Trump Backs Limits on Secret Surveillance Court | Hacker News Reader

Trump Backs Limits on Secret Surveillance Court

wsj.com

57 pointsdcgudeman24 comments

Nice to have politicians help the people and not the cabal for once

He is helping himself, by removing oversight on his activities with respect to covert contacts with Russian agents.

Are you saying that pretty much Nixon should have been okay to have his intelligence organs spy on his opponents?

The fact that some intelligence apparatuses were spying on congress people[1] is something that should not have happened; it did but there have been no repercussions for that. How did Brennan get away with that?

[1]https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/a-brief...

You don’t need unconstitutional mass surveillance to investigate any of those things. I’m sick of people using terrorists, foreign agents, child exploiters, bigtech, or whatever else they come up with to justify government abuses.

Isn't anyone who opposes secret surveillance with minimal oversight "helping themselves"?

Warrants are required for FISA activities, and the surveillance is limited to non-citizens.

> the surveillance is limited to non-citizens

How many times have we heard that one before?

The FBI and local law enforcement can already investigate citizens in accordance with due process. Are you saying the FBI shouldn’t also have the power to investigate foreign governments or agents?

> Warrants are required for FISA activities

A general warrant is not what most people would consider a valid warrant. It’s more like a rubber stamp.

> surveillance is limited to non-citizens

Being a non-citizen doesn’t somehow make you a lesser being unworthy of basic human rights.

So Carter Page is a non-citizen? Because the FBI was granted a FISA warrant to surveil him, and the Trump though the two hop rule? Not to mention it's been stated publicly by the OIG that the FBI used falsified evidence to receive those warrants

isn't it communications with non-citizens?

I imagine the government can twist that to mean that if a non-citizens could see it, then the government can access it legally.

But he’s the President so even without the flawed premise what you’re saying makes no sense.

Admitting to not being an expert in American politics; but the FISA court was obviously going to be a disaster when it was established. It has been discovered that in recent times it was used to investigate an incoming presidential candidate (!) and set up years of harassment that seem to have eventually sorta died down to a general background murmuring based on it not being a major component of his impeachment.

The worst-case path forward is for Trump to organise for Bernie Sanders, or whoever the next Democratic candidate is, to be secretly investigated via the FISA court for potential Russia links. Any move towards limiting (or ideally disbanding) the FISA court really should transcend politics. The worst case of the FISA court is horrific, and the expected case (which is really where we are now) is bad.

I think the FISA court was originally introduced because the State was abusing its power by illegally spying on citizens and the FISA court was meant to replace this unregulated illegal spying with legal spying regulated by a court. I guess the better solution may have been to stop the spying all together but FISA court was probably an improvement on the existing practices.

Right wingers used to post a low effort meme along the lines of, “WTF I love ____ now” or “WTF I hate ____ now”.

Now for whatever reason, people in this thread have decided to prove them right, by acting out the meme in real time.

How so?

That is cute, but until the law passes, it means absolutely nothing. Trump has changed his mind and done 180 degree reversals so many times that this means nothing.

> until the law passes, it means absolutely nothing

"Nothing" is too strong. Public support from the Chief Executive carries weight.

Even if it's offered duplicitously, it's a signal of viability to donors, community activists, civic leaders and electeds. That support was deemed beneficial to offer is meaningful.

Do you support the change?

I don't understand why downvotes on this site are so partisan. The above statement is objectively correct: since inauguration, the Trump administration has "signaled support" (the standard of evidence in the linked article) for: gun control legislation, marijuana legalization, infrastructure stimulus, "insurance for everybody" (yes, really), judiciary term limits, and the list goes on.

Statements come out of this white house that have absolutely no grounding in political reality, and positions change as soon as his support base in congress gets the president on the phone.

The phrasing may be glib, but the point is real: no one trust this white house. Not democrats, not republicans. Statements of support mean absolutely nothing, and I'm willing to be very large sums that McConnell will simply kill this silently. Paul will just stop talking about it, and we'll all forget.

Yes... But you see he's on the wrong team.

The reality is you're exactly right.. His administration is essentially a policy clone of JFK or bill Clinton even... Ironically, he's pulled most of the Republicans that far left with him.

The democrats are essentially progressive socialists, they've been there since the Bush era. True conservatives (smaller more limited govt, less spending, less foreign intervention) are tragically homeless. But most of the time feel compelled to vote with big red, because the other side, as the Bernie bro said on camera, are looking to put anyone not part of their camp into reeducation and labor training. And they all are ok with it, they just get angry at Bernie for saying it out loud.

Its not what you say, its what you do.

I'm more concerned with limiting executive surveillance than limiting the court that oversees certain executive surveillance.

Exactly. Make it apply to all current and future presidents.

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