Repeal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
FISA
Title 50, Chapter 36
The following “Repeal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act FISA Title 50 Chapter 36” is Workproduct of Kelb, Inc., Keep The Ethical Light Burning, Keepkelb.wordpress.com.
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Introduction
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA seems a rebirth of the Cointelpro program and the Blacklist. The elements of each are the same. One’s placement in any of those programs is based on a subjective interpretation of everyday common events, at some point deemed anti-American or subversive (without a judge or jury). These same activities, originally called Cointelpro, now, have become secret, through Title 50 Chapter 36.
To be placed on the Blacklist (1956), an innocent comment, such as actor Will Geer made, praising the Russian theater, resulted in him being placed on the Blacklist. This negatively impacted his acting career. Lucille Ball’s grandfather was on a Communist Party roll. That got her placed on the “List”. Similarly, in 2018, with FISA enacted, it is possible that one’s conversation with an Afghanistani or Iranian taxi driver, about life and war, and one’s perceptions, could get one on the FISA list.
We all have thoughts on the theater, Russian or other, life, and war. Should voicing them, put U.S. military intelligence in our bedrooms – and put us at the risk of directed energy surveillance devices/ weapons, which DARPA furnishes to military contractors doing the surveillance, as allowed by Title 50, Chapter 36? 1.
Normally, warrants require “probable cause”, that a crime is being planned or committed. But FISA warrants do not. They require only that the FBI show probable cause to believe that “the target of the electronic surveillance is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.”2. This was the same prerequisite of the earlier Cointelpro activities. Will Geer praised the Russian theater, therefore, “he must be a Communist.” Flawed reasoning, then, had these people placed on a “list”, resulting in their lives and careers, being ruined.
Ramasastry at Findlaw, writes of this non-evidential process leading to surveillance: “Amazingly, even if the defendants move to suppress evidence resulting from the wiretaps and microphones from being offered at trial, they may still not have a chance to see the warrant applicants. The government will show them only to a “FISA Judge” – along with the underlying evidence, and an affidavit from the U.S. Attorney General’s Office stating that releasing the material would harm national security.
Without the benefit of adversary briefing, the judge will then rule on whether the warrants satisfied the law. Defendants will still remain in the dark – and when the motion is decided, they’ll receive yet another ruling based on secret evidence.” 3. IBID
All of the elements of Cointelpro, are present in FISA, only they have become secret. Placement on the FISA list takes the place of individual warrants and these people are accused of no crime. Those acts which infringe rights for a criminal thief, or drug dealer, in the FISA situation, can occur, to unknowing uncharged citizens. – this infringement/denial of rights, under FISA, includes due process and Fourth Amendment rights.
We seek repeal of FISA. It violates due process and the Fourth Amendment. It is a re-engagement of Cointelpro activities deemed illegal, by directive and case law. We seek full disclosure and transparency of the names on the list. Cointelpro –type acts are now encoded and secret under FISA. For these compelling reasons, we seek its repeal.
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Please continue to read this legal reasoning.
FISA, Title 50, Chapter 36 (FISA), Code states -- Section 1802:
“An electronic surveillance authorized by this subsection may be conducted … The Attorney General shall assess compliance with such procedures and shall report such assessments to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence under the provisions of section 1808(a) of this title.
(4)With respect to electronic surveillance authorized by this subsection, the Attorney General may direct a specified communication common carrier to— (A)furnish all information, facilities, or technical assistance necessary to accomplish the electronic surveillance in such a manner as will protect its secrecy and produce a minimum of interference with the services that such carrier is providing its customers; and(B)maintain under security procedures approved by the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence any records concerning the surveillance or the aid furnished which such carrier wishes to retain.
The Government shall compensate, at the prevailing rate, such carrier for furnishing such aid. 4.
It continues: Section 1801 Definitions: Any person who,(A) acts in the United States as an officer or employee of a foreign power, or as a member of a foreign power as defined in subsection (a)(4), irrespective of whether the person is inside the United States;
(B) acts for or on behalf of a foreign power which engages in clandestine intelligence activities in the United States contrary to the interests of the United States, when the circumstances indicate that such person may engage in such activities, or when such person knowingly aids or abets any person in the conduct of such activities or knowingly conspires with any person to engage in such activities;. . .
(2) any person who—
(A) knowingly engages in clandestine intelligence gathering activities for or on behalf of a foreign power, which activities involve or may involve a violation of the criminal statutes of the United States;
(B) pursuant to the direction of an intelligence service or network of a foreign power, knowingly engages in any other clandestine intelligence activities for or on behalf of such foreign power, which activities involve or are about to involve a violation of the criminal statutes of the United States;
(C) knowingly engages in sabotage or international terrorism, or activities that are in preparation therefor, for or on behalf of a foreign power;
(for continuation of FISA definitions, please see Attachment 1.).
These definitions of terroristic acts and persons include much conditional language; such as “are about to involve”, “activities that are in preparation for”, “when circumstances indicate that a person may engage in such activities”. There is much conditional language in these definitions.
It would seem that a person “may” be “about” to engage in some questionable activity, or possibly he/she is following his religion, a set of beliefs, practices, different from the U.S. norm, yet not necessarily, with an intentional criminal outcome. These acts might be interpreted in many ways. Yet nothing in this code, FISA, allows for differing interpretation of agent reports, which might indicate innocence of the “charges”.
There is no “layer” of definition, of “reasoning”, including known and accepted legal reasoning, in this code. If it appears one “may” engage in a questionable act, that seems to be enough to have him “convicted” in this secret court, setting him up for years of warrantless, surreptitious surveillance – for an act or acts may be harmless, innocent. Legally, this is an unusual and legally questionable method of determining criminality.
Displaying a tattoo that says, “kill”, does not mean that the wearer is a killer. It seems it would be easy to lose this distinction with some of these conditional FISA definitions.
These activities or theoretic activities, under this act/code, are reported by intelligence agents to FISA. Charges are made to this secret court and adjudicated by them. The theoretical person is never notified. There is a judgement made and if “guilty” (without charges and a defense made by the unknowing person charged), the person is then surveilled and becomes subject to Cointelpro-like harassment. Without any act or true association, the person is, none-the-less, surveilled year after ear. There is no due process and these acts clearly violate the Fourth Amendment.
So here, at FISA encoded, we have a “template for Cointelpro-type activities – carried out, based on the flimsiest accounts, without evidence of foreign subversive collaboration. This is now encoded at the federal level (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and now, secret. A secret federal act, carried out on uncharged citizens, under the title, FISA.
The Blacklist
One of FISA’s predecessors is the Hollywood Blacklist, Senator McCarthy helped to establish. The List was developed by McCarthy and his minions, ostensibly to rid America of even the traces of communism/socialism, by any means possible. Lives and careers were willfully destroyed by the “Red Scare” and the programs and legislations enacted at this time.
Will Geer, (actor who played Grandpa Walton, on the Waltons) praised the Russian stage and cinema in 1951. His comments were then published in a communist newspaper. Geer’s name was subsequently placed on the Blacklist of suspected subversives. The mere praise of cinema was enough to get his name placed on the list and his career negatively impacted.
In 1956, American playwright, Arthur Miller refused to name suspected communists. His passport was denied, he was blacklisted and he was convicted of contempt of court, 1957. 5.
Miller wrote The Crucible as an allegory to the communist witch hunts and subsequent blacklisting in the 50’s. Envy and greed were themes he felt major to both. In the play, Abigail, “repeatedly lies to save herself by denying her involvement in witchcraft. Abigail's Jealousy of Elizabeth Proctor intensifies…. In order to save herself she accuses the innocent, without any sense of ethical violation. Abigail proves to be a selfish antagonist in The Crucible that shows no sense of right and wrong. “
Miller’s theme, of exaggerated baseless accusations, seems to play itself out again and again in the construction of the “list” and later adaptations, including Cointelpro and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, FISA. Miller wrote The Crucible as an allegory to the communists witch hunts and subsequent blacklisting in the’50’s.
Actor/singer, Paul Robeson, an educated Columbia lawyer, who traveled to Russia in the ‘50’s, was then, deemed to be an enemy of the U.S., and was blacklisted. Eighty of his concerts were cancelled. 6. In later years, his health was severely impacted by the CIA’s continuing covert harassment.
“As William O’Neill describes, pressure was maintained even on those who had ostensibly “cleared” themselves:
On December 27, 1952, the American Legion announced that it disapproved of a new film, Moulin Rouge, starring Jose Ferrer, who used to be no more progressive than hundreds of other actors and had already been grilled by the House on Un-American Activities Committee, HUAC. The picture itself was based on the life of Toulouse-Latrec and was totally apolitical. Nine members of the Legion had picketed it anyway, giving rise to the controversy. By this time, people were not taking any chances. Ferrer immediately wired the Legion’s national commander that he would be glad to join the veterans in their “fight against communism. “ 6.
The Hollywood blacklist, was the practice of denying employment to screenwriters and other American entertainment professionals during the mid-twentieth Century, because they were accused of having communist ties or sympathies. The blacklist was rarely made explicit or verifiable, but it directly damaged the careers of scores of individuals working in the film industry.
Mississippi congressman John E. Rankin, a member of HUAC, held a press conference to declare that “one of the most dangerous plots ever instigated for the overthrow of this Government has its headquarters in Hollywood … and the greatest hotbed of subversive activities in the United States”. Rankin promised, “We’re on the trail of the tarantula now. 8. Lucille Ball, Eddie Albert, Pete Seeger, Lee Grant, Orson Wells and many others, were similarly blacklisted.
To be on the blacklist was both invasive and harmful. People were fired, unable to get rehired and prevented from working in their fields. Marriages were broken up and families destroyed. Miller was married twice. Singer Pete Seeger moved to Beacon, NY, built his house by hand and scheduled his own performances, singing children’s songs to get scheduled, as the blacklist placement began to impact him and his singing career.
When the U.S. Army was under investigation for communist activities, the Army’s lawyer, Joseph Welch, asked Senator McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” A week later, the hearings into the Army’s “communist infiltrations” came to a close. McCarthy was officially condemned by the U.S. Senate for contempt against his colleagues . The list was closed out in 1960.
Later the Church Senate Subcomittee would find the companion, FBI’s subversive programs Cointelpro illegal.
Some of the Blacklisted artists and others, openly discussed topics characterized, then, as “Socialist “ and “Communist”. They spoke of inexpensive medical help for the poor, help for economically disadvantaged women with children, inexpensive housing and methods of surviving in a competitive, “middle class society”. Discussions such as these, in those years, could well be, and often was, considered, subversive.
In later years, these topics would be openly discussed. FDR instituted a welfare system for dependent persons in 1930. In the 1960’s, Lyndon B. Johnson began the “Great Society” to raise the standards of living for poor people. These became American law. Certain socialist concepts became the very fabric of American law. Ironically, support of these principles, the cause of the intentional destruction of these American men and women’s lives, became written into American law.
A cursory read of any socialist or communist literature, shows them addressing these very concerns. However to speak of them under the guise of Socialism or Communism in the late ‘40’s – ‘50’s, in the United States, was highly suspect, and could get one placed on the blacklist, with further attempts to discredit and ruin their lives.
The reasons for castigating Will Geer, Lucille Ball and so many others dissolved. Lives had been meaninglessly ruined. The same is now happening through the secretive FISA.
Discussion of government subsidies for the poor, considered taboo, communistic/socialistic utterances, became a normal in American life, in later years. Yet some discussions, resulted in people’s placement on the Blacklist and possibly brought before the HUAC. Blacklisted actor, Paul Robeson, died in a weakened state, as these utterances became commonplace, in American life and experience. The irony is cruel and overwhelming.
Cointelpro
As the Blacklist and House Committee on UnAmerican Activities was created and used, Cointelpro developed, along with it, for the same reasons and purposes. Hoover interpreted 50 USCA Section 841, the Communist Control Act, to validate these activities.
Between 1956 and 1971, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted a campaign of domestic counterintelligence. The agency's Domestic Intelligence Division did more than simply spy on U.S. citizens and their organizations; its ultimate goal was to disrupt, discredit, and destroy certain political groups. The division's operations were formally known within the bureau as COINTELPRO (the Counterintelligence Program). The brainchild of former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, the first Cointelpro campaign targeted the U.S. Communist party in the mid-1950s. More organizations came under attack in the 1960s. FBI agents worked to subvert civil rights groups, radical organizations, and white supremacists. Cointelpro existed primarily because of Director Hoover's extreme politics and ended only when he feared its exposure by his critics. A public uproar followed revelations in the news media in the early 1970s, and congressional hearings criticized Cointelpro campaigns in 1976. 9.
In 1956 Hoover interpreted a recent federal law—the Communist Control Act of 1954 (50 U.S.C.A. § 841)—as legal justification for the Blacklist and acts of Cointelpro.
Cases, concerning really strong violations of due process, our constitution and felony law, began to arise after Cointelpro was used to apparently harm and discredit Americans, who were causing no actual harm.
In cases, Handschu, The Socialist Party, and others, Cointelpro acts are found to be illegal. The Socialist Party was heavily harassed including, as per their case, “disruption, surreptitious entries, use of informants and electronic surveillance…” These seemed the acts the FBI and other intelligence agencies were involved in.
In the SWP case, it was alleged that in 1972, “the SWP criticized the attack on Israeli athletes in Munich by the “Black September” a Palestinian group. The SWP, which sympathizes with the Palestinians, issued a statement that such terrorist tactics are “ineffective and in fact harmful to the Palestinian struggle.” In 1974 SWP leader Mary Alice Waters wrote a report denouncing the assassination of Spanish Prime Minister Carrero Bianco by terrorists….”
History, Cointelpro
In this case (SWP), it was further alleged:
“Covert Disruption Activities
A substantial body of evidence on this subject was introduced at the trial. As will be described, there was an FBI program specifically aimed at disrupting the SWP and YSA. Other FBI programs, aimed at disrupting other organizations or movements, also impinged to some extent upon the SWP and YSA. These programs were referred to as counterintelligence programs, or “Cointelpro’s” for short.
The first program of this kind affecting the SWP was on principally directed at the Communist Party. It was called Cointelpro-CPUSA. This program had its genesis at a March 8, 1956 meeting of the National Security Council, attended by President, Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, Attorney General Brownell, Director Hoover of the FBI, the head of the CIA, and other officials. …
Brownell testified about this meeting. He stated that the leaders of the Government were greatly concerned about the threat of sabotage and espionage, as indicated by the Rosenberg case and other recent matters. Hoover reported that, in the interest of protecting national security, the FBI was seeking to “infiltrate, penetrate, disorganize and disrupt” the Communist Party. Hoover stated that the FBI was using informants, wiretaps, microphone surveillance, and surreptitious entries techniques used at least as far back as the Roosevelt administration in connection with Nazi spies. …
In the fall of 1961, FBI headquarters sent a memorandum to the field offices suggesting that a disruption program similar to COINTELPRO-CPUSA be initiated against the SWP. … The NY office responded with a letter favoring such a program, which stated that it “should prove highly beneficial in disrupting the activities of the SWP on a national, as well as local level.” FBI sent a letter to certain field offices dated November 29, 1961 to the effect that a disruption program against the SWP should be implemented. It was entitled the “SWP Disruption Program”, and was “designed to disrupt the SWP on a broad national basis.” No operation was to be initiated without specific prior headquarters approval.
A third program affecting the SWP was entitled Cointelpro-New Left. This was started in 1968. An FBI memorandum dated May 9, 1968 explained that the country was undergoing an era of disruption and violence caused by what was called the “new Left.” The memorandum stated that some of these activists urged revolution in the U.S. and called for the defeat of the U.S. in the Vietnam War. According to the FBI, the New Left activists were making false allegations against Government officials and utilizing unlawful acts to further their causes. The memo proposed that a counterintelligence program be set up to “neutralize the New Left and the Key activists.” The proposal was approved by FBI Director Hoover. …
The first operation under the SWP Disruption Program was an attempt to embarrass the SWP’s candidate for Manhattan Borough President, John Franklin, a black. This occurred in 1961. The SWP was receiving publicity because Franklin and three other members were running for NY City office. The FBI learned that Franklin had a criminal record involving offenses committed some years earlier, before he became associated with the SWP. The NY FBI office furnished to the Daily News. 10.
In 1963 and 1964 the FBI carried out an operation with respect to Clifton DeBerry, the SWP candidate for New York City Council in 1963 and for President of the United States in 1964. The FBI learned that DeBerry had failed to make child support payments of his former wife in Chicago.
DeBerry was arrested at a speech in Chicago before the Militant Labor Forum. The Cook County Welfare department made the charges of lack of child support. DeBerry agreed to make the payments in lieu of jail.
In 1964, when DeBerry was running for President, he was scheduled to go on another national speaking tour. The NY FBI office supplied derogatory material regarding DeBerry’s marital status to “friendly” newspaper contacts. Since DeBerry was a black candidate for President, the FBI thought that he was potentially influential in allying the SWP with the civil rights movement. In May 1964, the NY FBI office sent an anonymous mailing to various persons, including Daniel Watts and Harold Cruse, editors of a publication called “liberator”. The anonymous mailing suggested that the SWP was trying to manipulate the civil rights movement for its own benefit. Cruse later wrote articles in “liberator” attacking DeBerry and the SWP. An FBI memorandum indicated satisfaction with this, reasoning that these articles would hinder any SWP efforts to form an alliance with the “rising tide of Negro Radicals.” …
One objective of the FBI was to foment racial strife within the SWP. … Certain of the FBI’s disruption operations were designed to frustrate the SWP’s attempts to form alliances with other groups. There were similar attempts to hinder