US Politics: OBAMAGATE - An American Story

[Mexal]

Just now, Rippounet said:

I haven't worked on that in a while, but that should be the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or one of the latter Acts that reformed it.

Not sure I understand? You're telling me the crime was FISA? Or they violated FISA by unmasking Flynn?

[Centrist Simon Steele]

8 minutes ago, Ran said:

So is Sanders and Warren and every damned person else you can think of, from the perspective of a lot of people, so who is the not-seriously-flawed candidate that you believe you would be the right choice? Ralph Nader?

Ran, I don't want Sanders, to be clear. I think the rejection from the other side of the Democratic aisle would be just as nasty as it's been against Biden. Who would be better? I can't say, but at this point, anyone who we don't have to defend against charges of sexual harassment, assault, and even cognitive decline seems like a great start.

In terms of Warren, yeah, I think she would be a great candidate whose flaws are the same standard flaws any Democratic nominee has to overcome. But I'll admit, I may be being pie in the sky about this--Clinton's emails seemed to have tanked her, and that seems like such a ridiculous thing.

[Ran]

 

2 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

In terms of Warren, yeah, I think she would be a great candidate whose flaws are the same standard flaws any Democratic nominee has to overcome.

Warren has been accused of sexual misconduct, I'll remind you. Since an allegation is enough for you to be concerned about a candidate, I think we have to discard her as well.

Who else, then? Michelle Obama, despite her having made it clear she has no such ambitions? Maybe Oprah? Stacey Abrams? Pete Buttigieg?

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

It's Bernie or Bust. Haven't you learnt anything?

[Kalbear]

By the way for folks wanting to engage with the trolls - the metoo message was never believeallwomen. That is a commonly used tactic to harm feminism and make it far more absolutist. It was, simply, believe women. The point was to stop doubting womens points of views as the default basis and start taking them seriously.

For instance, Tara Reade's claims have been incredibly investigated. From the timing to the location to the contemporaneous sources, it is a sterling example of believing her claim and following up on it. The 17 women who have accused Trump of rape or sexual assault, however, have not been investigated in this detail. Clearly that is a massive failure.

 

[Rippounet]

1 minute ago, Mexal said:

Or they violated FISA by unmasking Flynn?

*checks*

Oh, it has been a while. It's a bit more complicated than that. I'll copy-paste what I have below, though your guess as to how relevant this is here will be as good as mine.

The first important thing to notice is that though the constitutional protections of the Fourth Amendment only apply to American citizens, this is not the case when they, or their communications are abroad:

The Fourth Amendment does not require the government to obtain a warrant to conduct surveillance "to obtain foreign intelligence for national security purposes [that] is directed against foreign powers or agents of foreign power; reasonably believed to be located outside the United States." In re Directives Pursuant to Section 105B of FISA, Docket No. 08-01, Opinion at 18-19 (FISA Ct. Rev. Aug. 22,2008) ("'In re Directives"). This exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement applies even when a United States person is the target of such a surveillance. The FISC has previously concluded that the acquisition of foreign intelligence information pursuant to Section 702 falls within this "foreign intelligence exception" to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment¹.

Also, generally speaking, this means that there is no constitutional protections for American citizens communicating with a foreign individual, or even with an American citizen located outside the United States. This was confirmed in 2016 by the court of appeals for the ninth circuit in United States v. Mohamud².

Last but not least, what of “incidental collection” of the communications of American citizens? When Edward Snowden revealed the NSA programs in 2013, he argued that that intelligence agencies were surveilling American citizens by claiming that such surveillance was “accidental” or “incidental.” This is where “minimization procedures” come in.

NSA Minimization Procedures at 2. Section 3(d)(2) of the NSA Minimization Procedures also provides that "[any] communications acquired through the targeting of a person who at the time of targeting was reasonably believed to be located outside the United States but is in fact located inside the United States at the time such communications were acquired... will be treated as domestic communications... […]³"

The FISC has repeatedly deemed the minimization procedures used by the NSA and the FBI to be “satisfactory.” It has however, tolerated some mistakes to be made, even when the NSA admitted that information on U.S. citizens had not been deleted as it should have been. And the crucial question remains what “reasonable” means. According to some of the documents disclosed by Snowden, the NSA can keep on watching anyone whose nationality is not confirmed ; and one “will be presumed to be a non-United States person unless [one] can be positively identified as a United States person.” If anyone is presumed to be foreign by default (guilty until proven innocent), one may wonder whether the Fourth Amendment still has any kind of relevance.

Lastly, one final, non-reassuring note. Writing for the FISC, judge Thomas Hogan said:

In assessing the reasonableness of a governmental intrusion under the Fourth Amendment, the court must “balance the interests at stake” under the “totality of the circumstances.” The court must consider “the nature of the government intrusion and how the government intrusion is implemented. The more important the government's interest, the greater the intrusion that may be constitutionally tolerated⁴.”

What this means exactly is anyone's guess.

1Judge Thomas Hogan. “FISC June 18, 2015 Memorandum Opinion” (Approved for release by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence). Pages 36-37.
Retrieved from the DNI website in September 2017:
https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/icotr/51117/2016_Cert_FISC_Memo_Opin_Order_Apr_2017.pdf

2Orin Kerr. “9th Circuit upholds warrantless email surveillance of person in the U.S. communicating with foreigners abroad when the foreigners are the ‘targets’”. The Washington Post, December 5, 2016.

3FISC June 18, 2015 Memorandum Opinion, page 62.

4Idem, page 37.

 

[Raja]

Warren has been accused of sexual misconduct? I must have missed this in a fast news cycle. @Ran Do you have a link to this? I'm searching the interwebs but I'm curious if you have one already.

[Mexal]

Yea, so if Flynn was talking to the Russian Ambassador, which he was, and the IC was monitoring the Russian Ambassador's communications, which they do, then as long as they followed proper minimization procedures, they didn't violate any law by unmasking him. This has already been investigated by the Inspector General and found to be perfectly legal which is why this whole thing is ridiculous. Trump knows that the best thing for him to do is flood the zone with shit and he has installed people who are willing to do just that. There is a reason why all of Trump's other NSA and DNIs have been fired and why all of the IGs are being fired on Friday nights and replaced with Trump loyalists.

So again, my original point still stands. Not a single person from the Trump Administration is able to actually name a crime that was committed other than screaming Obamagate.

[Ran]

7 minutes ago, Raja said:

Warren has been accused of sexual misconduct? I must have missed this in a fast news cycle.

Allegedly paid a former Marine for a torrid BDSM relationship. According to Jacob Wohl, anyways.

I'm just applying the proposed standard that allegations are sufficient to cloud a person's candidacy.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

23 minutes ago, Ran said:

 

Warren has been accused of sexual misconduct, I'll remind you. Since an allegation is enough for you to be concerned about a candidate, I think we have to discard her as well.

Who else, then? Michelle Obama, despite her having made it clear she has no such ambitions? Maybe Oprah? Stacey Abrams? Pete Buttigieg?

 

But that was absolutely debunked. I'm a bit offended you'd equate that to Reade. Unless there's a case I don't know about?

PS Buttigeg would have been a better pick, I think.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

16 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

By the way for folks wanting to engage with the trolls - the metoo message was never believeallwomen. That is a commonly used tactic to harm feminism and make it far more absolutist. It was, simply, believe women. The point was to stop doubting womens points of views as the default basis and start taking them seriously.

For instance, Tara Reade's claims have been incredibly investigated. From the timing to the location to the contemporaneous sources, it is a sterling example of believing her claim and following up on it. The 17 women who have accused Trump of rape or sexual assault, however, have not been investigated in this detail. Clearly that is a massive failure.

 

Investigated from a point of "she's lying" from the beginning. 

[Fury Resurrected]

32 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

Ran, I don't want Sanders, to be clear. I think the rejection from the other side of the Democratic aisle would be just as nasty as it's been against Biden. Who would be better? I can't say, but at this point, anyone who we don't have to defend against charges of sexual harassment, assault, and even cognitive decline seems like a great start.

In terms of Warren, yeah, I think she would be a great candidate whose flaws are the same standard flaws any Democratic nominee has to overcome. But I'll admit, I may be being pie in the sky about this--Clinton's emails seemed to have tanked her, and that seems like such a ridiculous thing.

You think her pulling a full Dolezal to the indigenous community is something ANY democrat has to overcome??? For fucks sake.

[Rippounet]

14 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Yea, so if Flynn was talking to the Russian Ambassador, which he was, and the IC was monitoring the Russian Ambassador's communications, which they do, then as long as they followed proper minimization procedures, they didn't violate any law by unmasking him.

I guess that would be my conclusion as well.
However, while violating minimization procedures is not per se a criminal offense, it obviously remains deeply problematic.
Take what I copy-pasted above and think of the implications when the intelligence agencies answer to president Trump.

[teej6]

46 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

Scot, it's a fair question, but I really don't believe this is a binary "this or that" issue right now. Biden isn't officially the nominee. There is time for the DNC to step in and do something about it. 

This is rich. So, the DNC should just ignore and cast away the choice of all those millions of voters who voted for Biden in the primaries? I hear this argument so much from the left and Bernie supporters (just to be clear, not stating you are one). How is this any different from Trump and the republicans trying to disenfranchise voters? 

[Raja]

23 minutes ago, Ran said:

Allegedly paid a former Marine for a torrid BDSM relationship. According to Jacob Wohl, anyways.

I'm just applying the proposed standard that allegations are sufficient to cloud a person's candidacy.

.....

After having watched the press conference & reading the statements, equating those two things is quite something. Yikes.

And I have no dog in this fight, so to speak.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

17 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

You think her pulling a full Dolezal to the indigenous community is something ANY democrat has to overcome??? For fucks sake.

I don't know, but it's a fair point. I shouldn't dismiss that very real issue.

[Ran]

Just now, Raja said:

.....

After having watched the press conference & reading the statements equating those two things, is quite something. Yikes.

Wasn't me that brought up unproven allegations of misconduct as being a reason to disavow the candidate who has essentially won the primary and over-rule the will of primary voters.

 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

8 minutes ago, teej6 said:

This is rich. So, the DNC should just ignore and cast away the choice of all those millions of voters who voted for Biden in the primaries? I hear this argument so much from the left and Bernie supporters (just to be clear, not stating you are one). How is this any different from Trump and the republicans trying to disenfranchise voters? 

I am a Bernie supporter. Or I was. But he's don. And a lot of those votes were also cast before Biden allegations. Whether they're true or not, they're hurting him.

[Mexal]

16 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I guess that would be my conclusion as well.
However, while violating minimization procedures is not per se a criminal offense, it obviously remains deeply problematic.
Take what I copy-pasted above and think of the implications when the intelligence agencies answer to president Trump.

Yup and there was twice as many unmaskings in 2018 than in 2015 and 2016. And they’re firing and replacing all the independent IGs. So yea, it’s a problem and a worry but it still doesn’t mean it was a crime against Flynn and a big scandal.

[teej6]

1 hour ago, Simon Steele said:

I'm not going to continue the argument with you or Teej as your arguments are circular at this point. For example, Teej used the words "categorical denial" in two posts. So I feel like this is just a "let's argue with someone I don't like" kind of thing.

I really think you need to read people’s posts more carefully. I used the term categorical denial to dispute your claim that the 72 people interviewed in the article stated that “yeah they don’t remember”. If my first post was confusing, I clarified my meaning in my following post. The article comes to the conclusion that these 72 people (including 62 women) interviewed remember their time in Biden’s office positively and deny any behavior of assault or harassment from Biden based on their experience. I reiterate the point I made earlier, they cannot state with certainty that Biden did or did not assault Reade because they are not witnesses to the event and there is no forensic proof. All they can do, is vouch for Biden’s character based on their experiences, which they do judging by the article. Anyway, I’m done discussing this topic w/ you and just wanted to respond since you seemed to be misrepresenting my posts.