The Spying State

For John, BLUF:  Spies are going to spy.  Congress is supposed to protect us from that.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

From Twitter:

nstapundit.com @instapundit 20 hours ago
A 2015 memo from then-Attorney General @EricHolder reveals that the feds can use FISA to spy on journalists.

Which leads to this article:

Newly Released Eric Holder Memo: Feds Can Use FISA to Spy on Journalists

Here is the sub-headline:

And the guidelines for spying on journalists may be even looser under Trump.

From Reason, by Mr Joe Setyon, 18 September 2018.

Here is the lede plus one:

The federal government can use the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to spy on journalists.  So said a pair of 2015 Justice Department memos, including one from then–Attorney General Eric Holder.

FISA is controversial in itself. The act is supposed to be used to justify surveillance on foreign targets.  But as Reason's Scott Shackford has explained, intelligence agencies often use it to secretly spy on American citizens, sometimes without a warrant.

Did Attorney General Eric Holder not recall the outrage over the FBI, under Director J Edgar Hoover, spying, against the Constitution, on the rev Martin Luther King?  Apparently not.

Then there is this counter-intuitive assertion:

While the memos date to the Obama era, the Trump administration seems willing to snoop on journalists as well.  Earlier this year, the Justice Department demanded the phone and email records of New York Times reporter Ali Watkins in an attempt to find out whether her source, a former Senate aide, had leaked classified information.

Eddington suspects the guidelines for spying on journalists under President Donald Trump may be "looser" than they were under Obama, especially given Trump's "almost daily stated antipathy towards the press as a whole."

Regardless of who's in the White House, one constant remains:  The federal government doesn't seem to have any problems with going after journalists.

Do the editors at Reason realize that because of the Mueller investigation Mr Trump has little to no control over the Department of Justice.  I am not sure we can even call it the Sessions DOJ.  It is probably the Rosenstein DOJ.  It sure seems that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, as part of his silent coup, is trying to make it so.

At the end of the day, however, the point needs to be made that the Department of Justice, rather than thinking of the FISA Court as a limited tool, is widening its use beyond where they should.  It is time for Congress to revisit this statute.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff