Eye of Sauron: Unelected 4th Branch of the US Government
"One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them, In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.” Tolkien
(Scroll down for news updates)
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” (Ben Franklin)
“There is no doubt that if we lived in a police state, it would be easier to catch terrorists. If we lived in a country that allowed the police to search your home at any time for any reason; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to open your mail, eavesdrop on your phone conversations, or intercept your email communications; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to hold people in jail indefinitely based on what they write or think, or based on mere suspicion that they are up to no good, then the government would no doubt discover and arrest more terrorists. But that probably would not be a country in which we would want to live. And that would not be a country for which we could, in good conscience, ask our young people to fight and die. In short, that would not be America.” (Senator Russ Feingold, D-WI 10/25/2001)
"You take on the Intelligence Community they have six ways from Sunday to get back at you." (Senator Chuck Schumer, January 2017)
“The Patriot Act turned the intel surveillance radar from foreign searches for terrorists to domestic searches for terrorists. Obama/Biden then redefined what is a ‘terrorist’ to include their political opposition.
The Fourth Branch of Government is evil Sauron, and Washington D.C. is Mordor. The corrupt media have aligned with it; they are preserving it; and the institutions in/around the DC system are self-aware, acting to support it and are fully autonomous.
The Patriot Act was never intended to stop foreign terrorists from attacking the USA. The Patriot Act was intended to create the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) surveillance system for domestic control. It succeeded.” (theconservativetreehouse.com)
“A glaring example of how ‘solutions’ were quickly found (after 9/11) is the so-called Patriot Act. The USA Patriot Act of 2001 allowed unprecedented surveillance of American citizens and individuals around the world without having to respect traditional guarantees of civil liberties. This massive 342-page piece of legislation was submitted to the U.S. Congress within a week of the attack. Cynically, the title of the Patriot Act reads ‘Preserving Life & Liberty’; exactly the opposite was the case. Again, basic rights were taken away within days for a ‘higher purpose’ with the stroke of a pen.
Anyone who has even an inkling of law-making is aware that this law lay fully drafted in a drawer even before the attack. A clear indication that there were people who were a little too well ‘prepared.’” (Peter Hanseler)
“Office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz testified, in April 2022, that more than 3.4 million search queries into the NSA database took place between Dec. 1st, 2020 and Nov. 30th, 2021, by government officials and/or contractors working on behalf of the federal government.
Approximately 30%, of those 3.4 million search queries, were outside the rules and regulations that govern warrantless searches – what the politically correct government calls ‘non-compliant searches.’ Approximately one million times the NSA Database was used, unlawfully, to conduct electronic surveillance.
Additionally, IG Horowitz also admitted that somewhere north of 10,000 federal employees have access to conduct these searches of the NSA database; a database which contains the electronic data of every single American, including emails, text messages, social media posts, instant messages, direct messages, phone calls, geolocation identifiers, purchases by electronic funds, banking records and any keystroke any American person puts into any electronic device for any reason.
If we were in a functioning system of government, everything would have stopped, right then.” (theconservativetreehouse.com 9/30/25)
“Late last week, a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court revealed that he had had enough of the FBI and Congress trashing the Constitution. The normally secretive court and the normally secretive judge explained in a rare public opinion the unlawful behavior of FBI agents spying on ordinary Americans in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The FISA Court judge revealed that the FBI spied illegally on 278,000 Americans in 2022, including — all unnamed — a U.S. senator, a state senator and a state judge.” (washingtontimes.com 7/26/23)
After the messy 1960s assassinations of JFK, Malcolm X, MLK & RFK the National Security State must have realized blackmail was a cleaner option following its successful 1973 impeachment of Richard Nixon (Deep Throat source Mark Felt was the FBI’s Assistant Director). After the failed Reagan assassination of 1981 (which would have installed operative George H.W. Bush as President), they surely had concluded a Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell blackmail operation was more effective in compromising those in power (Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Prince Andrew, Donald Trump, etc.), before resorting to two assassination attempts on former President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13 & Mar a Lago on Sept. 15, 2024 (after Russian collusion, two impeachment attempts & several Lawfare cases failed to remove him). After the two failed assassination attempts against Trump, the Deep State returned to its blackmail playbook with renewed Mockingbird Media focus on the President’s former relationship with Jeffrey Epstein & Ghislaine Maxwell.
Recall Trump’s former Labor Secretary Alex Acosta declared: "I was told Epstein belonged to intelligence and to leave it alone, to back off, that Epstein was above my pay grade,” after granting him a sweetheart deal in 2007, and remember Ghislaine’s Mossad father’s state funeral atop the Mount of Olives was attended by President Chaim Herzog & Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. There is a reason the “Epstein File” hasn’t been fully released, it’s still being used for (CIA/MI6/Mossad) blackmail. The fact President Trump dismissed his Epstein connection after being asked a pointed question in a press briefing at the White House when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was visiting Washington, D.C. in July 2025 is no coincidence.
“Journalist Nick Bryant notes in this viral clip from the Shawn Ryan podcast that the Jeffrey Epstein case is being covered up by the federal government and will never progress because it would destroy their entire operational system.
‘Epstein had cameras in all of his homes. Epstein was definitely a blackmail artist,’ Bryant notes. ‘The government wants to make sure that that does not come out. A huge part of our political system is predicated on blackmail,’ he adds.” (modernity.news 7/8/25)
“Donald Trump has a rape problem that involves Israel and it is sinking his Presidency. First was his decision to not release the Epstein files, nothwithstanding his prior campaign promise to do so, because those files reportedly implicate Israel in espionage activity that involved Epstein gathering compromising material on prominent businessmen, bankers and politicians. Here’s a timeline of Trump’s political evolution regarding Epstein.” (sonar21.com 11/6/25)
“The House panel also released a new cache of documents from Epstein’s estate containing direct evidence of Epstein’s links to Israeli intelligence: Epstein’s personal calendars reveal that a senior Israeli intelligence officer, with personal ties to former CIA Director Leon Panetta, lived at Epstein’s Manhattan apartment for multiple stretches between 2013 and 2016. When cross-referenced with emails leaked from the inbox of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, a portrait emerges of Epstein at the nexus of high-ranking intelligence officials in both the U.S. and Israel.” (dropsitenews.com 11/11/25)
Where is the digital kompromat (signals intelligence) from around the world stored for exploitation by the National Security State? It’s stored in what the FBI calls the DWS, the Data Warehouse System.
South of Salt Lake City half way to Provo at Camp Williams is the Utah Data Center. Also known as the Intelligence Community National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center it is the National Security Agency’s $1.5 billion warehouse for your communications going back decades. Its mission on behalf of the Director of National Intelligence in support of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative is classified, but the storage of worldwide communications its purpose.
Ostensibly the Utah [Meta] Data Center was built on National Security grounds in the fight against terrorism, but it’s now known the FBI has been routinely spying on (querying) ordinary Americans without a warrant (reverse targeting) on a routine basis:
“‘The FBI had 3.4 million backdoor searches of the FISA database without a warrant in 2021,’ [Congresswoman] Lofgren asserted. ‘Can you say whether the FBI is continuing to search the FISA database without a warrant for Americans?’
‘Well, if you’re asking about our use of 702 queries…there is no warrant requirement under the Fourth Amendment for those queries is fairly well settled,” [FBI Director] Wray responded.
An FBI analyst also ‘conducted a batch query for over 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign,’ on a campaign the analyst said was a target of foreign influence.
FISA court Judge Rudolph Contreras permitted Section 702 to continue for another year because he was ‘encouraged by the amendments to the FBI’s querying procedures,’ but noted compliance problems ‘have proven to be persistent and widespread.’
The FBI abused a digital surveillance tool nearly 300,000 times between 2020 and early 2021, running 23,132 inquiries alone after Jan. 6., according to a newly unsealed court document.
The Section 702 database, which the FBI is authorized to use to gather foreign intelligence information or if they believe there is evidence of a crime, was used on Jan. 6 suspects, along with congressional campaign donors and protestors arrested in riots after George Floyd was killed in 2020, a newly unsealed court document reveals.
An April 2022 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) opinion described these abuses, noting that the employee who ran the queries after Jan. 6 did so ‘to find evidence of possible foreign influence, although the analyst conducting the queries had no indications of foreign influence related to the query term used.’” (dailycaller.com 5/19/23)
[4th Amendment: “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.
The Court has recognized ‘the exigencies of the situation’ as an exception to the warrant requirement, which ‘make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that the warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” (law.cornell.edu)]
“In the era shortly after 9/11, the DC national security apparatus, instructed by Vice President Dick Cheney, was constructed to preserve continuity of government and simultaneously view all Americans as potential threats. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were created specifically for this purpose.
After 9/11/01, the electronic surveillance system, that was originally created to monitor threats from abroad, was retooled to monitor threats inside our country. That is when all of our electronic ‘metadata’ came under federal surveillance.
That inflection point, and the process that followed, was exactly what Edward Snowden tried to point out. What Barack Obama and Eric Holder did with that new construct was refine the internal targeting mechanisms, so that only their political opposition became the target of this new national security system.
We have a recent frame of reference for the ‘U.S. data collection network’ within the NSA. Through the allied process the Five Eyes nations all rely on the NSA surveillance database (U.K, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and U.S.) The NSA database provides the digital baseline for intelligence operations in defense of our allies. The portals into the NSA database are essentially an assembly of allies in like-minded ideological connection to the United States.
Unfortunately, there have been some revelations about the NSA database being used to monitor our allies, like in the example of Germany and surveillance on Angela Merkel’s phone. As long as ‘the good guys’ are operating honorably, allies of the United States can feel confident about having protection from the NSA surveillance of global digital data. We warn our friends if we detect something dangerous, etc.
The U.S. has nodes on communication pipelines to intercept and extract data. We have also launched hundreds, perhaps thousands, of satellites to conduct surveillance and gather up data. All of this data is fed into the NSA database [at the Utah Data Center] where it is monitored (presumably) as a national security mechanism, and in defense of our allies.” (theconservativetreehouse.com 9/11/23)
"‘In 2008, Congress enacted Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a critical intelligence collection authority that enables the Intelligence Community (IC) to collect, analyze, and appropriately share foreign intelligence information about national security threats,’ insists the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. ‘Section 702 only permits the targeting of non-United States persons who are reasonably believed to be located outside the United States. United States persons and anyone in the United States may not be targeted under Section 702.’
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), established in 2007 in an effort to limit the excesses of the burgeoning post-9/11 domestic intelligence apparatus, sees things a little differently.
‘The Board finds that Section 702 poses significant privacy and civil liberties risks, most notably from U.S. person queries and batch queries’ in which multiple query terms are run as part of a single action, according to the PCLOB's Report on the Surveillance Program Operated Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, published September 28 and following up on a 2014 report on the same topic. ‘Significant privacy and civil liberties risks also include the scope of permissible targeting, NSA's new approach to upstream collection, a new sensitive collection technique that presented novel and significant legal issues approved by the FISC in 2022, how data is initially ingested into government repositories, incidental collection, and inadvertent collection.’
The report points out that the definition of ‘foreign intelligence information’ is very broad and that 246,073 non-U.S. persons were targeted for surveillance in 2022, up 276 percent from 2013. While Section 702 surveillance isn't ‘bulk’ surveillance of the sort that hoovers up mass quantities of information, it ‘lacks individualized and particularized judicial review of targeting decisions’ with the result that ‘targeting can be over broad or unjustified.’
Often, federal agents seem to explicitly use Section 702 to bypass safeguards. ‘The large amounts of incidental collection may include communications between attorneys and their clients,’ adds the report. It also notes that ‘the government has identified a significant number of noncompliant queries where government personnel have conducted queries related to instances of civil unrest and protests.’
How often does this happen?
‘In the Annual Statistical Transparency Report for calendar year 2021, FBI reported that it ran 3.4 million [later revised downward to 2.97 million] U.S. person queries of Section 702-acquired information in all its systems,’ according to a report footnote.” (reason.com 10/2/23)
Yet, spying on American citizens is nothing new:
“The most impactful discovery made by the Church Committee, however, was that of Project SHAMROCK. Started in 1940 during World War II and running into the 1970s, the NSA was given secret authority to access all incoming, outgoing, and transiting telegrams via the Western Union and its associates RCA and ITT. At the peak of Project SHAMROCK, 150,000 messages were captured and analyzed by NSA personnel in a month. The pertinent information contained in these messages was then forwarded to other intelligence agencies, including the CIA, FBI, Secret Service and the Department of Defense. This formed the basis of the so-called ‘Watch List’ of the 1970s that included thousands of American citizens, including high-ranking politicians, celebrities, academics and antiwar activists.
The findings led Senator Frank Church to conclude that Project SHAMROCK was ‘probably the largest government interception program affecting Americans ever undertaken.’ Based on the recommendations of the Church Committee, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. Under FISA, the government is required to obtain warrants to conduct electronic surveillance against individuals from a special court. Such a warrant requires ‘probable cause to believe’ that the surveillance target is a foreign government or organization, or an agent thereof, ‘engaging in clandestine intelligence activities or international terrorism,’ as per a Department of Justice (DOJ) clarification. Yet, as we shall see, even this minor legislative hurdle would prove too cumbersome for the Bush administration in its war on terror.
The tireless work of the Church Commission was put to a test in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks as US lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle were prepared to sacrifice citizens’ privacy in the name of national security. Thus, less than one week after three hijacked aircraft toppled the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon, killing some 3,000 people in the process, one of the most comprehensive plans for conducting surveillance on American civilians and individuals worldwide – the USA PATRIOT ACT (an acronym for ‘Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act’) – was already being disseminated to members of Congress.
Arguably the most controversial part of the Patriot Act is contained in Section 215 of the 342-page document, which calls for sweeping government powers against private and public enterprises, individuals, and personal privacy. Most crucially, Section 215 did away with the requirement that the target of the records search be a non-US citizen and ‘an agent of a foreign power.’ American citizens were now legitimate targets as well.
In the Senate, the Patriot Act passed in a 99 – 1 vote. The only senator to vote against it was Wisconsin Democrat Russell Feingold. ‘There is no doubt,’ he declared on the Senate floor before the historic vote, ‘that if we lived in a police state, it would be easier to catch terrorists...But that would not be a country in which we would want to live.’ Senator Russ Feingold, D-WI 10/25/2001 (rt.com 10/11/23)
“The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals […disagreed with Trump that the classified documents seized on Aug. 8 might be his property, rather than the government's] is doing what the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) does with the Department of Justice - National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) and any matters defined by the originating Main Justice officials as ‘national security.’ The 11th Circuit is deferring to the DOJ. The DOJ is granted legal benefit of the doubt on all matters of national security, which puts the DOJ-NSD in ultimate control over the star chamber they operate.
In the post 9-11 surveillance state, this approach by the DOJ-NSD is a pillar holding the Fourth Branch of Government in place, as we have outlined. The other pillars are (2) the Dept of Homeland Security, (3) the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and (4) the secret FISA Court system.
All four pillars maintain an omnipotent fourth branch of government that operates entirely without oversight. As you can see in the 11th Circuit Court ruling, there is no check or balance in the post 9-11 national security state.” (theconservativetreehouse.com 11/5/23)
“Yesterday, we noted the warrant demand from Special Counsel Jack Smith to Twitter, that included the demand for all information on Donald Trump’s account that relates to his followers and supporters. {LINK} However, the element for this focus is the granular demand for user metadata, and the bigger picture for 2024.
Within the warrant:
The U.S. government requested and received the metadata for accounts connected to, and in alignment with, President Donald J. Trump. That’s billions of billions of datapoints on millions of American citizens, their locations, their devices, their IP addresses and ultimately their real identities and connected activity as attributed to - and connected with - their connected social media accounts. Essentially, turning Donald J. Trump into the center of a surveillance virus.
People then say – how could the Jack Smith special counsel possibly comb through all of those users and all of that connected metadata? The answer is Artificial Intelligence; but the serious concern comes when you combine the metadata, AI organization and the previous announcements from DHS.
If you have followed my outlines on this issue [Category Here], you will note exactly where this latest Jack Smith development falls on the continuum. The 2024 election is right around the corner. Previously, I stated the artificial intelligence (AI) component to the internet surveillance system was going to launch toward the end of this year. Then DHS announced exactly that [SEE HERE].” (theconservativetreehouse.com 11/30/23)
“Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was enacted by Congress in 2008 to ostensibly allow the United States intelligence community to surveil foreigners located abroad. Purportedly, Congress wrote this law to protect our national security by allowing spying on non-U.S. threats without a court order.
Congress is currently considering reauthorizing Section 702, which is set to expire at the end of this year. Congress reauthorized the spy program in 2012 and again in 2018. Rife with abuse and overreach, I voted against reauthorizing Section 702 in the past, and I intend to oppose its reauthorization once again this time.
Section 702 has been controversial since its inception, and it has been highly scrutinized by civil liberties advocates and privacy rights activists. There are numerous reasons why Congress should not reauthorize section 702 FISA warrants.
First and foremost, the warrantless surveillance authorized under section 702 is a clear overreach of authority and is a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. The government’s ability to collect and analyze the communications of non-U.S. individuals without a warrant has led to the collection of communications of American citizens and raises serious concerns about the indiscriminate and broad nature of the surveillance program, further infringing on the rights of Americans.
Additionally, section 702 has been plagued by abuse and misuse. The program has been used to collect and store vast amounts of data, including emails, text messages, and other electronic communications, without proper oversight or accountability that are way outside the scope of national security or counterterrorism efforts. This has led to widespread abuses of power, including by the FBI to conduct warrantless searches against hundreds of thousands of American citizens, U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, campaign donors, political opponents and judges. These abuses highlight the inherent dangers of granting such broad surveillance authority to the government without checks and balances in place.
Additionally, the lack of transparency and accountability surrounding the section 702 program is deeply concerning. The secretive nature of the program makes it difficult for the public and even members of Congress to fully understand the extent of the surveillance activities and the potential impact on privacy rights. The lack of transparency also hinders the ability to hold government agencies accountable for any misuse or overreach of their surveillance powers, further eroding trust in the democratic process and the rule of law.
Another key concern is the potential for section 702 to be used for purposes beyond its original intent. The broad language of the provision leaves the door open for the government to exploit the surveillance powers for purposes unrelated to national security, such as political targeting. For example, thanks to the Durham Report, we have a better idea of the lengths of corruption, such as an over-reliance on a former British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s deeply discredited dossier used as a justification for instigating a witch-hunt against Donald Trump. As if that were not bad enough, a court found that the FBI wrongfully used their database for searches on non-citizens and U.S. citizens – nearly 278,000 times. This runs counter to the notion of limited government and undermines the fundamental principles of democratic governance.
FISA was established to review warrant applications for spying activities while maintaining the secrecy necessary to effectively carry out covert operations on foreign entities to aid our national security. It was never intended to spy on U.S. citizens. As Congress considers the year-end reauthorization of Section 702, I remain deeply concerned with the continued abuses of this program. While everything must be done to prevent future terrorist activities, it should not come at the cost of the privacy and civil rights abuses of innocent American citizens.
Instead of reauthorizing the warrantless spy program, Congress should take a stand against warrantless surveillance and prioritize the protection of privacy rights and constitutional principles. (Op-Ed by Congressman Paul Gosar 12/1/23)
“House Judiciary panel advances renewal of surveillance authority:
The House Judiciary Committee approved a bill Wednesday that would add a warrant requirement to a powerful spy authority, striking a bipartisan tone on a panel that’s often known for party-line acrimony. The panel voted 35-2 to advance amended legislation that would renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for three more years but would insert a warrant requirement when it comes to information on Americans, with certain exceptions.
Those exemptions include situations where there’s an emergency involving an ‘imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm,’ and situations in which a ‘cybersecurity threat signature’ is used as a search term to prevent harm from malicious software. The bill would also ‘drastically’ lower the number of FBI officials who are authorized to conduct a search of a U.S. person, according to a House Judiciary Committee advisory.” (rollcall.com 12/6/23)
“Congress is preparing to extend its deadline for untangling a complicated fight over warrantless government surveillance – which will mean yet another headache for House GOP leaders. Top lawmakers are attaching a short-term extension of the government wiretapping power known as Section 702 to a sweeping defense policy bill, according to seven aides and lawmakers familiar with the text of the bill.
The extension would give Congress until April 19 to figure out how to reauthorize Section 702, named for its specific section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The provision is meant to target foreigners abroad but has long stoked controversy for its ability to sweep in Americans.” (politico.com 12/6/23)
“FISA-702 surveillance was the legal mechanism by which the 2016 campaign of Donald Trump was placed under surveillance. The primary target of the FISA warrant was Carter Page; however, everyone within two contact points (2 hops) of Carter Page was also under full Title-1 surveillance. Essentially, the entire campaign and later administration of President Donald Trump fell under full electronic and physical surveillance.
Phone calls, text messages, emails and all electronic communication was intercepted by the DOJ. Robert Mueller extended the surveillance with a June 29, 2017, renewal. The FISA-702 authorities served as the legal mechanism that permitted the DOJ/FBI to intercept all communication and monitor everything from every position inside the administration of President Trump.
The 702 authorities were weaponized as warrantless searches by the DOJ against their political enemies. The FISA Court has published several years’ worth of reports showing how the ‘incidental collection’ was not incidentally used. The abuses of the system have only grown every year since the DOJ National Security Division first started using them as a weaponized process to conduct warrantless surveillance on Americans.
Why April 2024?
Quite simply, and brutally honestly if we apply prior precedent to the extension timing, what you realize is the primary election of 2024 takes place between January and April of 2024. If things go as predicted by most, Donald Trump will have likely secured enough delegates for the nomination by the end of April. The extension will give the surveillance apparatus the ability to conduct searches of information throughout this period.
Using the wording within the criminal indictment, the DOJ-NSD could - likely is - considering Donald Trump a national security threat. All indications from the Jack Smith prosecution point in this direction. There is no countervailing data that would suggest the DOJ is not considering Donald Trump a national security threat. As a result, it is very likely candidate Trump is once again under a FISA authorized Title-1 surveillance warrant….. and everyone within two hops of him would be under the same.” (theconservativetreehouse.com 12/07/23)
“FISA, as it applies to American citizens caught up in the ‘incidental collection,’ is clearly weaponized. The underlying database, the storage system for all data, is the other problem. As long as thousands of people in the executive branch have access to search this database, that access will be abused.
[CTH] – Office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz testified, April 27, 2023, that more than 3.4 million search queries into the NSA database took place between Dec. 1st, 2020 and Nov. 30th, 2021, by government officials and/or contractors working on behalf of the federal government. These search queries were based on authorizations related to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Approximately 30% of those 3.4 million search queries were outside the rules and regulations that govern warrantless searches – what the politically correct government calls ‘non-compliant searches.’ That means during the year 2021, more than 1 million searches of private documents and communication of Americans were illegal and outside the rules.
Additionally, IG Horowitz admitted that somewhere north of 10,000 federal employees have access to conduct these searches of the NSA database; a database which contains the electronic data of every single American, including emails, text messages, social media posts, instant messages, direct messages, phone calls, geolocation identifiers, purchases by electronic funds, banking records and any keystroke any American person puts into any electronic device for any reason. (more)” (theconservativetreehouse.com 12/10/23)
“Under Section 504 of the House intelligence committee’s bill, any entity that has access to *equipment* on which communications may be transmitted or stored, such as an ordinary router, is fair game. What does that mean in practice? It’s simple.
Hotels, libraries, coffee shops, and other places that offer wifi to their customers could be forced to serve as surrogate spies. They could be required to configure their systems to ensure that they can provide the government access to entire streams of communications.” (@LizaGoitein 12/11/23)
Sen. Mike Lee raised the alarm on the FISA issue: “The Senate just voted to waive the point of order against the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). 35 of us opposed the motion to waive. We needed only 41 to prevent this outcome, and to remove FISA 702 from the NDAA. This is not good. The House should #StopTheNDAA."
“It’s a new day in America. The Fourth Amendment still prohibits warrantless searches of Americans. FBI disregards that under FISA 702. The NDAA would further enable FBI’s lawless abuse of 702. One-third of the House can still stop the NDAA. Ask your representative to vote NO!!!” (@SenMikeLee)
“If Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) abuses the NDAA to smuggle into law an extension of the warrantless surveillance regime (FISA702) that the FBI exploited to spy ON AMERICANS more than TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND times in JUST ONE YEAR, he should be dumped just like McCarthy. No excuse.” (@snowden)
“The Republican-controlled House passed a final $886 billion defense policy bill on Thursday, even though many conservative provisions had been stripped through negotiations with the Senate. Hardliners, led by the conservative House Freedom Caucus, opposed the bill after congressional leaders attached a four-month renewal of spy powers that target foreigners’ communications. The authority, known as Section 702, is set to expire at the end of the year. Johnson has defended the move as necessary to buy time for lawmakers to agree to an overhaul of the program.” (politico.com 12/14/23)
“The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act created the Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) reporting rule to ostensibly target money laundering. Beginning January 1, 2024, the Act mandates U.S. companies, regardless of size, to register their beneficial and controlling owners with the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). FinCEN claims the corporate ownership database will be used exclusively to identify anonymous shell companies involved in money laundering and terrorist activities. Once again, like the Patriot Act, it grants surveillance powers violating the Constitution. There is no provision for judicial oversight to protect individual rights as if that ever mattered.” (Robert A. Bishop AmericanThinker.com 1/2/24))
“In Ancient Rome, the Praetorian Guard served as bodyguards and intelligence agents for Roman emperors. They were involved in Roman politics, overthrew emperors, and appointed their successors. The US alphabet intelligence agencies are the new Praetorian Guard, and card-carrying members like Mary McCord carry out their subversive duties to the detriment of the US Constitution.” (Bob Bishop sonar21.com 12/17/23)
“Rep. Warren Davidson is circulating a letter to Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise urging them to use a revived debate over controversial surveillance power to also prevent data brokers from selling consumer information to law enforcement.
‘It is vital that any forthcoming legislation Section 702 … close the data broker loophole. Congress now has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to update our laws to protect Americans’ liberty, Americans’ right to privacy and the Second Amendment,’ Davidson wrote in the letter.
‘We have serious concerns about the potential for the federal government to weaponize this data against Americans, especially given the Biden administration’s lengthy record of harassing and prosecuting political opponents, including gun owners,’ he added.” (politico.com 2/12/24)
“Late last year, Congress extended Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and, in doing so, secured ‘the nation’s warrantless surveillance powers’ until April 2024. With that month fast approaching, House Republicans have unveiled a new package to reauthorize those same powers, within limits.
As the Hill reports, the new package ‘focus[es] on more reforms at the FBI to address misuse of the powerful spy tool,’ but the deal does not include requirements for a warrant, which is ‘deemed a red line for the intelligence community but nonetheless a top priority for privacy advocates in Congress.’
The new measure ‘would severely limit the number of FBI personnel who can query the database, forcing more oversight from some 550 supervisors or lawyers before agents can tap into the database to gain information on Americans.’ The bill aims to ‘protect members of Congress or other high-profile officials’ by requiring consent before a ‘defensive briefing.’” (spectator.org 2/16/24)
"The fundamental nature of war changed [with Crimea's annexation]. And NATO, at that point, declared something that they first called the Gerasimov doctrine... All you need to do is control the media and the social media ecosystem, because that's what controls elections." - Mike Benz w/Tucker Carlson 2/16/24).
“FISA REAUTHORIZATION: HOW AMERICA’S MOST CRITICAL NATIONAL SECURITY TOOL MUST BE REFORMED TO CONTINUE TO SAVE AMERICAN LIVES AND LIBERTY
Although the reauthorization of Section 702 is imperative for protecting our national security, recent disturbing abuses of Section 702 and other provisions of FISA impacting U.S. persons require a complete review of Section 702 authorities and the enactment of meaningful reforms.” (intelligence.house.gov 12/23)
“Under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the U.S. government engages in mass, warrantless surveillance of Americans’ and foreigners’ phone calls, text messages, emails, and other electronic communications. Information collected under the law without a warrant can be used to prosecute and imprison people, even for crimes that have nothing to do with national security. Given our nation’s history of abusing its surveillance authorities, and the secrecy surrounding the program, we should be concerned that Section 702 is and will be used to disproportionately target disfavored groups, whether minority communities, political activists, or even journalists.” (aclu.org)
“The Internet, in other words, was being transformed from a system for exchanging forbidden or dissenting ideas, like Samizdat, to a system for imposing top-down control over information and narrative, a GozIzdat. Worse, while the Soviets had to rely on primitive surveillance technologies, like the mandatory registration of typewriters, the Internet offered breathtaking new surveillance capability, allowing authorities to detect thoughtcrime by algorithm and instantaneously disenfranchise those on the wrong side of the information paradigm, stripping them of the ability to raise money or conduct business or communicate at all.” (Matt Taibbi racketnews.com 3/8/24)
“Federal authorities in the US asked Google for the names, addresses, telephone numbers and user activity of the accounts that watched certain YouTube videos between January 1 and 8, 2023, according to unsealed court documents viewed by Forbes. People who watched those videos while they weren't logged into an account weren't safe either, because the government also asked for their IP addresses.” (engadget.com 3/23/24)
“House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) says legislation to reform Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) must require intelligence agencies to obtain a warrant for all U.S. person searches. ‘Let’s hope that that gets in the final legislation. That’s what we’re pushing for and if that gets in I think it’s a reform worth voting for,’ says Rep. Jordan.” (justthenews.com 3/26/24)
“The FBI spends ‘every day, all day long’ interrogating people over their Facebook posts. At least, that's what agents told Stillwater, Oklahoma, resident Rolla Abdeljawad when they showed up at her house to ask her about her social media activity.
Three FBI agents came to Abdeljawad's house and said that they had been given ‘screenshots’ of her posts by Facebook. Her lawyer Hassan Shibly posted a video of the incident online on Wednesday.” (reason.com 3/29/24)
“Media investigations have uncovered a vast censorship network, while federal agencies like the FBI, IRS, Justice Department, and even the Secret Service have been utilized against political opponents. Big Tech tracks our every post, our every communication, and gives it to the government on demand, while the media has become an instrument of propaganda.” (RFK Jr. 4/1/24)
“Earlier this month saw a continuation of that effort, with the targeting of three well-marked and fully approved aid vehicles belonging to World Central Kitchen, killing their seven occupants and ensuring that the food would never reach those dying of starvation. The targeting was precise—placing missiles dead center in the aid agency’s rooftop logos. Israel, however, said it was simply a mistake, similar to the ‘mistaken’ killing of nearly 200 other aid workers in just a matter of months—more than all the aid workers killed in all the wars in the rest of the world over the last 30 years combined, according to the Aid Worker Security Database.
Such horrendous ‘mistakes’ are hard to understand, considering the enormous amount of advanced targeting AI hardware and software provided to the Israeli miliary and spy agencies—some of it by one American company in particular: Palantir Technologies. ‘We stand with Israel,’ the Denver-based company said in posts on X and LinkedIn. ‘The board of directors of Palantir will be gathering in Tel Aviv next week for its first meeting of the new year. Our work in the region has never been more vital. And it will continue.’ As one of the world’s most advanced data-mining companies, with ties to the CIA, Palantir’s ‘work’ was supplying Israel’s military and intelligence agencies with advanced and powerful targeting capabilities—the precise capabilities that allowed Israel to place three drone-fired missiles into three clearly marked aid vehicles.
‘I am pretty encouraged about talent here and that we are getting the best people, Alex Karp, cofounder and CEO of the company, told a group soon after arriving in Tel Aviv last January. ‘What I see in Israel is this hybrid of talent that is qualitative and argumentative.’ Immediately after the talk, Karp traveled to a military headquarters where he signed an upgraded agreement with Israel’s Ministry of Defense. ‘Both parties have mutually agreed to harness Palantir’s advanced technology in support of war-related missions,’ said Executive Vice President Josh Harris.” (the nation.com 4/12/24)
“Congress gives itself a carve out in the reauthorization of FISA 702 warrantless spying on Americans. The bill requires the FBI to notify and seek consent from Congress before violating the privacy of Congressmen.” (@RepThomasMassie 4/12/24)
“Any crooked FBI agent can make the argument that if you do not support another 60 billion this year, 100 billion later this year, a trillion over the next five years to Ukraine, then you are helping Russia. Well, why are you helping Russia? Well, we better find out to decide if you have Russian contacts.
So boom, now they can tap your WiFi device. They can listen to your phone while you’re on the toilet or while you’re making love to your spouse. This is the most corrupt agency, the most lawless. We will know there’s checks and balances when we see them in jail.
It is the FBI’s toolkit side of when you are losing in a fair fight in terms of voters and the electorate so you need to resort to dirty tricks like censorship or like prosecution or like mass domestic spying on everything to find the crime because every minute of life you’re being monitored by the FBI.” (Mike Benz, WarRoom.org 4/12/24)
“The House in a bipartisan vote reauthorized the nation’s warrantless surveillance powers Friday, approving the program for another two years even as lawmakers narrowly declined to attach an amendment that would require a warrant for some searches.
Minutes before final passage, the chamber voted down an amendment 212-212 that would have added a warrant requirement for Americans’ data swept up in foreign surveillance. In the House, a tie loses.
That amendment, led by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), had emerged as the central disagreement in the FISA debate, pitting privacy hawks on the Judiciary Committee — who were in favor of the provision — against members of the Intelligence Committee and the White House, who opposed it.” (thehill.com 4/12/24)
“House votes 273-147 to extend FISA Section 702 surveillance powers for two years. After rejecting an amendment to bolster warrant requirement when spying involves US persons.” (@sahilkapur 4/12/24)
“This bill represents one of the most dramatic and terrifying expansions of government surveillance authority in history. I will do everything in my power to stop it from passing in the Senate.” (@ronwyden 4/12/24)
“The Senate advanced a controversial surveillance bill on Thursday afternoon by a 67-32 vote, as leaders race to fight off attempts to change it that could result in a lapse over the weekend.
The vote to break a filibuster on a law extending and reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s section 702 authority sets up a crucial showdown before the Saturday expiration of the program. Critics of the authority, which allows warrantless surveillance of foreign targets, want major changes designed at making it much tougher to access American information that is swept up in the program. They also want to strike House language updating which data providers’ information could be used in the program.” (politico.com 4/18/24)
“Barely missing its midnight deadline, the Senate voted early Saturday to reauthorize a key U.S. surveillance law after divisions over whether the FBI should be restricted from using the program to search for Americans’ data nearly forced the statute to lapse.
The legislation approved 60-34 with bipartisan support would extend for two years the program known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It now goes to President Joe Biden’s desk to become law. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden ‘will swiftly sign the bill.’” (apnews.com 4/20/24)
“The senate voted to authorize warrantless federal government searches of every American’s private papers, effects, emails, electronic data records, cell phone calls, contact lists, text messages, buying habits, purchases, banking records, social media posts, direct messages, private communications and every keystroke of every electronic device in your life.
All of it continues to be subject to the capture, review and surveillance of an unelected opaque law enforcement mechanism, and congress supports it.
The issue is magnified because the Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutionality of the FISA-702 data collection system, because the Supreme Court also says no American has standing to challenge the federal government violation of their 4th Amendment right to privacy.” (conservativetreehouse.com 4/20/24)
Joe Rogan went quiet as Tucker Carlson dropped a bone-chilling reality: “Members of Congress are terrified of the intel agencies. I’m not guessing at that. They’ve told me that, including people who run the intel committee. I said to somebody, a very powerful person, the other day, in a conversation in my kitchen, an elected official — holds a really senior position…But I was like, All these people are controlled. They’ve all got weird s*x lives, and all these things they’re hiding, and they’re being blackmailed by the intel agencies. And he said, and I’m quoting, I know. I was like, okay, so at this point, we’re just sort of admitting that’s real? Like, why do we allow that to continue?” (Tucker Carlson on Joe Rogan: https://x.com/VigilantFox/status/1781567790257758254)
“A top FBI official is encouraging employees to continue to investigate Americans using a warrantless foreign surveillance program in an effort to justify the bureau’s spy powers, according to an internal email obtained by WIRED.
Known as Section 702, the program is controversial for having been misused by the FBI to target US protesters, journalists, and even a sitting member of Congress. US lawmakers, nevertheless, voted to extend the program in April for an additional two years, while codifying a slew of procedures that the FBI claims is working to stop the abuse.
Obtained by WIRED, an April 20 email authored by FBI deputy director Paul Abbate to employees states: ‘To continue to demonstrate why tools like this are essential to our mission, we need to use them, while also holding ourselves accountable for doing so properly and in compliance with legal requirements.’” [Emphasis his.]” (wired.com 5/8/24)
Former Louisiana Governor Phil Bryant: “I’m the campaign finance director for Donald Trump in Mississippi, so we raise money. I’ve talked to a number of very wealthy individuals that God has blessed that say I can’t give money to Donald Trump because the FBI will show up at my door.
And, I tell them, think of what you just said. If you make a legitimate honest campaign contribution to the Republican nominee for president, the FBI will come to your door. And they acknowledge that’s a reality in the United States of America.” (thegatewaypundit.com 5/28/24)
Not just in the US: “The EU Commission is allegedly considering a major expansion of surveillance practices in the bloc that could potentially affect every single EU citizen, German t-online news media outlet reported on Tuesday, citing confidential draft recommendations it had seen.
A 28-page document, reportedly drawn up by a group of experts on behalf of Brussels, lists a total of 42 suggestions of possible tighter surveillance measures in what the media outlet described as ‘unprecedented privacy limitation.’
The paper, titled: Recommendations from the High-Level Group on Access to Data for Effective Law Enforcement demands app developers create backdoors for the law enforcement agencies to get to any content they need. The investigators should be able to circumvent end-to-end encryption in messenger services like WhatsApp or Telegram using some sort of a general key provided by the developers, t-online reported. Companies that would fail to meet such demands should face penalties, the document reportedly states.” (rt.com 6/5/24)
“Obama’s team saw the opening to exploit, which was created by the newly formed Dept of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intel.
Obama, now with Brennan (CIA) and Holder (DOJ), then used the preexisting IC weapons to turn the system internally. The weaponization and surveillance system began targeting operations inside the USA. The targets were then defined as Obama’s ideological enemies (see DOJ/IRS targeting of Tea Party or Patriot groups).
The IC became a domestic targeting operation, with full surveillance power under the auspices of ‘national security.’ That’s the current system we now see. (theconservativetreehouse.com 7/9/24)
“Government spying is rampant in the U.S., and the feds regularly engage in it as part of law enforcement's well-known antipathy to the Fourth Amendment. Last week, the FBI admitted as much when it raided the home of former Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter.
The search warrant for Ritter's home specified only electronic devices, of which he had three. Yet, the 40 FBI agents there stole a truckload of materials from him, including his notes from his U.N. inspector years in the 2000s, a draft of a book he is in the midst of writing and some of his wife's personal property.
The invasion of Scott Ritter's home was a perversion of the Fourth Amendment, a criminal theft of his private property and an effort to chill his free speech. But it was not surprising. This is what has become of federal law enforcement today. The folks we have hired to protect the Constitution are destroying it.” (Judge Napolitano newsmax.com 8/16/24)
“‘Pavel Durov left Russia when the government tried to control his social media company, Telegram. But in the end, it wasn’t Putin who arrested him for allowing the public to exercise free speech,” Tucker Carlson wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday. ‘It was a Western country, a Biden administration ally and enthusiastic NATO member, that locked him away.’
Durov’s arrest is ‘a living warning to any platform owner who refuses to censor the truth at the behest of governments and intel agencies,’ Carlson argued. ‘Darkness is descending fast on the formerly free world.’” (rt.com 8/25/24)
“Western civilization appears to be on the cusp of a new Dark Age — for any government that arrests and locks up its own citizens for saying, writing, or thinking the ‘wrong’ opinions or beliefs can no longer say it stands for freedom or human rights.” (standingforfreedom.com 8/16/24)
“In 2011 the official merge of U.S. social media platforms to assist the U.S. State Dept foreign policy agenda was created. In many ways this merge was the inflection point for government to begin controlling social media, Libya and Egypt were the BETA test for what would later be deployed domestically.
Seeing the success and influence of the Arab Spring experiment, in 2012 President Obama signed HR-5736, with an addition to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013. The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, contained within the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2013, eased some restrictions so that media produced by the U.S. Agency for Global Media and intended for foreign audiences could be distributed domestically upon request, according to its text. Prior to its passage, the propaganda content was banned from being disseminated in America.” (theconservativetreehouse.com 10/6/24)
“The NSA Director is the librarian of the Intelligence Community. The NSA gathers, collects, intercepts and stores the metadata of every electronic transmission, including communication. The Director of the NSA is in charge of that massive responsibility to protect and guard the library.
The FBI Director is the chief customer of that library. On the domestic investigative side, the intelligence side, and the counterintelligence side of all FBI operations, their access to exploit that metadata has become critical. The urgency of that need underpins the motive to continue reauthorizing FISA-702. When we remove the pretending, 702 reauthorization means surveillance access without warrants for all American communication.
The Fourth Amendment has been destroyed by legislative permission, and a complete lack of accountability for violations of law. Americans are no longer ‘secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,’ and ‘reasonable cause’ warrants are no longer needed.
Palantir agreed to cooperate with the FBI and launched facial recognition AI on behalf of their federal contract with the FBI into the events of J6 attendees. The FBI arrests followed. Palantir’s access to the DHS/TSA database, as granted by the FBI for use in their J6 targeting operation, was a beta test for how artificial intelligence could scour the national biometric database and deliver results.” (theconservativetreehouse.com 11/16/24)
“All of President Trump’s cabinet and key appointments carry the same outlook toward the surveillance state. They fundamentally believe the system is needed, the DHS system holds national security value, and the capacity within the DHS system is only a problem when corrupt political operatives are in charge of it. If good, virtuous and moral people are in charge, the DHS surveillance system is okay.
I have talked to many of them, key people including Devin Nunes for perspective, and I can say directly that President Trump’s team believe the system is good and necessary, it was just controlled by bad actors.” (theconservativetreehouse.com 12/25/24)
“Access to certain Russian media has been restricted in the EU under DSA/sanctions laws. Meanwhile, all Western media Telegram channels remain freely accessible in Russia. Who would have thought that in 2025 Russian Telegram users would enjoy more freedom than European?” (Telegram Founder Pavel @Durov, 12/31/24)
“Possible engineered ‘right-wing domestic terrorism’ narrative aside, who needs the FBI when corporate America supplies not just the means of the weapon but also the heroic surveillance to track it all? DOGE already paying dividends that we'll cheer on.
Las Vegas police’s glowing praise for Musk is a masterclass in soft power. They thank him not just for locking down details on the exploded Cybertruck, but for handing over ‘all the video from Tesla charging stations across the country.’ All. Of. It.
Let that sink in. Musk isn’t just selling cars; he’s quietly erecting a nationwide surveillance apparatus disguised as progress. And in moments like this, when corporate America steps in as the surveillance arm of the state, the narrative writes itself: heroes of ‘innovation’ swooping in to save the day while feeding the machinery of mass data collection.
The implications are dystopian. Privatizing state surveillance means Big Tech isn’t just in bed with Big Brother, they’re building the bed, making the rules, and profiting at every turn. Tesla is much more than just a car company; it’s a network of data-collection nodes that feed into narratives of control.
9/11 handed the Patriot Act to the state, a blank check for mass surveillance in the name of ‘security.’ Now, they’re going full fascist, handing the Patriot Act to corporations to surveil the citizens. No warrants, no FISA, no accountability, just private empires harvesting and weaponizing data under the pretense of “helping.” Orwell couldn’t have written it better.” (TheIslanderNews 1/2/25)
“Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii), President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, is changing her tune on a key intelligence-gathering authority she once sought to repeal as her Senate confirmation hangs in the balance.
Gabbard’s past criticisms of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act have emerged as a central issue in her confirmation process, leaving GOP senators — including some in leadership — increasingly skeptical about the former Democrat’s confirmation prospects.
In her first public comments since being nominated, Gabbard told us in an exclusive statement that she now supports Section 702, saying the program is ‘crucial’ and ‘must be safeguarded to protect our nation while ensuring the civil liberties of Americans.’
“If confirmed as DNI, I will uphold Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights while maintaining vital national security tools like Section 702 to ensure the safety and freedom of the American people,” Gabbard said.
In private meetings, senators are questioning Gabbard about legislation she introduced in 2020 that would repeal Section 702.
However, Gabbard now appears to be walking that back, citing Fourth Amendment protections implemented since then to prevent the incidental collection of Americans’ data:
‘My prior concerns about FISA were based on insufficient protections for civil liberties, particularly regarding the FBI’s misuse of warrantless search powers on American citizens. Significant FISA reforms have been enacted since my time in Congress to address these issues.’” (punchbowlnews.com 1/10/25)
“FISA-702 is the gateway to the massive surveillance system currently being put into place using Real ID and the AI facial recognition software provided by Palantir (CIA exploit). In essence, the gateway that allows the full-scale surveillance state, is opened by the prior authorization of FISA-702 that negates any 4th amendment protection.
If the inspector general is now admitting the FISA laws have been so comprehensively corrupted such that 3.4 million searches by more than 10,000 federal employees and government contractors now have access, there is no way that any reasonably intelligent person should support such reauthorization.
The United States government is admitting to the public that a total and comprehensive surveillance state is currently in place, and 10,000 federal government agents have the authorization to monitor everything we do.” (theconservativetreehouse.com 1/12/25)
“‘If confirmed as DNI, I will uphold Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights while maintaining vital national security tools like Section 702 to ensure the safety and freedom of the American people,’ Tulsi Gabbard told Senators during her confirmation hearing. But critics argue that Gabbard’s about-face is not just a personal betrayal, it’s a win for the surveillance state and a direct threat to civil liberties.” (Gerry Nolan, @theislandernews 1/14/25)
“The best-case scenario is that Tulsi Gabbard will retain 702 as a tool yet remove or stop how it is being unlawfully used. Unfortunately, as Director of National Intelligence Gabbard will not have control over the day-to-day use of FISA-702, that job will fall on the shoulders of Pam Bondi.
The DOJ-National Security Division is the place where FISA authorities are deployed. However, the use of the NSA database to conduct unlawful searches of American citizen metadata is the issue where Tulsi Gabbard could gain ammunition to change who has access.
Personally, given the change in position, the fallback position is to hope DNI Tulsi Gabbard moves to curtail the number of people with access to the database and provide demonstrable accountability for any unlawful use of it.” (theconservativetreehouse.com 1/18/25)
“The federal government’s method of searching through information incidentally collected on U.S.-based individuals violates the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, a federal judge has ruled.
‘To countenance this practice would convert Section 702 into precisely what Defendant has labeled it - a tool for law enforcement to run backdoor searches that circumvent the Fourth Amendment,’ U.S. District Judge LaShann Dearcy Hall said in the ruling, which was released on Jan. 21.
‘This is a major constitutional ruling on one of the most abused provisions of FISA,’ Patrick Toomey, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, said in a statement.
‘In light of this ruling, we ask Congress to uphold its responsibility to protect civil rights and civil liberties by refusing to renew Section 702 absent a number of necessary reforms, including an official warrant requirement for querying US persons data and increased transparency,’ Andrew Crocker and Matthew Guariglia, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, added.” (eff.org 1/23/25)
“Peter Thiel (Palantir), Elon Musk (xAI, SpaceX), Larry Ellison (Oracle), David Sacks and a host of mutually aligned artificial intelligence builders stand to benefit financially from a technologically efficient Surveillance State. Their companies and their AI software products are the targeting tools within the DHS surveillance system itself. Do not be misled by their ownership of different companies within this construct, they are all mutually allied; factually, they are all friends in the same tech sector, and now the CIA is directly saying, the IC should engage and support the emerging science.
Congress reauthorized FISA-702 only after ensuring the warrantless database searches could not be used against any member of congress or their staff.” (theconservativetreehouse.com 1/28/25)
“U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts: Secret order requires blanket access to protected cloud backups around the world, which if implemented would undermine Apple’s privacy pledge to its users.
Security officials in the United Kingdom have demanded that Apple create a back door allowing them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.
The British government’s undisclosed order, issued last month, requires blanket capability to view fully encrypted material, not merely assistance in cracking a specific account, and has no known precedent in major democracies.” (washingtonpost.com 2/6/25)
“We will use advanced technology and non-partisan AI programming, to make the government more efficient and ensure this level of corruption and wasteful spending never happens again. Every dollar will be tracked, monitored and oversight will be transparent and available for everyone to see. Just ignore the part where the same efficiency system is monitoring your real ID, connecting your personage to the new govt and private sector interfaces, and click ‘I agree’ on your next federal tax filing. Trust us Comrade citizen, the new technologically advanced DODGE approved govt system cares about responsible stewardship and you. Swear.” (theconservativetreehouse.com 2/7/25)
“‘The only way to prevent this information being used against you is to prevent it from being collected in the first place.’ (Wolfgang Schultz, East German Stasi). It’s all collected, everything is collected, filed under your name and mine, doesn’t take a whole lot of people to dig those files out and use them as they see fit. Now that’s a danger.” (Ray McGovern, Judging Freedom, 2/24/25)
“The original information from an FBI whistleblower first surfaced in 2022. Essentially the information was that the DNC contracted law firm of Perkins Coie had an FBI workstation in their DC office since 2012.
The Perkins Coie workstation (collocated by the FBI) has access to the NSA database on all Americans, including political figures. The Democrats contracted with Perkins Coie for ‘political research.’
It doesn’t take a lot of thinking to realize what this set up was all about; Perkins Coie could do opposition research on any candidate and feed that information to the DNC for use in their campaigning.” (theconservativetreehouse.com 3/6/25)
“The European Commission is giving staffers visiting the US on official business burner laptops and phones to avoid espionage attempts, according to the Financial Times.
The use of clean and locked-down hardware is common practice for anyone visiting China, Russia, and other states where aggressive electronic surveillance is expected. Apparently the European Union has added the United States to that list.
‘The transatlantic alliance is over,’ an EU official told the newspaper, which reported the commission ‘is issuing burner phones and basic laptops to some US-bound staff to avoid the risk of espionage — a measure traditionally reserved for trips to China.’” (ft.com 4/15/25)
“Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) on Wednesday proposed legislation to eliminate the intelligence community’s surveillance tools that ‘erode’ Americans’ civil liberties.
‘For over two decades, rogue actors within our U.S. intelligence agencies have used the PATRIOT Act to create the most sophisticated, unaccountable surveillance apparatus in the Western world,’ Luna said in a written statement to Breitbart News.” (breitbartnews.com 5/7/25)
The Eye of Sauron spies on our elected officials: “Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) revealed in a new letter to Senate colleagues Wednesday that AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile failed to create systems for notifying senators about government surveillance on Senate-issued devices — despite a requirement to do so.
Phone service providers are contractually obligated to inform senators when a law enforcement agency requests their records, thanks to protections enacted in 2020. But in an investigation, Wyden’s staff found that none of the three major carriers had created a system to send those notifications.” (politico.com 5/21/25)
“In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.
Mr. Trump has not publicly talked about the effort since. But behind the scenes, officials have quietly put technological building blocks into place to enable his plan. In particular, they have turned to one company: Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm.
The Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work across the federal government in recent months. The company has received more than $113 million in federal government spending since Mr. Trump took office, according to public records, including additional funds from existing contracts as well as new contracts with the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. (This does not include a $795 million contract that the Department of Defense awarded the company last week, which has not been spent.)” (nytimes.com 5/30/25)
“Technology companies led by Thiel and his like-minded associates are becoming not just service providers, but full-fledged subjects of power.
Surveillance, analytics, and predictive modeling systems developed by Palantir and similar structures are being implemented in law enforcement agencies, intelligence services, and even civilian departments. This allows the private sector to accumulate data arrays previously unavailable to anyone except the state, and form new mechanisms of social control.” (nytimes.com 5/30/25)
“Four senior executives at Palantir, Meta, and OpenAI have been formally appointed lieutenant colonels in the US Army following the creation of a ‘special’ unit created for rich Big Tech mavens seeking military leadership roles.
On June 13, the Army announced the creation of Detachment 201, otherwise known as the ‘Executive Innovation Corps,’ which it describes as ‘a new initiative designed to fuse cutting-edge tech expertise with military innovation.’” (Wyatt Reed, thegrayzone.com 6/18/25)
“Four top tech executives have joined the U.S. Army Reserve as lieutenant colonels, skipping basic training and stepping directly into roles aimed at helping modernize the military. The initiative is part of a broader push by the Army to bring in private-sector innovation and reshape how the service approaches technology, talent, and modernization.
The executives—Palantir (NYSE:PLTR) Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, Meta (NASDAQ:META) CTO Andrew Bosworth, OpenAI Chief Product Officer Kevin Weil, and advisor at Thinking Machines Lab and former OpenAI Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew — will serve in a new unit called Detachment 201, also known as the Army's Executive Innovation Corps.” (finance.yahoo.com 6/21/25)
“Palantir has inked a contract with the U.S. Army worth up to $10 billion to meet growing warfare demands over the next decade. As part of the deal, Palantir will help the military streamline efficiencies while preparing for threats, consolidating 75 total contracts into one enterprise deal, the release states.” (cnbc.com 8/1/25)
“Spygate targeting, which evolved into Russiagate targeting, which evolved into Mueller targeting, which evolved into Jack Smith targeting, is one continuum purposefully scattered into separate isolation silos to hide the core issue, the U.S. government was/is using NSA captured electronic metadata to conduct domestic political spy operations.” (theconservativetreehouse.com 9/3/25)
“It’s nothing new that in the Intel agencies you want to try and get as much blackmail on powerful people as possible. Easy, not hard. All the evidence shows that Epstein was the creation of either Mossad, American Intelligence or Saudi Intelligence, or maybe he was just a hired gun.” (charliekirk.com)
“FBI spying operations in 2015/2016 shifted into FBI operation ‘Crossfire Hurricane,’ that shifted into FBI operations with Robert Mueller, that shifted into FBI operations with impeachment, that shifted into FBI operations with J6 targeting aka ‘Arctic Frost,’ that shifted into FBI operations with Jack Smith. It is all part of one long continuum. Now the FBI is releasing information that Arctic Frost also resulted in the surveillance of members of Congress.” (theconservativetreehouse.com 10/6/25)
“I’m turning 41, but I don’t feel like celebrating. Our generation is running out of time to save the free Internet built for us by our fathers. What was once the promise of the free exchange of information is being turned into the ultimate tool of control.
Once-free countries are introducing dystopian measures such as digital IDs (UK), online age checks (Australia), and mass scanning of private messages (EU). Germany is persecuting anyone who dares to criticize officials on the Internet. The UK is imprisoning thousands for their tweets. France is criminally investigating tech leaders who defend freedom and privacy.
A dark, dystopian world is approaching fast — while we’re asleep. Our generation risks going down in history as the last one that had freedoms — and allowed them to be taken away. We’ve been fed a lie.
We’ve been made to believe that the greatest fight of our generation is to destroy everything our forefathers left us: tradition, privacy, sovereignty, the free market, and free speech. By betraying the legacy of our ancestors, we’ve set ourselves on a path toward self-destruction — moral, intellectual, economic, and ultimately biological.
So no, I’m not going to celebrate today. I’m running out of time. WE are running out of time.” (@durov 10/10/25)
“Congressional investigators collected a stunning 30 million lines of phone data mapping contacts between conservatives and the Trump White House in the name of investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol breach, a massive dragnet that raises civil liberty concerns about the lack of limits on the ability of lawmakers to snoop on Americans’ private phone calls.” (justthenews.com 10/15/25)
“In a recent interview, Alex Karp said that his company Palantir was ‘the most important software company in America and therefore in the world’. He may well be right. To some, Palantir is also the scariest company in the world, what with its involvement in the Trump administration’s authoritarian agenda. The potential end point of Palantir’s tech is an all-powerful government system amalgamating citizens’ tax records, biometric data and other personal information – the ultimate state surveillance tool. No wonder Palantir has been likened to George Orwell’s Big Brother, or Skynet from the Terminator movies.” (theguardian.com 11/18/25)
“Washington DC has a solution – In order to protect ourselves from the results of the previous illegal criminal influx, we need an expanded surveillance state, facial recognition and identity gates, enhanced identity verification systems and more govt monitoring – including NSA level electronic communication surveillance enhanced by AI spider bots who can review the metadata of 350 million Americans and identify pre-crime activity. Secured voting systems excluded, obviously.” (theconservativetreehouse.com 1/27/25)
“I’m afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security.” (Jim Garrison)
© 2023 James B. Angell All Rights Reserved