Spying

After 9/11 the government took steps to shore up its intelligence agencies by enacting the Patriot Act which gave broad power to the establishment. Civil liberty groups vehemently objected on the grounds of privacy. They said these new powers would lead to government misuse for political reasons but their voices fell on deaf ears. Fifteen years later along comes the outsider Trump who represents a threat to the status quo and the predictions come to fruition. Trump is the republican nominee and in July of 2016, about four months before the election, the FBI’s counterintelligence section launches “Crossfire Hurricane”, to look into allegations of Trump/Russia collusion. This is where the fears of the civil liberty groups come into play. The FBI used unsubstantiated information from the now debunked Steele dossier to investigate Trump advisor Carter Page. The court is also not told that Page was a CIA source. Had this information been known to the FISA court they would not have issued the wiretap warrant. Once issued the warrant allowed for hops meaning while listening to Page the government could then hop to anyone Page was talking to then hop to anyone that person had talked to. Using this double hop the entire Trump group was listened into without their knowledge. This resulted in: Politicization of intelligence assessments occurs when the gathering, processing, or dissemination of intelligence information is influenced by political considerations, potentially leading to biased or inaccurate assessments that support specific policy preferences. This can manifest as analysts tailoring their findings to align with policymakers' desires, or policymakers selectively using intelligence to bolster their arguments. More and more information about this incident is being made public but it will not matter because 50% of the people have made up their minds based on their politics.