Carter Page and the fourth amendment

[Mountain Man]

This is clearly a request from lao to cut the name changing in his thread. He is the OP and you are to respect his wishes.

I know. It was my mistake for thinking he had a sense of humor.

[Juvenal]

This is clearly a request from lao to cut the name changing in his thread. He is the OP and you are to respect his wishes.

Thank you, Jed.

In fairness, I should point out that MM was provoked.

If any of that were true, it might bother liberals. As it is, it's just you crazies make up stuff.

I ask all members to refrain from disparagement of other posters in my threads.

While I'll grant that Starlight may have taken MM's broad brush of liberals personally, MM's remarks were not directed at Starlight, himself.

As a general rule, TWeb is lightly moderated, which means there will always be threads where more robust opposition is allowed. Please grant me the opportunity, in these relatively few threads I start, to see disagreements expressed more thoughtfully.

[Mountain Man]

And the rabbit hole goes deeper: it seems that not only did Hillary's campaign pay for the dossier, but they were also funneling information to Steele through Obama's State Department:

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According to Grassley and Graham’s memo, which is heavily redacted at the request of the FBI, a foreign source gave information to friends of Bill and Hillary Clinton, who then gave it to an Obama State Department official, who then gave it to Steele.

Grassley and Graham’s memo stated:

One memorandum by Mr. Steele that was not published by Buzzfeed is dated October 19, 2016. The report alleges [redacted], as well as [redacted]. Mr. Steele’s memorandum states that his company ‘received his report from [redacted] US State Department,’ that the report was the second in a series, and that the report was information that came from a foreign sub-source who ‘is in touch with [redacted], a contact of [redacted], a friend of the Clintons, who passed it to [redacted].

“It is troubling enough that the Clinton Campaign funded Mr. Steele’s work, but these Clinton associates were contemporaneously feeding Mr. Steele allegations raises additional concerns about his credibility,” Grassley and Graham wrote.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...ham-memo-says/

[Starlight]

And the rabbit hole goes deeper: it seems that not only did Hillary's campaign pay for the dossier, but they were also funneling information to Steele through Obama's State Department:

With the Dossier getting more and more confirmed over time, and now with revelations that there was a second dossier from different sources that contained many of the same allegations, as well as revelations that the FBI's original interest in the subject stemmed from Dutch and Australian sources prior to the dossier... it seems you guys at Breitbart have to dig pretty deep down the conspiracy rabbit hole to try to make it all go away.

[Darth Executor]

With the Dossier getting more and more confirmed over time

[Starlight]

Here's a summary from last month:

HOW TRUE IS THE TRUMP-RUSSIA DOSSIER? ONE YEAR LATER, WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT ITS CLAIMS:

...major parts of the dossier have been verified by subsequent investigations into Russian election meddling, while others still remain a mystery...

Verified: Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page met with representatives of Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft.
Verified: The Kremlin targeted educated youth and swing state voters during its cyber attacks in the 2016 campaign.
Verified: Trump maintains ties to rich businessmen from Azerbaijan.

Not proven: Russia had been cultivating Trump for years, or at all.
Not proven: Trump was offered real estate deals in Russia and turned them down.
Not proven: Trump's lawyer worked as an intermediary between Trump and Russia.
Not proven: Trump is open to blackmail due to illicit sexual activities in Russia.

Note that not proven means that there is currently no publicly available evidence proving it, not that it has been proven false. Presumably when the Mueller investigation winds to a close we will get some definitive statements from Mueller regarding the final 4 items one way or another.

[rogue06]

Here's a summary from last month:

HOW TRUE IS THE TRUMP-RUSSIA DOSSIER? ONE YEAR LATER, WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT ITS CLAIMS:

...major parts of the dossier have been verified by subsequent investigations into Russian election meddling, while others still remain a mystery...

Verified: Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page met with representatives of Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft.
Verified: The Kremlin targeted educated youth and swing state voters during its cyber attacks in the 2016 campaign.
Verified: Trump maintains ties to rich businessmen from Azerbaijan.

Not proven: Russia had been cultivating Trump for years, or at all.
Not proven: Trump was offered real estate deals in Russia and turned them down.
Not proven: Trump's lawyer worked as an intermediary between Trump and Russia.
Not proven: Trump is open to blackmail due to illicit sexual activities in Russia.

Note that not proven means that there is currently no publicly available evidence proving it, not that it has been proven false. Presumably when the Mueller investigation winds to a close we will get some definitive statements from Mueller regarding the final 4 items one way or another.

So after all this time what has been verified amounts to nothing and you are left with unverified scurrilous gossip.

[Juvenal]

So after all this time what has been verified amounts to nothing and you are left with unverified scurrilous gossip.

This is an argument from silence.

More interesting to me is the fact the warrant was renewed at least three times, strongly suggesting that the wiretaps were productive.

Under the law, FISA orders targeting Americans are good for 90 days, but extensions “may be granted on the same basis as an original order.” The application, however, must consist of newly produced findings that the standards are met rather than merely recycling the previously signed documents.

[Mountain Man]

Note that not proven means that there is currently no publicly available evidence proving it, not that it has been proven false.

Which is just another way of saying that it's false, the presumption being that it's false until it has been proven true.

[Mountain Man]

This is an argument from silence.

More interesting to me is the fact the warrant was renewed at least three times, strongly suggesting that the wiretaps were productive.

Under the law, FISA orders targeting Americans are good for 90 days, but extensions “may be granted on the same basis as an original order.” The application, however, must consist of newly produced findings that the standards are met rather than merely recycling the previously signed documents.

The question, of course, is whether or not they should have ever been granted the warrant in the first place, and every indication is that the answer is no.

[Juvenal]

The question, of course, is whether or not they should have ever been granted the warrant in the first place, and every indication is that the answer is no.

Incriminating evidence gathered by an improper warrant, in the case of a criminal prosecution, has a clear remedy: Charges dismissed. Or at least that used to be the case. I can recall reading of more recent findings where the remedies involved court ordered changes to procedures, with the evidence still allowed.

And, at one time, all FBI investigations were criminal. Post-9/11, that's no longer true, either. Page isn't under indictment, and the warrant has no relation to anyone who is under indictment or anyone who's accepted a plea agreement.

Indications are that this was instead a counter-intelligence investigation. Page was known to have been a recruitment target since the Pobodnyy case.

In that case, one of the Russian suspects, Victor Podobnyy — who was posing as a diplomat and was later charged by federal prosecutors with acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government — was captured on tape in 2013 discussing an effort to get information and documents from Page. That discussion was detailed in a federal complaint filed against Podobnyy and two others.

In the case of a counter-intelligence investigation, I'm not sure what remedies are appropriate.

[Starlight]

The question, of course, is whether or not they should have ever been granted the warrant in the first place, and every indication is that the answer is no.

I'm not a fan of secretive government agencies or surveillance. I would support the abolition of most of the US's 16 intelligence agencies and reduce the surveillance by over 99%.

That all said, the Russia probe is pretty clearly in the public interest, because Russia conspiring with political campaigns to affect the outcome of an election is a direct threat to democracy. So abolish the CIA by all means, and reform the FBI by all means, but these probes into Trump's campaign are pretty vital from a national-security standpoint (you can't have a foreign power affecting your elections!).

[RumTumTugger]

I'm not a fan of secretive government agencies or surveillance. I would support the abolition of most of the US's 16 intelligence agencies and reduce the surveillance by over 99%.

That all said, the Russia probe is pretty clearly in the public interest, because Russia conspiring with political campaigns to affect the outcome of an election is a direct threat to democracy. So abolish the CIA by all means, and reform the FBI by all means, but these probes into Trump's campaign are pretty vital from a national-security standpoint (you can't have a foreign power affecting your elections!).

Why ONLY the U.S Starlight. your hatred America and the American Ideas is comeing through very clearly here.

[Starlight]

Why ONLY the U.S Starlight.

Not only the US. I generally support the abolition and reduction of most intelligence agencies everywhere. I think my own country should entirely and completely abolish our one, and have zero. Most people on this forum are from the US though, so we mostly talk about the US here, and the US has by far the largest and most intelligence agencies in the world, so there is a lot of scope for reduction.

your hatred America and the American Ideas is comeing through very clearly here.

Suggestions as to how to improve your country are not exactly 'hatred'. Obviously your country has a lot of issues currently, and obviously the more advanced Western democracies have long-solved many of those problems (universal healthcare, independent police review authorities, gun control, government-provided rent-free accommodation for the homeless, no military-industrial complex, minimal corruption and lobbying affecting government, non-plurality voting systems providing for more than 2 political parties etc), so it makes sense for us non-Americans here to share our knowledge of the political solutions to many of the major problems your country faces.

[demi-conservative]

Constitution of United States of America 1789 (rev. 1992)

Amendment IV

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.

I know Fake News tries to make memo all about Mueller, but main claim so far is abuse of power by some FBI people.