A Nefarious Intent – FISA 702 Authorization Will Be Extended Through April 19th Inside Bipartisan NDAA Agreement

By Sundance

Inside the construct of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Congress has agreed to extend the current FISA-702 authorization through April 19. 2024.  Why April 19th?  I believe, based on DOJ/FBI history, there is a very nefarious intent.  I’ll explain.

First the report of the FISA-702 extension.

WASHINGTON – 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.

Whether to attach a surveillance powers extension was one of the final sticking points on the defense bill, whose text is now finalized and expected to be released later Wednesday. Both the House and Senate still need to pass the defense bill, and there is bipartisan backlash already brewing over the decision to attach a surveillance extension.

Conservatives privately urged Speaker Mike Johnson to separate the two issues. His decision not to do so promises to complicate a final vote on the defense bill, a typically must-pass proposal that could come to the House floor as soon as next week. (read more)

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.

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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.

Six years after this issue first surfaced, 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).

[OIG Testimony HERE]

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.

If we were in a functioning system of government, everything would have been stopped, and no other conversation would take place that was not about this issue. This was the total and complete surveillance state being talked about as if Congress was discussing what’s for dinner.

If the FISA-702 authorities are extended, this surveillance is what has been authorized to continue through April 19, 2024.  House Judiciary Ranking Member, Democrat Jerry Nadler, organized the date for extension.

 I believe we have struck the right balance here and perhaps the only balance that can pass the House at this time,” Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said about the bill.

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.

On/around April 19, 2024, the GOP nominee will likely have locked down the nomination.  The nominee is likely to be Donald Trump.

Beyond the extension motive, the previous counterintelligence investigation by the FBI never stopped.  Crossfire Hurricane evolved into the Mueller special counsel investigation.  The same investigative units from the FBI then transferred into the Jack Smith special counsel.  There is no reason to believe a counterintelligence investigation does not underpin the legal authorities by which the current DOJ is keeping candidate Donald Trump under surveillance today.

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.

On/around April 19, 2024, if Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee, the FISA court might look at any renewal authorities differently.  It’s one thing to have American citizen Donald Trump under title-1 surveillance, it is another thing entirely to have the opposing candidate to the current administration under legally authorized surveillance by the DOJ-NSD.

The end date of April 19, 2024, would align with a need to have more than reasonable suspicion to retain the surveillance. At least, that’s the way the FISC would likely look at it.

If Occam’s razor is applied to the current data points, the most likely scenario for the DOJ-NSD, FBI and Jack Smith special counsel investigative units, is that Donald Trump is currently under FISC authorized title-1 surveillance.

Retaining the 702 status quo through April allows the surveillance to fall upon anyone in his campaign orbit. The DOJ’s position in 2024 would then simply be a repeat of the DOJ’s position in 2016.

Someone might want to talk to Donald Trump about this.