National Security Wiretap System Was Long Plagued by Risk of Errors and Omissions

[mfcorey1]

WASHINGTON — In the 1990s, F.B.I. agents hunting for a Russian mole zeroed in on a C.I.A. official as their main suspect as they tried to determine who had sold secrets that had led to the deaths of American spies. When they sought court permission to wiretap him, they kept quiet about facts that cast doubts on their theory.

The F.B.I. and the FISA court are working on an overhaul of the national security surveillance application system.
But the mole turned out to instead be one of the F.B.I.’s own, Robert P. Hanssen, and the agents were later exposed for cherry-picking evidence against the innocent C.I.A. official in their surveillance applications.

That little-known aspect of the notorious Hanssen case illustrates the risk of dysfunction in national security wiretapping, one of counterintelligence agents’ most powerful tools in fighting terrorism and espionage. Now, that defect has surfaced again. The F.B.I.’s flawed applications to monitor a former Trump adviser in the Russia investigation, Carter Page, has prompted a new cycle of scandal revealed in a damning report from the Justice Department’s inspector general.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/national-security-wiretap-system-was-long-plagued-by-risk-of-errors-and-omissions/ar-BB10j341?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

[mr_lebowski]

1. I see M$M is flogging this 'flawed FISA apps for Carter Page' BS pretty hard ...

Nice of them to carry Trump's water like this.

I would bet that close IG scrutiny of every FBI investigation ever would find similar minor mistakes as were found in this case.

Still ... more oversight on spying is generally something I support so lets see what happens.