FBI Secret Surveillance...

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) published a link to the following NBC News article on his Facebook page on March 5, 2018:

The FBI's secret warrant to surveil Carter Page should scare all Americans and spur reform

As technology makes state scrutiny increasingly easy, America has seen a corresponding increase in the abuse of its surveillance tools. With a legal framework, first created in the 1970s - before the widespread use of computers, email or cell phones - the few safeguards we have are evaporating rapidly.

When a physical search occurs in accordance with American criminal law, law enforcement must show probable cause and obtain permission from a judge, and then present a given suspect with a warrant, and a receipt for the items removed. When law enforcement wants to obtain a criminal wiretap, they similarly have to show probable cause to obtain a warrant, carefully collect information related to potential crimes, and then disclose that information if charges are wrought. The key difference, is that with the latter, the suspect will only discover they've had their privacy violated after they've been indicted. With a FISC warrant, it's possible a suspect will never find out, even if charges are eventually filed.

In the case of Carter Page, his private life was monitored, for almost a year, without his knowledge, and then placed on display for strangers at the FBI to peruse, all based on a suspicion that he was colluding with Russia. On the basis of hearsay, business associations, and possibly Page's political opinions, the FBI received a classified surveillance warrant and then renewed it three times. And yet, Page was never officially charged - suggesting that, even given the ability to surveil him in ways that might make the general public cringe, the FBI was never able to find enough evidence for a single crime.

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A February 27, 2018 article in Tech Crunch stated: "The warrantless surveillance law, otherwise known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, gained mass attention back in 2013 when Edward Snowden leaked information that the NSA was using it to spy on Americans’ text messages, phone calls, emails and internet activity - all legally, and without warrants. That bill has been passed by the U.S. Senate for another six years and has now been signed into law by President Trump - a further extension of what should be an Orwellian cliché but remains quite real... Senators Rand Paul (R-KY), Michael Lee (R-UT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) agree, presenting a bipartisan letter to colleagues stating that "this bill allows an end-run on the Constitution by permitting information collected without a warrant to be used against Americans in domestic criminal investigations."

"Section 702’s intended purpose is to protect American soldiers, keep U.S. decision-makers informed about the intentions of adversary nations and help federal agents detect and prevent terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. However, the evaluation of 160,000 emails and instant messenger conversations collected under Section 702 between 2009 and 2012 (leaked by Snowden in 2013) showed that 90 percent of them were from online accounts that were not foreign surveillance targets, according to The Washington Post. And nearly half of those belonged to U.S. citizens or residents. That’s tens of thousands of emails from regular people, collected without our approval, say-so or, indeed, knowledge."

"It’s time to take this into our own hands. Privacy solutions and applications have been skyrocketing in demand, and with news that this law will likely prevail for another six years - as well as the recent scrapping of net neutrality - that demand is only going to increase as people seek to take their online security and privacy into their own hands."

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The ability of the government, whether it is the FBI or your local police department, to conduct secret investigations, and create secret and hidden files where your personal information becomes part of a government database, record, or system of records is a significant threat to your privacy, violates your rights, and infringes upon your civil liberties.

If you are concerned about inappropriate investigations, and hidden records being kept about you, contact your Senator and/or Congressional Representative and express your concern.

A secret, non-adversarial system of judicial review is an insufficient check to our intelligence agencies and law enforcement.