Andrew McCabe, former deputy director of the FBI, admitted to errors in the investigation of former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, as he made a push for a warrantless surveilance tool to be renewed. Yeah, that’s a no from me, Andy boy. There’s a reason the Constitution exists and why this founding document contains the Fourth Amendment, which strictly forbids unlawful searches and seizures. Any kind of surveillance tools that do not require a warrant are going to pop up like a breakout of pimples on prom night. The government already treats the Bill of Rights like toilet paper, why provide them the actual permission to do so?
Not to mention if someone as scummy as McCabe wants this tool to be renewed, we should do the exact opposite.
Check out further details from the Daily Caller:
The FBI used a document containing opposition research on Trump to earn approval from a secret court that oversees the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act(FISA) to secretly monitor campaign aide Carter Page, according to CNN. The House of Representatives on Wednesday blocked a bill to reauthorize Section 702 of FISA, with April 19 being the deadline to do so, but McCabe on “CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta” advocated to renew it while admitting the act has led to misuse.
“Donald Trump is really confusing the issue. FISA is a big law. It has a lot of different sections. Part of it is used against people here in the United States,” McCabe said during his conversation with host Jim Acosta. “You go to the court for a warrant to enable you to do electronic surveillance. That’s not what we’re talking about. Section 702 is only used to capture the communications when people meet three criteria. You have to be a foreign person in a foreign place and the purpose of the collection has to be to get foreign intelligence. It is our primary vision into what terrorists, spies and people who use weapons of mass destruction and nation states that use cyber tools against us, what they’re doing overseas.”
The FBI cited the now-discredited Steele Dossier, which accused Trump of links to Russia, extensively in its FISA applications to surveil his campaign despite investigators ‘ inability to verify the allegations. Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith pled guilty in August 2020 to altering a June 2017 email he received from a CIA employee regarding Page in draft applications for warrants under FISA.
“It is an incredibly valuable tool, but what makes it different from regular FISA is there are no warrants,” McCabe continued. “And the reason for that is you don‘t have to go to court and get a warrant because people, foreign people in foreign places, are not protected by our constitution or our Fourth Amendment, so that’s what makes it different. That’s the thing that‘s expiring on the 19th. And it is absolutely essential that we get it renewed.”
“There is no truth or accuracy in that post at all, 702 authorities were never used in the course of that investigation of Donald Trump and his campaign and some of his campaign associates,” McCabe remarked during the interview. “He may be referring to the FISA that was used, that [was] obtained to surveil Carter Page. We now know there were many mistakes in that FISA. Those are all regrettable, but that is not Section 702. Totally different thing here.”
Between the years of 2019 and 2022, the FBI conducted a whopping 5 million warrantless searches of American citizens and “there was little justification” for any of them, according to a report last September published by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.
McCabe was booted from his position as the deputy director after a report from an inspector general leveled accusations against him that he lied about media leaks. The firing was officially reversed back in 2021 after a legal settlement was reached.