• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Devin Nunes's Next Target

sangha said:
No problem!!

They needed to show probable cause that the russians were engaged in a program to interfere with our elections. Papadopolous provided that. Furthermore, Papadopolous claim that the russians were interfering with the election partially corroborates the claim in the Steele dossier
Click to expand...

Mr Person said:
I keep trying to explain to you: I'm not going to play some game that was invented just for the purpose of scoring some internet points.




If you want to conduct a legal analysis of whether an ordinary warrant in a criminal investigation was properly granted, you need to exhaustively read the application and identify all the moving pieces. Then, you have to go do a whole bunch of legal research of controlling appellate opinions in cases sufficiently similar to the one you're working on to be relevant. Then you have to argue by analogy.

Trying to do that in the FISA context is complicated because of all the classified information and general secrecy. To even begin to formulate an intelligent opinion in this context, you'd have to have access to all the FISA warrants that have been denied (something like 13, I think), and a sufficiently large sample size of all the ones that were granted in similar circumstances to this one. Again, you'd have to argue by analogy. You'd probably also be wise to do legal research for federal criminal case opinions regarding the validity of warrants to the extent you can find any that are sufficiently analogous to be relevant. (Are there even appellate decisions on the validity of FISA warrants? Do you even know if there is any publicly available caselaw on that?). Yadda yadda.

Have you done either ever? Have you done it here? There's no point in discussing this unless you haven't because you aren't saying anything that actually matters. Legal analysis does not mean picking up a few words you like and then inventing requirements for things on an a message board. It's fitting a new situation into all the situations that have been ruled upon and deciding whether it's within existing law, analogous to existing law, or requires an extensions/modification of existing law.


The supposed challenge you're laying down for me is meaningless because it has absolutely nothing to do with a probable cause analysis. It's just you claiming that certain things are requirements and demanding that I convince you they are not.







It's just the same old crap that comes up every time someone with a political opinion tries to present it as a legal position on a debate board, whether it's people trying to cast doubt on the Page warrant or its people trying to dismiss a court decision on a constitutional issue because they don't like the political result.


It.

Is.

MEANINGLESS.
Click to expand...

So, in effect, when it comes to a a FISA warrant US citizens do not have the protection of the 4th Amendment? Look, I've never applied for a FISA warrant on anyone so maybe I've completely got my head up my ass but it seems to me that at least some legal standards would apply and that basic Constitutional protections apply if the person being surveiled is a US citizen. It also seems that a completely unrelated person in a completely unrelated set of circumstances could be used as a basis for obtaining such a warrant. Furthermore, if there are no substantive provisions to protect US citizens form surveillance by their own government then we may as well just get rid of the rest of the Constitution too.

The "we can do whatever we want as long as we believe what we're doing is justified" standard for ANY kind of investigation is just flat out police state stuff and needs to be stopped immediately.
 
OpportunityCost said:
Because of the nature of the FISA court I don't think one has ever been appealed and I don't believe one has ever had evidence quashed, just an application refused. One of them related to the Trump investigation, coincidentally enough...
Click to expand...

Well, like I said, I don't see how there could be caselaw on it.

If people don't like this situation, then they have to think about voting for politicians who would amend FISA to bring this stuff out into the open. But there are obvious trade-offs. You'd be making classified information available. Warrant applications would probably follow the typical criminal model of simply referring to confidential informants, so you'd still basically just have to trust that the government is doing things right. Yadda yadda.



But the bottom line here is that not one single one of us is in a position to have a valid opinion about whether or not that warrant should have issued. That's the non-tl;dr version of my post.
 
Mr Person said:
Well, like I said, I don't see how there could be caselaw on it.

If people don't like this situation, then they have to think about voting for politicians who would amend FISA to bring this stuff out into the open. But there are obvious trade-offs. You'd be making classified information available. Warrant applications would probably follow the typical criminal model of simply referring to confidential informants, so you'd still basically just have to trust that the government is doing things right. Yadda yadda.



But the bottom line here is that not one single one of us is in a position to have a valid opinion about whether or not that warrant should have issued. That's the non-tl;dr version of my post.
Click to expand...

FISA needs to be more than a rubber stamp. I think we both agree on that.
 
Lutherf said:
So, in effect, when it comes to a a FISA warrant US citizens do not have the protection of the 4th Amendment?
Click to expand...

That you even ask that question shows how ignorant you are about not only the FISA process, but the constitution.

REad this carefully. You can even move your lips if it helps you understand:

FISA warrants are only granted AFTER a court hearing. THAT is due process

Look, I've never applied for a FISA warrant on anyone so maybe I've completely got my head up my ass but it seems to me that at least some legal standards would apply and that basic Constitutional protections apply if the person being surveiled is a US citizen. It also seems that a completely unrelated person in a completely unrelated set of circumstances could be used as a basis for obtaining such a warrant. Furthermore, if there are no substantive provisions to protect US citizens form surveillance by their own government then we may as well just get rid of the rest of the Constitution too.
Click to expand...

If you think having to go to court and show probable cause means that there is no legal standard, then maybe you do have your head up your ass.

The "we can do whatever we want as long as we believe what we're doing is justified" standard for ANY kind of investigation is just flat out police state stuff and needs to be stopped immediately.
Click to expand...
Yeah,having to go to court and show probable cause means "we can do whatever we want as long as we believe what we're doing is justified" because every police state requres the govt to go to court and show probable cause before a search :lamo

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Click to expand...
 
Lutherf said:
So, in effect, when it comes to a a FISA warrant US citizens do not have the protection of the 4th Amendment? Look, I've never applied for a FISA warrant on anyone so maybe I've completely got my head up my ass but it seems to me that at least some legal standards would apply and that basic Constitutional protections apply if the person being surveiled is a US citizen. It also seems that a completely unrelated person in a completely unrelated set of circumstances could be used as a basis for obtaining such a warrant. Furthermore, if there are no substantive provisions to protect US citizens form surveillance by their own government then we may as well just get rid of the rest of the Constitution too.

The "we can do whatever we want as long as we believe what we're doing is justified" standard for ANY kind of investigation is just flat out police state stuff and needs to be stopped immediately.
Click to expand...

The 4th Amd. standard is the probable cause we have been referring to: probable cause in the totality of the circumstances. The protection is that federal judges selected by SCOTUS's Chief (one would hope that the brightest are selected) make a decision on it.

The only real differences between this situation and a normal criminal case is that everything is secret/classified/etc. If we were having an argument about a warrant in a normal criminal case, we could have a valid legal discussion because we could get the warrant application, get a Lexis or Westlaw subscription, do the necessary research, and then present competing analyses. We can't do that here. So, I can't argue that the warrant is valid and you can't argue that it's invalid in any meaningful legal sense.

So basically, the answer is: if the judges did their job correctly, the 4th was honored. If they went rogue just to get someone, it wasn't. Unfortunately, we're in a position where we'll never be able to fairly judge which happened unless Trump declassifies everything that was considered by the FISA court. Even then, we won't have other FISA decisions to compare it to. A third alternative might also have occurred: that the judges had no ill intent but mistakenly found probable cause. I'm no FISA expert so I don't know the precise mechanism for challenging issuance of a FISA warrant, if possible. If it's heard in a normal federal circuit court (ie, as part of the appeal from conviction on charges resulting from the surveillance), I'd bet everything related to the warrant would have to be under seal as well, so the public still couldn't judge.

Still, I don't see much of a reason to suppose the judges simply decided to ignore their duties to help take down Trump.




The real debate here that is possible to have is not whether or not that Page warrant was supported by probable cause. A real debate would be to ask just how much of a tradeoff we want between keeping information classified, protecting national security, and transparency. There are so many instances today in which we have to just trust that government is doing the right thing, particularly in the realm of intelligence. For the last 2 decades or so, it seems that the public would prefer to trust so long as they think it makes them safer (terrorism).
 
Last edited:
OpportunityCost said:
FISA needs to be more than a rubber stamp. I think we both agree on that.
Click to expand...

Well, again, we don't really have a factual basis to judge whether or not warrants improperly issued. Without that we can only guess that a 99.97% approval rate means that it's a rubber stamp. The number may sound high, but then, what if FISA warrant applications contain a whole lot more information than a warrant in an ordinary criminal case? The approval rate is only a bit higher than other types of ex parte requests (see brief law review article linked below).



The question to answer in that regard is whether FISA warrants can be challenged in a way analogous to that in a normal criminal case. That is, can the defendant litigate a motion to suppress once he has been charged in federal district court and litigate the decision on the motion to suppress on appeal following conviction? I'd bet that even if so, everything would happen under seal. So it still wouldn't be public, but at least there would be judicial review. I don't know. I'd sure hope so. Never touched a case resulting from FISA surveillance.

I probably just have to read the SCOTUS decisions that have found the FISA process constitutional, come to think of it. This may be useful (I barely skimmed)

https://www.stanfordlawreview.org/o...nce-surveillance-court-really-a-rubber-stamp/




If a defendant can never challenge admission of evidence because a FISA warrant was not supported by probable cause, then yes, there is a very big problem. But, it's a problem that's been going on since 1978.
 
Last edited:
Mr Person said:
The 4th Amd. standard is the probable cause we have been referring to: probable cause in the totality of the circumstances. The protection is that federal judges selected by SCOTUS's Chief (one would hope that the brightest are selected) make a decision on it.

The only real differences between this situation and a normal criminal case is that everything is secret/classified/etc. If we were having an argument about a warrant in a normal criminal case, we could have a valid legal discussion because we could get the warrant application, get a Lexis or Westlaw subscription, do the necessary research, and then present competing analyses. We can't do that here. So, I can't argue that the warrant is valid and you can't argue that it's invalid in any meaningful legal sense.

So basically, the answer is: if the judges did their job correctly, the 4th was honored. If they went rogue just to get someone, it wasn't. Unfortunately, we're in a position where we'll never be able to fairly judge which happened unless Trump declassifies everything that was considered by the FISA court. Even then, we won't have other FISA decisions to compare it to. A third alternative might also have occurred: that the judges had no ill intent but mistakenly found probable cause. I'm no FISA expert so I don't know the precise mechanism for challenging issuance of a FISA warrant, if possible. If it's heard in a normal federal circuit court (ie, as part of the appeal from conviction on charges resulting from the surveillance), I'd bet everything related to the warrant would have to be under seal as well, so the public still couldn't judge.

Still, I don't see much of a reason to suppose the judges simply decided to ignore their duties to help take down Trump.




The real debate here that is possible to have is not whether or not that Page warrant was supported by probable cause. A real debate would be to ask just how much of a tradeoff we want between keeping information classified, protecting national security, and transparency. There are so many instances today in which we have to just trust that government is doing the right thing, particularly in the realm of intelligence. For the last 2 decades or so, it seems that the public would prefer to trust so long as they think it makes them safer (terrorism).
Click to expand...

I would say if the Republican memo is accurate that the FBI was guilty of violation of order 13a from the published FISA guidelines.

http://www.fisc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/FISC Rules of Procedure.pdf
Rule 13. Correction of Misstatement or Omission; Disclosure of Non-Compliance.
(a) Correction of Material Facts. If the government discovers that a submission to the
Court contained a misstatement or omission of material fact, the government, in writing,
must immediately inform the Judge to whom the submission was made of:
(1) the misstatement or omission;
(2) any necessary correction;
(3) the facts and circumstances relevant to the misstatement or omission;
( 4) any modifications the government has made or proposes to make in how it will
implement any authority or approval granted by the Court; and
(5) how the government proposes to dispose of or treat any information obtained
as a result of the misstatement or omission.
Click to expand...

We don't know for certain but there hasn't been any real pushback to state the FBI gave all information applicable to the case to the judges involved. There seems to be a lot of noise that they did withhold information from the warrant----as far as we know.
 
OpportunityCost said:
I would say if the Republican memo is accurate that the FBI was guilty of violation of order 13a from the published FISA guidelines.

http://www.fisc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/FISC Rules of Procedure.pdf


We don't know for certain but there hasn't been any real pushback to state the FBI gave all information applicable to the case to the judges involved. There seems to be a lot of noise that they did withhold information from the warrant----as far as we know.
Click to expand...

Even if the Nunes is accurate, no material facts were omitted
 
sangha said:
Even if the Nunes is accurate, no material facts were omitted
Click to expand...

Directly false. Steele's personal bias was omitted. The origination of the dossier was omitted. Steele damaging his reliability as an asset was omitted (when he shopped the information in the dossier to media).
 
OpportunityCost said:
Directly false. Steele's personal bias was omitted. The origination of the dossier was omitted. Steele damaging his reliability as an asset was omitted (when he shopped the information in the dossier to media).
Click to expand...

There is no evidence of any personal bias, and even if there were, it is not material.

And the origination was included. And Steele did not damage his reliability by including the info about carter page in the dossier because the info was true.
 
Lutherf said:
Yep. Purely patriotic motives and sheer happenstance that so much of this information is coming from close Clinton associates.
Click to expand...
It was basically his entire ****ing career, but to you it's happenstance?

Professional, career government specialists in Russian crime are contacted about Russian crimes, and Lutherf isn't buying it! Make me laugh funny-man, because this isn't doing it. It makes you look like that moron that's in the white house.
 
sangha said:
There is no evidence of any personal bias, and even if there were, it is not material.

And the origination was included. And Steele did not damage his reliability by including the info about carter page in the dossier because the info was true.
Click to expand...

There was evidence of personal bias per Ohr's statement. So lie number one from you.

Origination was not included, lie number two.

Steele did damage his credibility by shopping the dossier to news media, lie number three.

According to the memo, McCabe testified that the warrant would not have been renewed without the dossier, lie number four.

Take your disinformation to someone else.
 
Mach said:
It was basically his entire ****ing career, but to you it's happenstance?

Professional, career government specialists in Russian crime are contacted about Russian crimes, and Lutherf isn't buying it! Make me laugh funny-man, because this isn't doing it. It makes you look like that moron that's in the white house.
Click to expand...

If he was getting fed information by Shearer and Blumenthal through a third party, its not happenstance, its collusion, isn't it?
 
OpportunityCost said:
There was evidence of personal bias per Ohr's statement. So lie number one from you.
Click to expand...

Bias of source was disclosed on warrant application. Even Nunes memo admits that.

So lie number one from you.

Origination was not included, lie number two.
Click to expand...
Origination included
So lie number two from you.

Steele did damage his credibility by shopping the dossier to news media, lie number three.
Click to expand...

Nothing was shopped and that was after the application for warrant.
Lies three and four for you

According to the memo, McCabe testified that the warrant would not have been renewed without the dossier, lie number four.
Click to expand...

McCabe never said that and even if he had, that is not material.

Lie #5 and 6 for you

Take your disinformation to someone else. No one is buying your --we should not believe people who are biased so lets believe everything Rep Nunes says-- argument
 
Last edited:
sangha said:
Bias of source was disclosed on warrant application. Even Nunes memo admits that.

So lie number one from you.
Click to expand...

False, the Nunes memo states that the FBI never disclosed to the court the stated personal bias of Steele to Ohr and it also never revealed that the dossier began as a political opposition document.


Origination included
So lie number two from you.
Click to expand...

Go back and re-read the GOP memo. You're wrong.



Nothing was shopped and that was after the application for warrant.
Lies three and four for you
Click to expand...

One of the stories that supposedly corroborated the story was actually given to the news organization by Steele and the document itself was widely shopped to media outlets, only BuzzFeed was stupid enough to publish the entire thing. So, yes shopped and the warrants must be renewed, they are not open ended.



McCabe never said that and even if he had, that is not material.

Lie #5 and 6 for you
Click to expand...

Its in the memo, so wrong again.

Take your disinformation to someone else. No one is buying your --we should not believe people who are biased so lets believe everything Rep Nunes says-- argument
Click to expand...

You are welcome to your fact challenged version that is wrong not just from the Nunes memo but from various other sources as well.
 
OpportunityCost said:
To believe that we have to believe Shearer, Blumenthal, Winer and Steele are all telling the truth. I don't think I believe that. I say all of them, because by Winer's account Blumenthal or Shearer could be lying or even Steele and Winer would never know and Winer himself could be lying about any number of things.
Click to expand...

It all comes back to Hillary. Everyone thought she would be president. She had the organization and Trump was a new comer and amateur at politics. The result was high level career government officials, began to act in ways to suck up to Hillary and/or avoid her wrath. For example, Comey writes Hillary's e-mail server pardon, months before the investigation. If Hillary had won, being righteous could have killed Comey's career. Whereas a dutiful solider would see favor. It was a calculated risk.

What messed everyone up, was the Trump victory. Everyone is so mad and scared, because so many vampires drank the blood to suck up yo Hillary. Everyone who committed crimes, to suck up or to avoid wrath, were caught with their pants down. This is when plan B went into affect. Plan B was to take Trump out with the Russian scandal, so Trump would be defensive and can't investigate. AG Sessions was asked to recuse himself, to help this go away. Trump is an amateur and let himself be backed into the corner. However he had nothing to hide, so he assumed justice will prevail. Also he has the best lawyers a billionaire can buy to fight the scam.

The risk involved was, if Trump was not taken out by plan B, plan B will draw the wrong attention and may even motivate a resistance movement. Once again the worse case scenario befalls the Democrats. Trump was not taken out and all the criminals are being dragged toward a cliff. However, they are grabbing at things and digging in their feet, to slow their approach to the cliff. Already almost about 10 people have resigned, been fired, or have been transferred. The cliff is working and the line is long.
 
Last edited:
OpportunityCost said:
False, the Nunes memo states that the FBI never disclosed to the court the stated personal bias of Steele to Ohr and it also never revealed that the dossier began as a political opposition document.
Click to expand...

Immaterial and it did reveal it

Go back and re-read the GOP memo. You're wrong.
Click to expand...

I am right

One of the stories that supposedly corroborated the story was actually given to the news organization by Steele and the document itself was widely shopped to media outlets, only BuzzFeed was stupid enough to publish the entire thing. So, yes shopped and the warrants must be renewed, they are not open ended.
Click to expand...

That is not shopping

Its in the memo, so wrong again.
Click to expand...

It comes from a biased source which you are pretending should not be believed, except when you want to believe biased sources . I am right

You are welcome to your fact challenged version that is wrong not just from the Nunes memo but from various other sources as well.
Click to expand...

You are welcome to reject biased sources except when you want to believe biased sources. I am sure no one will notice the hypocrisy
 
sangha said:
Immaterial and it did reveal it
Click to expand...

No proof of course, just troll baiting nonsense.


I am right
Click to expand...

More of same.



That is not shopping
Click to expand...

Yeah it went to multiple outlets many of them admitting they had seen it before it was published by BuzzFeed, but please, keep up your delusion.


It comes from a biased source which you are pretending should not be believed, except when you want to believe biased sources . I am right
Click to expand...

At least twice a day, about the time, but not much else. Prove you are right, don't just say it.



You are welcome to reject biased sources except when you want to believe biased sources. I am sure no one will notice the hypocrisy
Click to expand...

Yet you believe biased sources as well, are you guilty of hypocrisy, too?
 
OpportunityCost said:
No proof of course, just troll baiting nonsense.




More of same.





Yeah it went to multiple outlets many of them admitting they had seen it before it was published by BuzzFeed, but please, keep up your delusion.




At least twice a day, about the time, but not much else. Prove you are right, don't just say it.





Yet you believe biased sources as well, are you guilty of hypocrisy, too?
Click to expand...

You are the one making accusations, so it is your burden to provide proof
 
sangha said:
You are the one making accusations, so it is your burden to provide proof
Click to expand...

That's just it I have sourced what I am talking about on multiple occasions, I have never seen you source anything. I would like to see some.
 
Lutherf said:
If there is no evidence that Papadopolous and Page worked together and/or colluded to illegally obtain information designed to effect the 2016 presidential campaign then there is no reasonable cause to include information on Papadopolous in the warrant for Page.
Click to expand...

Luther, you’ve believed the Page warrant was a backdoor excuse to investigate trump. You started a thread with that narrative. That narrative has been proven false. “papadopoulos shouldn’t be mentioned in page warrant” is not only a narrative you made up, it’s an excuse to not acknowledge that you believed the Page warrant was a backdoor excuse to investigate trump.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom