SlantRight 2.0: 4th Amendment

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Tuesday, October 7, 2025

CTH Part III – ‘Covering Up the Biggest Political Scandal in U.S. History’

John R. Houk, Blog Editor

October 7, 2025

The Conservative Treehouse posts its PART THREE of “Covering Up the Biggest Political Scandal in U.S. History” based on a series of ongoing videos produced by John Spiropoulos. The videos (so far) are all less than minutes. The video series is called “Obama's Spies & Lies” and is being posted at Youtube & Rumble. On Youtube Spiropoulos has uploaded four parts with the fifth part to drop circa 11pm on 10/7/25. I shared the CTH PART TWO and three videos my Blogs on 10/6/25 (primary Blog).

screengrab

The CTH PART THREE post not only has the Spiropoulos part four video, but has relevant commentary based on the 8:24-Minute video. Making the post worthy to share.

JRH 10/7/25

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Part III – Covering Up the Biggest Political Scandal in U.S. History

By Sundance

October 7, 2025

Conservative Treehouse

People in Washington DC are starting to realize the full scale of the Obama surveillance system. All of the evidence and datapoints, those released and those yet to surface, flow in one direction. Even the professionally reluctant are starting to admit.

What Obama, Biden, Comey, Crossfire Hurricane, Robert Mueller, Arctic Frost and Jack Smith were doing, was using their offices -and govt systems- to watch their opposition, spy on them, then take action based on the results.

Friend of the Treehouse John Spiropoulos has put together a series of videos explaining how President Obama, FBI Director James Comey and CIA Director John Brennan constructed a coverup to hide their political surveillance operation. Today, the fourth segment in the series.

Rumble Link – YouTube Link

From the perspective of Obama, Comey and Brennan, expanding Hillary Clinton’s Trump-Russia collusion narrative was the key element to hide the activity of the administration prior to the November 2016 election. That’s the motive for the FBI and CIA to collaborate on the agenda after the shocking outcome of the 2016 election result; but pay close attention to the activity of the primary “at risk” official, James Comey.

The December ’16 Joint Analysis Report (JAR), and the January ’17 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), were fabricated to enhance a spying coverup. Spiropoulos has taken the time to put the deconstruction of the ICA into a simple to follow video format.

Youtube VIDEO: Obama's Spies & Lies #4

[Posted by John Spiropoulos

Posted on Oct 6, 2025

Obama's Lies and Spies: The Junk Intel Scandal DECLASSIFIED. This is another in a series of reports by on declassified information released by Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence. You can support independent journalism by contributing at: www.givesendgo.com/LetsRollAmerica. Thank you. John]

From a risk management perspective, initially the surveillance and spying operation was a low-risk endeavor. Obama held power and was going to hand off operations to Hillary. The Clinton administration would retain the officials who were doing the surveillance/spying, and no one would ever know.

Donald Trump was not expected to win the election. When he did, all of the participants were suddenly at risk. President Obama and every member of his cabinet involved in the spying operations, then used Clinton’s “Russiagate” smear to cover up Obama’s “Spygate” activity.

Comey-Obama-Brennan [Coup Cartel - CTH Photo]

The IRS was used to identify targets 2010 through 2012, until discovered in April ’12. Suddenly, President Obama has a problem. President Obama then sends his Chief of Staff, Jack Lew, to run the IRS and block discoveries around the IRS weaponization.

From 2012 through April 2016, the Obama administration was spying on their political opposition using the FBI to conduct surveillance through their access to the NSA database.

In April 2016, NSA Admiral Mike Rogers was alerted by the NSA compliance officer who noted the uptick in database access activity by the FBI searching the Republican primary candidate field.

Post April 2016, the Obama administration had a problem. Enter FBI operation “Crossfire Hurricane,” July 2016, in an effort to remove the political risk.

October 2016, the FBI rushes a FISA application through the FISC, circumventing the missing ‘Woods File’, with the Chris Steele dossier as evidence.

October 2016, NSA Director Rogers sends the first official notification of the FBI using the NSA database to the oversight body, the FISA Court.

December 2016, worried about Trump now discovering the NSA database spying, the Obama administration wraps the Clinton smear into official policy, blaming the Russians and validating Crossfire Hurricane. That’s where the Intelligence Community Assessment becomes critical.

May 2017, needing to extend the coverup of the FBI activity, special counsel Robert Mueller then takes over Crossfire Hurricane. All FBI evidence and personnel transfers to Mueller.

April 2019, Robert Mueller operation wraps up, prior activity coverup shifts to Impeachment process.

July 2019, John Durham kicks in extending DOJ/FBI control through 2020 election.

Fall 2020, mail-in ballots triggered to facilitate 2020 election outcome.

January 2021, FBI triggers Operation Arctic Frost, targeting Trump supporters and 2020 election researchers. FBI again using NSA database search queries to identify targeting.

March 2021, FBI Arctic Frost results fed to J6 Committee and DHS. TSA trigger “Quiet Skies” targeting via results from Arctic Frost.

August 2022, FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago to retrieve any evidence Donald Trump might have of FBI spying and surveillance activity.

September 2023, Jack Smith targets congressional members who had contact with President Trump.

Chuck-Grassley-Arctic-Frost Tweet screengrab [CTH Photo]

It’s one long continuum of coverup activity within Main Justice and the FBI, supported by all other various agencies who operate in support. What are they covering up? The 2012 through 2016 political spying operation within the Obama administration, as carried out by the same Main Justice and FBI operations.

Thursday, August 11, 2022

What’s Next for OUR Republic?

John R. Houk

© August 11, 2022

President Trump’s Florida home was raided under what should be an unconstitutional sealed search warrant which the Trump lawyers were refused access. I mean was not the reason behind the Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Here are a couple of links showing how the Fourth Amendment has been eviscerated from ORIGINAL INTENET:

o Amendment IV: Searches, Seizures and Warrants; The Rutherford Institute; 2022 © The Rutherford Institute (ABOUT PAGE)

o The Fourth Amendment: Text, Origins, and Meaning: Protection From Unreasonable Search and Seizure; By Tom Head; ThoughtCo; Updated 7/31/19

The Supreme Court has been diluting the Original Intent of the Fourth Amendment for decades. After the 9/11 attack by the followers of Mohammed religion, I was so incensed by this act of war I was initially very supportive of the Patriot Act. It was my understanding of the time that law was enacted to monitor foreign perpetrators with violent intentions against American citizens. I HAVE SINCE LEARNED the mechanics of the Patriot Act are now being used AGAINST American citizens through secret warrants which do not have to be presented to the person searched.

When the Patriot Act is used in this manner on American citizens in the 50 States of the United States, it must be held as UNCONSTITUTIONAL! But the Judicial Branch has become so corrupted by WOKE politics, you will have to forgive me for not holding my breath. The very warrant used against President Trump’s residence was executed by a Judge who was an Epstein (who didn’t kill himself) lawyer turned Judge. Now if that doesn’t smack of Judicial wokism I don’t what does. Evidently Judge Bruce E. Reinhart is feeling public pressure over issuing the warrant because I learned from The Gateway Pundit the dubious Judge has ordered the FBI to respond to a Judicial Watch motion to reveal the contents of the search warrant by August 15. Apparently the FBI (which now is America’s Secret Police like the Gestapo, KGB, Stasi and so on) does not have to comply.

The Conservative Treehouse (I like The Last Refuge better) has run a three part series all posted today 8/11/22 on how this political corruption has enveloped our American Republic using the Mar-a-Lago raid as a pretext. I was contemplating them but they are quite detailed and lengthy which is evident pseudonymous sundance has been working for some time. After reading Parts one and two (I haven’t tackled three yet), it’s hard to imagine a Republic Restored is even possible. Here are the three-part titles:

o Part 1, Why Did the DOJ and FBI Execute the Raid on Trump – The Story Behind the Documents

o Part 2 – Why Did the DOJ and FBI Execute the Raid on Trump – The Evidence Within the Documents

o Part 3, Why Did the DOJ and FBI Execute the Raid on Trump – A Culmination of Four Years of Threats and Betrayals

So how do Patriots embark on correcting this travesty of perverting the Founders’ Republic?

My first leaning has been the Convention of States (COS) path in which the individual States call for Amendments to the Constitution (because that will NEVER happen in a deeply divided Congress OR just call another Constitutional Convention to hammer out a Constitution that is not so easily diluted.

AND YET, the COS path has dangerous pitfalls especially in a deeply divided nation. The original Constitutional Convention in 1787 brought America’s current Constitutional government. That Constitution became the law of the land in 1788 and in 1790 the last of original States added their ratification. Compared to America’s divisions today, the give and take compromises were relatively easy to overcome though it probably didn’t seem so at the time.

Today’s American divisions are quite stark between a Globalist-Marxist transformative vision for the future versus Patriotic Conservatives who look back to the Founding Fathers’ concept of Liberty and Property with Christian Morality and Ethics as the compass to limit government intrusion on Individual Rights. At America’s stage of existence I moving toward the thought there are simply too many irreconcilable differences for any kind of compromise or compromises to find any kind agreement for an effective governing Constitution.

In fact my suspicion if such Convention ever actually is convened, the differences are so stark that if a brawl doesn’t break out between Convention Delegates, a Delegate walkout certainly would occur. What follows such a walkout?

Delegates lobbying various portions of the existing government (Police and Military) to form regional governments under an area’s dominant political ideology. Depending on the success of Delegate lobbying, the War of Disunion is on.

But let’s face another distasteful fact. From Obama days and Obama’s third term under Dementia Biden, the U.S. Military and American Federal Law Enforcement agencies (name an alphabet) have effectively been purged of Constitutional Patriots. That’s a big win for Leftist lobbying by disgruntled Convention Delegates.

I can see a scenario in which Conservative Patriots try a page from Leftist rioters and looters and begin a citizen rampage focused Leftist operated institutions. THE RESULT: A loyal Leftist Military and loyal Leftist police forces begin SHOOTING Patriots in a slaughter to force the final transformation.

If you look at history, Communists have no problem committing genocide among their own people to establish State Control over their population.

THE ONLY reversal to a horrific future I see is 1) The return of King Jesus OR 2) Begin a huge amount of local activism to take over City and County governments and School Boards. Then the firing of local Leftist Bureaucrats and Leftist-oriented police. Recruit expelled Military Patriots who were discharged for being more interested in American Liberty than following unconstitutional Woke orders.

THEN and only then, will the lobbying of Conservative-Patriot Delegates stand the chance of success.

ANOTHER SCENARIO

Let’s imagine there are still members of the Military who still honor their oath to the Constitution. And imagine a Leftist Military vs a Patriot Military civil war emerges.

God help Americans if a Leftist (i.e. a Communist) Military wins. I suspect such a victory would make the Communist atrocities of the Russian Revolution look like child’s play.

But imagine a Patriot Military wins. What next? My guess is a distasteful dictatorship (think Roman Republic or Oliver Cromwell) would need to govern to purge the American Bureaucracy of Woke-Leftists, restore the Rule of Law, recreate a Constitution that adds some teeth to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness that restricts a Judicial Branch from creating laws without consent of the governed. All the Judicial Branch should be capable of with laws is confirm or deny Constitutionality. AND NEVER manufacture a statute of law. AND no 4^th Estate Bureaucracy should be allowed nation-wide rule making and should be constrained to their specific function of government operation.

It's probably a pipe dream. Only an agreeing mass of people can make it a dream. ONLY active participation can make a dream a reality.

Time will tell. At age 65, I will be either be a martyr or an observer from Heaven.

JRH 8/11/22

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Sunday, February 4, 2018

Liberty's Worth

Justin Smith writes about how FISA warrants violate the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment:

Justin is absolutely correct. On a personal level, I feel during war that security overrides Rights. Friends we have been in a state of war with Islamic terrorists since September 11, 2001.

NOW! I have found myself modifying my perspective of the Patriot Act and FISA warrants. Once it has become apparent that Executive Administration of President Barack Hussein Obama weaponized FISA warrants in an effort to maintain a Left-Wing government under Crooked Hillary, I have begun to re-think my concept of the usage of FISA warrants used without probable cause against U.S. citizens. Incidentally, FISA Warrants were not designed for U.S. citizens but rather against non-citizens that might pose a terrorist threat against Americans.

In FISA abuses the FBI, Intelligence Agencies, the State Department and probably more from the Executive Branch; used back door unmasking to spy on American citizens as well as potential dangerous foreign entities.

These FISA abuses under Obama (who also weaponized the IRS and what else?) have made America a Leftist police state with the full cooperation of the MSM that pro-Leftist in influencing America.

Well that is enough of me. Read Justin Smith’s take on how the Fourth Amendment has been unconstitutionally annulled.

JRH 2/4/18

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Liberty's Worth

By Justin O. Smith

Sent 2/3/18 3:34 PM

One's liberty is the most precious thing next to life itself, and Americans must stop standing in silence, while Presidents, past and present, and Congressmen erode and trample our Fourth Amendment Right, no matter their intentions, through Orwellian legislation that directly contravenes it. Everyone must vociferously and fiercely oppose and counter these so-called "leaders" and their illegal violations of the Constitution, by replacing all those, who recently voted for the FISA Reauthorization Act of 2017, because no one, even in the name of national security, has any right or authority to take our liberty.

The FISA Reauthorization Act passed in the House, 256 to 164, on January 11th, and it passed by 65 - 34 vote [Blog Editor: Justin’s original text said the FISA reauthorization succeeded by only one vote. I did not find that vote, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t occur. Many votes often occur until a final vote is taken which often appears different than previous votes for constituents who agree with the majority vote.] in the Senate [S. 139], on January 18th; and, through the House vote on Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, the House rejected the USA Rights Act, 233 to 183, and its requirement that officials must obtain warrants before searching and reading Americans' emails, after they are acquired in any surveillance operation.

Bulk surveillance on all Americans without a warrant, heretofore known to be unConstitutional, is now deemed acceptable by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the U.S. Congress, but incredulously, they do make one exception. A warrant is required for the emails of the subject in an open criminal investigation, where no national security concerns exist, thus providing criminals more rights than normal, law-abiding everyday U.S. citizens.

One must also be shocked by House Joint Resolution 76, which was passed by this Congress and signed by President Trump on August 22, 2017. It allows the searches of homes and businesses without any warrant, in areas adjacent to the Washington [D.C.] Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and extending miles outward in all directions, and far into nearby regions of Maryland and Virginia.

All of the aforementioned goes against the Fourth Amendment, which states that Americans' rights "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause."

In a ninety-nine page opinion for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Judge Rosemary Collyer had many harsh terms for the Obama Administration. She noted that the Obama administration had ignored Section 702 procedures designed to ensure Americans' civil rights were safeguarded, as any administration performs the necessary work to provide for our national security. Collyer charged that Obama's administration had violated Section 702's requirements and created a "very serious Fourth Amendment issue."

The serious nature of these developments is further highlighted by new evidence exposed by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, who has deep insight through a "top secret" clearance. He charged on January 18th, that seen through the prism of overt pro-Hillary bias and anti-Trump prejudice exhibited by the CIA, FBI and other agencies and their use of National Security Agency secret information for political purposes, they were all untrustworthy with our information and the nation's intelligence secrets. The many abuses under the Obama Administration exposes the danger of giving too much power to our intelligence agencies, who seem far too willing to use stored metadata for harassment, blackmail and to further their own political agendas.

FBI Director Christopher Wray viewed Nunes's classified House Intelligence Memo on Sunday January 21st. The next day Deputy Director Andrew McCabe announced his "retirement". McCabe was named in the memo, as the person who used the unverified Steele Dossier to illegally obtain a FISA warrant against President Trump.

The House Intelligence Committee Memo released on February 2nd shows that a presidential campaign was spied on. An unverified dossier, that nobody will stand by under oath was used in an illegal manner to obtain a FISA warrant. And yet, with this knowledge in hand seven days before the House vote, Representative Nunes and twenty-one other House committee members kept over five-hundred of their colleagues in the dark, about domestic spying abuses, while the debate on that very issue was ongoing, and they voted to expand the power of those who abused it.

Surely the expansion of FISA would never have passed the Senate, if the damning information contained in the House Intelligence Committee Memo had been released seven days earlier. If just one conscientious senator had known of the NSA and FBI abuses concealed by the House Intelligence Committee, and changed his vote, the expansion would have failed.

Any American paying attention is now asking, "What is going on with our government?" They know that the Fourth Amendment has been abrogated, gutted, by the very representatives and senators who swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend our U.S. Constitution.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) had vowed to fight reauthorization of Section 702 without reforms. Just prior to the vote on the USA Rights Act, he stated: "Our Founders gave us the Fourth Amendment to prevent a tyrannical government from invading our privacy, and we are fools to relinquish that hard-won right because of fear. The Founders did not include the Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights as a suggestion."

Significantly, on January 11th, President Trump noted that Section 702 was used to "badly surveil and abuse the Trump campaign", as he expressed skepticism regarding FISA. At the very least, this should have withheld his signature, until FISA was reformed. He would have served America better, if he had followed his initial gut instinct.

After signing the bill, President Trump falsely told America that it only targeted foreigners. Is this another case of Trump being easily manipulated by his advisors, or is it one more instance of his own lack of knowledge and preparation on an issue?

The FISA Reauthorization Act is now in place until 2024. Each day from this point on, all of us must demand it be rescinded, and before we allow its renewal, it must be reformed.

Liberty is the essence of our natural state, so when Congress acts to limit our liberty in favor of greater security, obtained through a FISA operation with highly questionable results in the war on terrorism, they are philosophically, historically and constitutionally wrong. Our liberty is of infinitely greater worth to us, than the security we have instructed Congress to ensure.

Congress's recent actions are moves to permanently destroy our right to privacy, exalting safety over liberty and providing neither. And in the process, limited government is being undone, right before our eyes.

As Ludwig von Mises reminds us, government is essentially the negation of liberty. If anyone truly believes that monitoring everyone in America is the least restrictive way to keep us safe, let that person surrender his own privacy. The rest of us will retain ours and provide for our own safety.

I did not consent to the abrogation of my Fourth Amendment Right, and I don't imagine most of America did either. Our rights are inalienable and cannot be separated from us, not by Congress, not by anyone.

By Justin O. Smith

________________

Edited by John R. Houk

Text embraced by brackets and all source links are by the Editor.

Saturday, June 3, 2017

Bring FISA Warrants Back to the Constitution

John R. Houk

Since September 11, 2001 I have been very supportive of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) siding on the side of Security looking for foreigners with Islamic terrorist sympathies. Which means I was ok with Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) secret warrants to into domestic suspects that were foreign culprits or aiding and abetting Islamic terrorist sympathizers. I was quite ignorant that FISC was created by FISA by an act of Congress in 1978.

Even though I am not a great mathematician, it is not hard to figure out 1978 is way before 2001. That means the government was given legal authority to spy on Americans before Islamic terrorism. This is a HUGE Fourth Amendment violation issue.

Fourth Amendment:

The issue with a FISA secret warrant is that it fails with “probable cause” and/or “particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

Much to the Leftists horror, I do not believe foreigners deserve the full scope of the 4^th Amendment as do U.S. Citizens. Thus I am good with secret warrants on potential foreign adversaries of the U.S. Government and adversaries American citizens that should benefit from the full protections a citizen is entitled to.

But another sketchy issue has arisen largely to the admittance of Muslim immigrants and refugees into the USA. That sketchy issue is that 2^nd generation sons and daughters of the original Muslim immigrants and refugees have become U.S. citizens (naturalized and natural born) entitled to the full protections the citizenry deserves.

Now that I am convinced that Obama ordered the intel organizations to spy on Americans for political reasons more than to protect Americans from Islamic terrorists or foreign spies, FISA needs to be abolished OR at the very least reformed to conform to the intent of the Fourth Amendment.

Judge Andrew P. Napolitano more eruditely explains the constitutional ramifications of FISA secret warrants and the operation of FISC.

JRH 6/3/17

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Spying on You, Spying on Me, Spying on the President

By Judge Andrew P. Napolitano

June 2, 2017

Jewish World Review

"The makers of our Constitution ... conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone — the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men." — Justice Louis D. Brandeis, 1928

After the Watergate era had ended and Jimmy Carter was in the White House and the Senate's Church Committee had attempted to grasp the full extent of lawless government surveillance in America during the LBJ and Nixon years, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. FISA declared that it provided the sole source for federal surveillance in America for intelligence purposes.

FISA required that all domestic intelligence surveillance be authorized by a newly created court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Since 1978, FISC has met in secret. Its records are unavailable to the public unless it determines otherwise, and it hears only from Department of Justice lawyers and National Security Agency personnel. There are no lawyers or witnesses to challenge the DOJ or the NSA.

Notwithstanding this handy constitutional novelty, the NSA quickly grew impatient with its monitors and began crafting novel arguments that were met with no resistance. Those arguments did away with the kind of particularized probable cause about targets of surveillance that the Constitution requires in favor of warrants based on the probability that someone somewhere in a given group could provide intelligence data helpful to national security, and because the FISC bought these arguments, the entire group could be spied upon. The FISC unleashed the NSA to spy on tens of millions of Americans.

That was still not enough for the nation's spies. So beginning in 2005, then-President George W. Bush permitted the NSA to interpret President Ronald Reagan's executive order 12333 so as to allow all spying on everyone in the U.S., all the time. The NSA and Bush took the position that because the president is constitutionally the commander in chief of the military and because the NSA is in the military, both the president and the NSA are lawfully independent of FISA.

The NSA does not acknowledge any of this, but we know from the Edward Snowden revelations and from the testimony of a former high-ranking NSA official who devised many of the NSA programs that this is so.

The NSA's use of FISC-issued warrants is only one of a half-dozen tools that the NSA uses, but it is the only tool that the NSA publicly acknowledges. FISC-issued warrants do not name a person as a suspect; they name a category. For example, it could be customers of Verizon, which includes 115 million people. It could be telephones and computers located at 721-725 Fifth Ave. in New York; that's Trump Tower. It could be all electronic devices in the 10036 ZIP code; that's midtown Manhattan.

When the NSA obtains a FISA warrant and captures a communication, the participants often mention a third person. The federal "minimization" statute requires the NSA to get a warrant before surveilling that third person. Last week, we learned that last month, the FISC rebuked the NSA for failing to minimize by continuing to surveil third parties to the sixth degree without warrants.

Here is an example of warrantless surveillance to the sixth degree. The NSA surveils A and B pursuant to a FISC-issued warrant; A and B discuss C; the NSA, without a warrant, surveils C talking to D; C mentions E, and D mentions F; the NSA surveils E and F without warrants, etc. This continues going out to six stops from the A-and-B conversation, even though this is prohibited by federal law. The final stop, which involves huge numbers of people, has been proved to have no connection whatsoever to the warrant issued for A and B, yet the NSA continues to spy there.

But it doesn't stop there. The Bush interpretation of EO 12333 is still followed by the NSA. Its logic — "I am the commander in chief, and I'll do what I need to do to keep us safe, and the NSA can do what I permit" — permits universal surveillance in flagrant violation of FISA and the Constitution. It was used to justify the surveillance of Donald Trump before he was inaugurated. It no doubt still is.

The availability of the information acquired by this massive spying is a serious threat to democracy. We know from the Susan Rice admissions that folks in the government can acquire intelligence-generated data — emails, text messages, recordings of telephone conversations — and use that data for political purposes. Just ask former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

And we know from recent tragedies in San Bernardino and Orlando, even Manchester, that the NSA is suffering from information overload. It has too much data to sift through because it does not focus on the bad guys until after the tragedies. Before the tragedies, it has no focus.

The now public rebuke of the NSA by the FISC is extraordinary, but it is also a farce. The FISC is virtually owned by the NSA. That court has granted 99.9 percent of requests made by the NSA since the court was created. Despite all the public revelations, the FISC looks the other way at non-FISC-authorized NSA spying. The judges of the FISC have become virtual clerks for the NSA. And the FISC has become an unconstitutional joke.

Where does all this leave us? It leaves us with a public recognition that we are the most spied-upon people in world history and that the president himself has been a victim. This fall, the NSA will ask Congress to reauthorize certain spying authorities that are due to expire at the end of the year. Congress needs to know just how unconstitutional, intrusive and fruitless all this spying has become.

Perhaps then Congress will write laws that are faithful to the Constitution — and if so, maybe the folks empowered by those laws will follow them.

________________

Bring FISA Warrants Back to the Constitution

John R. Houk

_______________

Spying on You, Spying on Me, Spying on the President

Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written seven books on the U.S. Constitution.

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