Here are the requirements for our gov't to get a FISA warrant on Carter Page:

[CousinIT]

Link to tweet

For the uninitiated, here is what the government must have shown in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page as agent of foreign power.

[Leghorn21]

1. Thanks much for the info, IT! I have no idea what's going on, so a post like this helps us

dumbheads catch a clue!

[Eliot Rosewater]

2. No, no, no , no.

According to trump all that was needed was for the Kenyan Muslim to want to embarrass candidate trump.

Because that is the Kenyan Muslim's style, as we all know.

As we all know from watching the Kenyan Muslim for 8 years, one thing is obvious, how petty he is.

Now Donald Trump, he is not petty and is very serious and would NEVER misuse power.

No, not him.

[grantcart]

3. Details

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-obtained-fisa-warrant-to-monitor-former-trump-adviser-carter-page/2017/04/11/620192ea-1e0e-11e7-ad74-3a742a6e93a7_story.html?utm_term=.309421c663ed

The government’s application for the surveillance order targeting Page included a lengthy declaration that laid out investigators’ basis for believing that Page was an agent of the Russian government and knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of Moscow, officials said.

Among other things, the application cited contacts that he had with a Russian intelligence operative in New York City in 2013, officials said. Those contacts had earlier surfaced in a federal espionage case brought by the Justice Department against the intelligence operative and two other Russian agents. In addition, the application said Page had other contacts with Russian operatives that have not been publicly disclosed, officials said.

I provide services to federal employees and one of my clients is an Agent for DHS. When I asked what he did he said he prepared warrants for DHS investigations in the Tucson sector. I told him that I had a close friend that was a part time country judge and sometimes I would be visiting his lake cabin and a deputy sheriff would truck on out with a warrant application and even though they were close friends my friend would frequently decline the warrant or ask for more investigation.

I asked him why the rejection rate for federal warrant applications was so low. He laughed. He said it was harder to get a federal wire tap warrant than pass health care. After he finished the application it had to go the local DHS attorney, then the local Federal Prosecutor. Then it would go to DHS legal department, then to the agency that was requesting it (ICE for example) then to the Justice department.

I forget some of the other steps but for a normal warrant it took 7 different attorneys from different agencies to agree on the exact wording before the warrant would go to a judge. (By the way once the warrant was on they could only listen to the wire tapped line for 2 minutes at a time. They could only continue to listen and record IF the discussion was directly related to what was on a warrant. If they were talking about some other criminal activity they could not start the recorder.

Getting a FISA warrant is considered even more difficult and the judges even more demanding.

[CousinIT]

4. Wow. Thanks for this grantcart.

Quite the stringent process, it seems.

[triron]

5. Great info. This is awesome.

[Recursion]

6. Also: name me another FISA warrant that has leaked. One.

It's unheard of. Something is up here.

[Honeycombe8]

7. And, to be clear, it's not the President who requests it, per Comey.

Comey stated before the House Intelligence Committee that no President has the authority to surveil any American citizen. Only two agencies can do that.

He did not specifically say that a President can't request it, but I take that as a given, esp in view of the requirement. No President would have information warranting a request for surveillance. Only the intel agencies would have some information about that (presumably from incidental information while investigating non-Americans).