How Messed Up Is America's Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act?

Charlie Savage, New York Times: We Just Got a Rare Look at National Security Surveillance. It Was Ugly.

WASHINGTON — When a long-awaited inspector general report about the F.B.I.’s Russia investigation became public this week, partisans across the political spectrum mined it to argue about whether President Trump falsely smeared the F.B.I. or was its victim. But the report was also important for reasons that had nothing to do with Mr. Trump.

At more than 400 pages, the study amounted to the most searching look ever at the government’s secretive system for carrying out national-security surveillance on American soil. And what the report showed was not pretty.

The Justice Department’s independent inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, and his team uncovered a staggeringly dysfunctional and error-ridden process in how the F.B.I. went about obtaining and renewing court permission under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to wiretap Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.

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WNU Editor: The above analysis by New York Times reporter Charlie Savage omits a major point. Michael Horowitz's team did uncover a staggeringly dysfunctional and error-ridden process. The list is here .... This Is How Bad The FBI's Russia FISA Request Was. But what caught my attention was that none of these errors, false statements, and violations favoured President Trump. To put it bluntly. This was done deliberately.

Update: Michael Horowitz's opening statement is a must read .... READ: Horowitz opening statement to Senate panel (The Hill).