, shows exactly the same issues still exist and the same unlawful abuses of the NSA database are still taking place.  Taking events at their face value it would appear the court is in alignment with the FBI and thus the abuses have continued.  Under that context Boasberg enlisting Mary McCord appears to be an institutional motive of covering-up the wrongdoing.

In order for corruption to continue advancing without consequence, those with institutional power have to pretend not to know things: “mistakes were made.”

Once again the FBI is outlined by the FISA court using the NSA database for warrantless searches of American citizen information.  This is the fourth consecutive year the FISA court has outlined identical abuse of the NSA database by FBI workers, contractors and officials.

The latest 67 page FISA compliance review for the year 2020 was written by FISA Court Presiding Judge James Boasberg (same judge from Clinesmith trial).  The opinion was written in November 2020 and declassified (with lots of redactions) in April 2021. [pdf version HERE] – [SCRIBD pdf HERE]

[…] In other words, the FBI is using FISA acquired information to investigate domestic crimes – not matters of foreign intelligence. These included investigations of “health-care fraud, transnational organized crime, violent gangs, domestic terrorism involving racially motivated violent extremists, as well as investigations relating to public corruption and bribery.”

 

[…]  “Public corruption and bribery.” I highlight that last part because it means the FBI continued to improperly use FISA-acquired information to spy on government officials.  (read more)

According to the Boasberg report seven FBI field offices were implicated in “these and a number of similar violations.”   That means institutionally the FBI continues to perform warrantless searches of the NSA database that collects electronic information on every single American.  The FBI is exploiting a backdoor into this database using search queries that violate the fourth amendment.

The FBI is extracting this information for their own personal use; likely political use including surveillance and black files on politicians; and for routine criminal investigations that are supposed to require warrants.

Keep in mind this 2020 review and report encompasses a time-frame prior to October 2020, so we can only imagine how many times since the January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill protest the FBI reached into this NSA database to assist them with their investigation of “domestic extremists”.

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