The Front Page Cover
The Events of the Week -- Featuring:
Congress Created a Monster
by Judge Andrew Napolitano
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Top Headlines
http://cached-assets.patriotpost.us/images/2017-03-10-8d796ee9_large.jpg" unselectable="" />Hmmm: Comey meets with top members of Congress to discuss the alleged wiretapping of Trump Tower. (Hot Air)
Report: FBI monitored server in Trump Tower, but "no intercepts of Trump's phones or emails." (CNS News)
U.S. government websites "fail to meet basic standards," new report says. (Reason)
Pentagon: Russia, China able to launch catastrophic cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure for next 10 years. (The Washington Free Beacon)
Former Trump aide Flynn consulted with Turkish business — nothing illegal. (Associated Press)
Poll: Americans rank dissatisfaction with government as country's top problem. (Gallup)
U.S. household net worth reaches record $92.8 trillion. (The Wall Street Journal)
American diplomats' comfort with Tillerson gives way to unease. Good! Let 'em shake in their boots. (Bloomberg)
Billionaire George Soros fuels Democrats' push to lower voting age to 17. (The Washington Times)
South Korean President Park Geun-hye ousted from office amid corruption. (The Wall Street Journal)
Policy: Five reasons the GOP's liar-nObamaCare plan isn't real repeal. (The Daily Signal)
Policy: Why nobody has a right to health care. (The Federalist) ~The Patriot Post
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Muslim Reform Leader
Supports Trump Travel Ban...
by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us} ~ Raheel Raza, author of the book “Their Jihad, Not My Jihad,” visits Stuart Varney to explain that there are some Muslims who support the travel ban from terrorist nations and President Trump’s right to declare it... Raza is a founding member of the Muslim Reform Movement. Varney notes that there are six states which have adopted the position that this newest revised executive order is a Muslim ban, asking her for her opinion. She says, “It’s neither Muslim nor is it a ban. I look upon it as a temporary moratorium and it is not a Muslim ban. I am a Pakistani born practicing observant Sunni Muslim. I don’t find it offensive, I think one would have to be ill-informed or very ignorant to call it a Muslim ban.” She says, “It’s not about religion, it’s about a region. It is for the safety and security of Americans. It is for the safety and security of Americans. It is about the future of national security in this country and I don’t see why Americans have their knickers in a knot about it.”...
.liar-nObama blocked us from vote-fraud data
by Art Moore
{wnd.com} ~ With his call for Vice President Mike Pence to lead an investigation of vote fraud, President Trump has not given up on documenting his much-maligned claim that more than 3 million illegal-alien voters cost him the nationwide popular vote last November... Amid vehement objection and ridicule from the left, there are many election experts who agree with the president that widespread vote fraud exists, including illegal-alien voting. But they think it’s unwise to make any estimates of the number of illegal voters, because there is no hard data at the moment. Yet, that likely will change with access now to records that were kept under wraps by the liar-nObama administration... http://www.wnd.com/2017/03/experts-obama-blocked-us-from-vote-fraud-data/
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Comey Hiding Behind DOJ To Claim FBI
Didn’t Spy On Trump Is Laughable
by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us} ~ Judge Jeanine Pirro used to be one of those who was consistently most complimentary of FBI Director Comey, but that was before he became the weasel that many perceive him to now be... She’s asked for her take on the current state of event surrounding the accusations by President Trump that Hussein liar-nObama tapped his phones and more at Trump Tower during the campaign and afterwards. She says, “You know, I think it’s fascinating that these politicians, and you’re kind of looking that there are two sides to me, you know, there’s a prosecution side and then there’s the other side. As a prosecutor I say look, this guy is the head of the FBI. He doesn’t have to tell any politician anything about any investigation that he’s doing.” She adds, “And for all of you that think that, ‘look, we’ll keep it secret and we won’t tell anyone,’ that’s absurd. Five minutes later this thing is going to be on every television station. So there’s very little that he can tell you, you know, that he can share with you if he’s in the middle of a real investigation.”...
.Dem Kucinich: Extracurricular
Wiretapping Does Occur
by Alice Greene
{punchingbagpost.com} ~ President Donald Trump’s claim that liar-nObama wiretapped his phones in Trump Tower has been treated with derision. This week, a former congressman suggested that Trump’s claim isn’t so far-fetched... “I can vouch for the fact that extracurricular surveillance does occur, regardless of whether it is officially approved,” said former congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), explaining that the phone in his congressional office was tapped in 2011. He found out about the incident two years later when the Washington Times let him listen to a recording of a conversation he had with a high-ranking member of the Libyan government. “There are people who are saying, about President Trump’s claim, 'oh it could never happen.' Well, frankly it happened to me," he said... http://punchingbagpost.com/democrat-kucinich-extracurricular-wiretapping-does-occur
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CIA Left America Vulnerable To Known Weaknesses, Russia Claims Now Proven Hoax
by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us} ~ Noting that the whole CIA revelations are “horrific,” computer security expert John McAfee wants to first than Julian Assange for his efforts, saying that contrary to what the CIA and FBI would like to do to him, he’d like to give him a medal... He says of all the things that trouble him about the hack, what bothers him most is that the CIA knew of zero day exploits years in advance of the manufacturers of the software finding out. He says he understands they don’t want the zero day exploits to fall into the hands of the enemy because then they’ll take advantage of them, but they and did nothing, comparing it to sitting on a boatload of vaccine during an epidemic. They discuss the CIA Umbrage group, which can mimic other actors, taking on the appearance of and falsely pointing to another entity, such as Russia in a political party hacking hoax. He says all hackers have the ability to place into their malware indicators that make it look as if someone else is responsible. He notes that if it really was Russia, “they are far more clever than to leave those traces in the program... http://rickwells.us/mcafee-cia-left-america-vulnerable-known-weaknesses-russia-claims-now-proven-hoax/
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Congress Created a Monster
by Judge Andrew Napolitano
{townhall.com} ~ Those of us who believe that the Constitution means what it says have been arguing since the late 1970s that congressional efforts to strengthen national security by weakening personal liberty are unconstitutional, un-American and ineffective. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Congress passed in the aftermath of President Richard Nixon's use of the CIA and the FBI to spy on his political opponents, has unleashed demons that now seem beyond the government's control and are more pervasive than anything Nixon could have dreamed of.
This realization came to a boiling point last weekend when President Donald Trump accused former President Barack liar-nObama of monitoring his telephone calls during the 2016 presidential election campaign. Can a U.S. president legally spy on a political opponent or any other person in America without any suspicion, probable cause or warrant from a judge? In a word, yes.
Here is the back story.
The president can order the National Security Agency to spy on anyone at any time for any reason, without a warrant. This is profoundly unconstitutional but absolutely lawful because it is expressly authorized by the FISA statute.
All electronic surveillance today, whether ordered by the president or authorized by a court, is done remotely by accessing the computers of every telephone and computer service provider in the United States. The NSA has 24/7/365 access to all the mainframe computers of all the telephone and computer service providers in America.
The service providers are required by law to permit this access and are prohibited by law from complaining about it publicly, challenging it in court or revealing any of its details. In passing these prohibitions, Congress violated the First Amendment, which prohibits it from infringing upon the freedom of speech.
The fruits of electronic surveillance cannot be used in criminal prosecutions but can be shared with the president. If they are revealed publicly, the revelation constitutes computer hacking, a federal crime. Nevertheless, some of what was overheard from telephone conversations between the Russian ambassador to the U.S. and former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser, was revealed to the public -- a revelation that profoundly disturbed the White House and many in the intelligence community and constituted a crime.
The original purpose of FISA was to place the judiciary as an intermediary between the nation's spies and the foreign agents we all know are among us. The theory was that the NSA would first need to demonstrate to a secret court probable cause that the target of the spying is an agent of a foreign power and this would restrain the NSA from spying on ordinary Americans. This probable cause of foreign agency was a dramatic congressional rejection of the constitutional standard -- namely, probable cause of crime -- for the issuance of warrants. Foreign agency is not a crime.
This congressional rejection of constitutional norms began the slippery slope in which the foreign agency standard has morphed by legislation and by secret interpretations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to probable cause of foreign personhood to probable cause of talking to a foreign person to probable cause of being able to talk to a foreign person to -- dropping the probable cause standard altogether -- anyone who speaks to anyone else who could speak to a foreign person.
This Orwellian and absurd expansion was developed by spies and approved by judges on the FISA court. The NSA argued that it would be more efficient to spy on everyone in the United States than to isolate bad people, and the court bought that argument.
Hence, FISA warrants do not name particular people or places as their targets as the Constitution requires. Rather, they merely continue in place the previous warrants, which encompass everyone in the country. FISA warrants are general warrants, allowing intelligence agents to listen to whomever they wish and retain whatever they hear. General warrants are expressly prohibited by the Fourth Amendment, which requires that all warrants for all purposes be based on probable cause of crime and particularly describe the person or thing to be seized -- e.g., a conversation -- or the place to be searched.
Even though the NSA already has the legal, though unconstitutional, authority to capture any phone conversation or computer keystroke it wishes, its 60,000 agents lack the resources to listen to all conversations or read all electronic communications in real time. But it does capture the digital versions of all computer keystrokes made in or to the U.S. and all conversations had within the U.S. or involving someone in the U.S.; it has been doing so since 2005. And it can download any conversation or text or email at will.
That's why the recent argument that liar-nObama ordered the NSA to obtain a FISA warrant for Trump's telephone calls and a judge issued a warrant for them is nonsense. The NSA already has a digital version of every call Trump has made or received since 2005. Because the NSA -- which now works for Trump -- is a part of the Defense Department, it is subject to the orders of the president in his capacity as commander in chief. So if the commander in chief wants something that a military custodian already has or can create -- such as a transcript of an opponent's conversations with political strategists during a presidential campaign -- why would he bother getting a warrant? He wouldn't.
All of this leads to information overload -- so much material that the communications of evil people are safely hidden in with the mountain of data from the rest of us. The NSA captures the digital equivalent -- if printed -- of 27 times the contents of the Library of Congress every year.
All of this also leads to the monstrous power of the NSA to manipulate, torment and control the president by selectively concealing and selectively revealing data to him. The Constitution does not entrust such power to anyone in government. But Congress has given it.
All of this also substantially impairs a fundamental personal liberty, the right to be left alone -- a right for which we seceded from Great Britain, a right guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment and a right for which we fought wars against tyrants who we feared would take it from us.
Yet after we won those wars, we permitted our elected representatives to crush that right. Those faithless representatives have created a monster that has now turned on us.
This realization came to a boiling point last weekend when President Donald Trump accused former President Barack liar-nObama of monitoring his telephone calls during the 2016 presidential election campaign. Can a U.S. president legally spy on a political opponent or any other person in America without any suspicion, probable cause or warrant from a judge? In a word, yes.
Here is the back story.
The president can order the National Security Agency to spy on anyone at any time for any reason, without a warrant. This is profoundly unconstitutional but absolutely lawful because it is expressly authorized by the FISA statute.
All electronic surveillance today, whether ordered by the president or authorized by a court, is done remotely by accessing the computers of every telephone and computer service provider in the United States. The NSA has 24/7/365 access to all the mainframe computers of all the telephone and computer service providers in America.
The service providers are required by law to permit this access and are prohibited by law from complaining about it publicly, challenging it in court or revealing any of its details. In passing these prohibitions, Congress violated the First Amendment, which prohibits it from infringing upon the freedom of speech.
The fruits of electronic surveillance cannot be used in criminal prosecutions but can be shared with the president. If they are revealed publicly, the revelation constitutes computer hacking, a federal crime. Nevertheless, some of what was overheard from telephone conversations between the Russian ambassador to the U.S. and former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser, was revealed to the public -- a revelation that profoundly disturbed the White House and many in the intelligence community and constituted a crime.
The original purpose of FISA was to place the judiciary as an intermediary between the nation's spies and the foreign agents we all know are among us. The theory was that the NSA would first need to demonstrate to a secret court probable cause that the target of the spying is an agent of a foreign power and this would restrain the NSA from spying on ordinary Americans. This probable cause of foreign agency was a dramatic congressional rejection of the constitutional standard -- namely, probable cause of crime -- for the issuance of warrants. Foreign agency is not a crime.
This congressional rejection of constitutional norms began the slippery slope in which the foreign agency standard has morphed by legislation and by secret interpretations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to probable cause of foreign personhood to probable cause of talking to a foreign person to probable cause of being able to talk to a foreign person to -- dropping the probable cause standard altogether -- anyone who speaks to anyone else who could speak to a foreign person.
This Orwellian and absurd expansion was developed by spies and approved by judges on the FISA court. The NSA argued that it would be more efficient to spy on everyone in the United States than to isolate bad people, and the court bought that argument.
Hence, FISA warrants do not name particular people or places as their targets as the Constitution requires. Rather, they merely continue in place the previous warrants, which encompass everyone in the country. FISA warrants are general warrants, allowing intelligence agents to listen to whomever they wish and retain whatever they hear. General warrants are expressly prohibited by the Fourth Amendment, which requires that all warrants for all purposes be based on probable cause of crime and particularly describe the person or thing to be seized -- e.g., a conversation -- or the place to be searched.
Even though the NSA already has the legal, though unconstitutional, authority to capture any phone conversation or computer keystroke it wishes, its 60,000 agents lack the resources to listen to all conversations or read all electronic communications in real time. But it does capture the digital versions of all computer keystrokes made in or to the U.S. and all conversations had within the U.S. or involving someone in the U.S.; it has been doing so since 2005. And it can download any conversation or text or email at will.
That's why the recent argument that liar-nObama ordered the NSA to obtain a FISA warrant for Trump's telephone calls and a judge issued a warrant for them is nonsense. The NSA already has a digital version of every call Trump has made or received since 2005. Because the NSA -- which now works for Trump -- is a part of the Defense Department, it is subject to the orders of the president in his capacity as commander in chief. So if the commander in chief wants something that a military custodian already has or can create -- such as a transcript of an opponent's conversations with political strategists during a presidential campaign -- why would he bother getting a warrant? He wouldn't.
All of this leads to information overload -- so much material that the communications of evil people are safely hidden in with the mountain of data from the rest of us. The NSA captures the digital equivalent -- if printed -- of 27 times the contents of the Library of Congress every year.
All of this also leads to the monstrous power of the NSA to manipulate, torment and control the president by selectively concealing and selectively revealing data to him. The Constitution does not entrust such power to anyone in government. But Congress has given it.
All of this also substantially impairs a fundamental personal liberty, the right to be left alone -- a right for which we seceded from Great Britain, a right guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment and a right for which we fought wars against tyrants who we feared would take it from us.
Yet after we won those wars, we permitted our elected representatives to crush that right. Those faithless representatives have created a monster that has now turned on us.
Comments
Dale -- Pretty much said. As you mention the people no longer trust or believe in government if this lawless continue. But as this president, Trump, has said that he will begin to make government smaller and less costly. In which is doing as of yesterday by EO in swamping.
I do agree on your views.
If I exercise my right to make law under the authority granted by the Supreme Law, and I make a law in violation of the Supreme Law that grants me the right, is the result legal?
If the term legal is restricted to mean only that business that lawyers and judges engage in, it would. However, if the term also means that which is lawful, it does not.
One cannot make an inferior law and expect it to legally trump the Superior law which is the binding law of the land.
To me, any halfwit could see the lunacy of this.
People lose faith and confidence in their own government because of crap like this. Those engaged in the law as professional officers of the court become little more than pompous fools. The Law is degraded, no longer considered honorable or even useful.
Why would a public support a law, supposedly designed to protect them from foreign enemies, exchange it by supporting a domestic one, when neither are deserving of trust?
If FISA is legal, then FISA and the term to describe it are both worthless.
My view.