Intercepts - Help me count the ways ...

I used to think that I understood the rough outline of US law and capability with regard to the intercept and collection of signals intelligence.   In light of all the media reporting and accusations flying around just now I see that I was mistaken in that belief.   I am in the process of sorting out the details. I ask you to help me with this:

1.  Both the FBI and DoJ can go to the FISA court to ask for a broad warrant to do surveillance of communications of Americans domestically or overseas on the basis of probable cause to think that these Americans are engaged in espionage against the US or terrorism directed at the US.  Such warrants are usually applicable for all communications means oof the subject(s).

2.  The FBI often does not go to the FISA courts because the information gathered in that channel is often contaminated under US rules of evidence and can not be used in a criminal proceeding.  Instead, the FBI, often goes to an Article 3 federal court for a non-FISA warrant.  It is reported that in this case the FBI did not approach the FISA court.  The DoJ in a fit of desire to please the WH evidently did that on its own hook.  If that is the case, Comey is correct in saying that the FBI did not do that.

3.  After yesterday we suspect that CIA has the internal capability to intercept all the Trumpworld communications that it was pleased to do.   Would that have required a FISA warrant for intercept of an American's communications or to surveille him?  Would the CIA have accepted such a requirement?

4. NSA surveilles just about all US communications.  Under rules adopted during the Bush '43 Administration such intercepts do not require  FISA warrant because, well, the government says they do not.  According to Judge Napolitano (the legal sage of Fox News) POTUS can legally order intercepts of the communications of Americans by simply certifying that to be necessary to national security.  

5.  Because of the close cooperation between the USIC and various foreign "players" most notably the UK's GCHQ, it is possible for the leaders of the USIC to informally ask such foreign players to collect SIGINT against US domestic targets because for the foreign player these targets are not domestic to them.  This procedure obviates the need for a US FISA warrant and the US IC receives the fruits of such intercepts as traffic received in liaison.  It is alleged in various media reports that this "path" was followed by Clapper and Brennan in this case and that the precipitous departure of the GCHQ boss was blow back from this when Teresa May was menaced over future BREXIT aftermath cooperation by person or persons unknown.  This implies a leak from the USIC to Trumpworld.

OK.  Elaborate, contradict, or whatever.  pl

Comments

[Stumpy]

Sounds reasonable. Increase the attack surface, complexity is your friend. Flip side, the dispersion leaves a broad spectrum to analyze from the inside, i.e. Borg loyalists. Assange decried the CIA for keeping all their cookies in one jar with wide albeit privileged access. If you are right, someone gets caught with their finger in the dike, eventually.

[Stumpy]

If you have been tested for AIDS in a "mandatory government program", your blood sample provides the ways and means to 1) identify you and 2) frame you. Fingerprints, too.

[J]

Speaking of FBI, according to the Wikileaks trove, the FBI has been working hand in glove with BestBuy Geek Squad to spy and go where no Court would allow a warrant for spying and surveillancing the innocent consumer.

Hitler's Gestapo head Himmler would love such a slithering technique were he alive today.

http://www.ocweekly.com/news/fbi-used-best-buys-geek-squad-to-increase-secret-public-surveillance-7950030

[confusedponderer]

"people like Trump who are essentially clueless about esoteric subjects"

That is really putting the problem with Trump in a brief and elegant sentence.

Recently, Trump invented a terror act in Sweden because he was incapable to separate the things he saw in tv between reality or fiction - documentation, propaganda, whatever - having seen it on tv, it became reality to him.

The Swedes adressed that dumb idiocy appropriately. The former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt commented on Trump: “Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking? Questions abound.”

He made a good point. Whatever drugs Trump takes, he should stop using them. Or maybe he is just rolling dice, or is hearing voices - neither of which does help in achieving rational insights.

Whatever is plaguing his mind, it won't help him in a world that is more complex than his to be forgettable show "The Apprentice". Reality today has unpredictable folks like Trump with access to nuclear codes and a disturbing enthusiasm for using them. Quite disturbing.

Trump has said the US made the great mistake of not using nukes on Iraq in the last invasion (the US killing an additional 200k Iraqis surely would have made the Iraqis love the US and Trump - and go for an elating pro-US democracy).

Maybe there is a way the US can get Trump to eventually pay the taxes he owes and confess what he owned and earns, and, while at it, has earned and owned. It'll make him less economically movable (notable side bonus), and, iirc, being confined he couldn't be a president, or could he? Great side bonus: Getting Trump to be a civilian again would probably reduce the risks of accidental nuclear war.

[turcopolier]

confusedponderer

IMO you badly underestimate Trump. He is not a sophisticate. He has a mind that has been narrowly focused on entrepreneurial business deals but he is not stupid. He is not inflexible and is willing to compromise rather than adhering to an abstract vision of ideological purity. the notion that he is likely to get the US into a war with Russia (the only war that would threaten us all) is IMO empty of anything but haughty snobbery. Businessmen of his type talk tough in negotiations but are remarkably risk averse. War with Russia (or Iran) would be the ultimate risk both militarily and politically. As for any talk of removing him from office, you should be wary of that. In spite of the baloney in the leftist media here he remains very popular outside bi-coastal America and a "soft coup" against him would be seen as the result of a conspiracy. This would have a profoundly de-stabilizing effect on the US. pl

[William R. Cumming]

Am I correct that the CIA charter document (specifically the National Security Act of 1947, as amended) has never been modified in any way to allow the CIA to collect SIGINT on a solely domestic target(s)?

And what exactly is the SIGINT authorized by the CIA for foreign targets?

[LeaNder]

I think there are plenty of instances of lying by omission.

Yes, sure there are. There are also limits to our perception. Yours or mine. Yours is no doubt way more informed then nitwit mine's.

But I am sure you can enlighten me about the human/intelligence/intelligent interpolation between your suspicion Trump's victory would/could be hacked and the idea that Russia interfered in US elections.

[Cee]

All,

Nossel said we shouldn't expect any privacy!

Bring out the pink hats!! LOL!

https://www.rt.com/shows/crosstalk/380116-us-surveillance-cia-leaks/#.WMSXxx9duTE.facebook

[Keith Harbaugh]

Andrew Napolitano: Did Obama spy on Trump?
by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/03/16/andrew-napolitano-did-obama-spy-on-trump.html

Sources have told me [Judge Napolitano] that the British foreign surveillance service, the Government Communications Headquarters, known as GCHQ, most likely provided Obama with transcripts of Trump’s calls. The NSA has given GCHQ full 24/7 access to its computers, so GCHQ -- a foreign intelligence agency that, like the NSA, operates outside our constitutional norms -- has the digital versions of all electronic communications made in America in 2016, including Trump’s. So by bypassing all American intelligence services, Obama would have had access to what he wanted with no Obama administration fingerprints.

GCHQ issues rare public statement to dismiss Trump Tower wiretapping claims as 'utterly ridiculous'
by Barney Henderson
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/16/gchq-issues-unprecedented-public-statement-dismiss-trump-tower/

[Keith Harbaugh]

The above post should have included the following excerpt from the www.telegraph.co.uk story:

In a break from its normal practice of refusing to comment on allegations about its activities, a spokesman for GCHQ said: "Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct 'wiretapping' against the then president elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored."

A further development, published on Friday, 2017-03-17 is:
According to the New York Times, one of Judge Napolitano's sources is one Larry C. Johnson.
Any relation to the Larry Johnson who contributes to SST?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/business/media/fox-andrew-napolitano-trump.html

Larry C. Johnson, a former intelligence officer ... said in a telephone interview that Mr. Napolitano called him on Friday and requested that he speak to The New York Times. Mr. Johnson said he was one of the sources for Mr. Napolitano’s claim about British intelligence.

Mr. Johnson became infamous in political circles after he spread false rumors in 2008 that Michelle Obama had been videotaped using a slur against Caucasians. In the interview on Friday, Mr. Johnson acknowledged his notoriety, but said that his knowledge of surveillance of Mr. Trump came from sources in the American intelligence community. Mr. Napolitano, he said, heard about his information through an intermediary.

“It sounds like a Frederick Forsyth novel,” Mr. Johnson said.

[turcopolier]

Keith Harbaugh

Same man. A denial or two from GCHQ means nothing. That is what you do in the intelligence business when caught red-handed. pl

[Keith Harbaugh]

My surmise, FWIW, is that google (one of whose founders received a "Friend of Israel" award)
knows more about most Americans than probably even NSA,
and has the real mission of identifying anyone and everyone
who might ultimately be a threat to the Jewish community.
Could there be a better way of gathering information than google plus gmail?

By the way, if anyone wonders why Russophobia runs so deep in America,
they might find the following suggestive:
https://www.cnet.com/news/googles-brin-anti-semitism-forced-my-family-out-of-russia/

[Keith Harbaugh]

Whoops!
I later found the following denial by Johnson to the NYT story:
http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/79653/dishonest-ny-times-hit-piece/
Johnson said:

But that is not the whole story.....

[Eric Newhill]

TTG,
So now we are hearing that 20 or 24 people have the ability to see unmasked identifiers as I imagined they could. I can also imagine that it is more than that and that the 20 or 24 are just those who can authorize the unmasking of personal identifier data. They probably don't even know how to do it themselves. They would probably order some underlings to do the tech work. There are probably at least a hundred people who can easily access the unmasked data.

At least one of these 20 or 24 people is guilty of being responsible for the Flynn leak. That or there's a Snowden type on the loose with anti_Trump sentiments. I opt for the former.