There really is a major difference between spying and FISA-ordered surveillance
By Kerby Anderson
AUSTIN Texas (Texas Insider Report) Attorney General William Barr caused quite a stir the other day when he concluded: I believe the government spied on the Trump campaign."
His statement led to another round of commentators arguing that this was merely surveillance not spying.
But a recent article in The Hill Kevin Brock a former Assistant Director of Intelligence at the FBI and Principal Deputy Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) explained that even attempting to make a semantic difference like that misses what was done.
Brock explains that what was unleashed on an American citizen (now-president Donald Trump) was without precedent. And he should know.
FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) surveillance:
Allows the clandestine microphone and camera capture of the target at all times and in all places even the most intimate of his daily life.
It is more intrusive than even a Title III criminal wiretap for a drug dealer or mob boss."
There really is a major difference between spying and FISA court-ordered surveillance.
It is the epitome of government power over an individuals privacy.
It is the nuclear option in the world of intelligence collection."
Brock also reminds us that the government only uses such an option when surveilling foreign nationals who have been spying on U.S. interests or sometimes for U.S. citizens who hold security clearances and possess National Security Information that might be turned over to another country.
It has never been used by an FBI Director and deputy director to intercept an individual with no clearance and no obvious access to sensitive information.
Please remember this the next time you hear someone reject the idea that the government was spying on the Trump Campaign... suggesting that it was only surveillance.
Kerby Anderson is host of the Point of View Radio Talk Show and serves as President of Probe Ministries. He holds masters degrees from Yale University (science) and Georgetown University (government).
