[Photo: National Security Agency, Ft. Meade, MD via Wikimedia]

Keith Gartenlaub Wonders Why He Can’t Get the Carter Page Treatment

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Whatever else you think of the Carter Page pseudo-scandal, the release of his FISA application has finally ended the 50 year period during which not a single person targeted under FISA has ever seen the application used to obtain the order.

That should mean that for defendants who can legitimately demonstrate there was probably something actually problematic with the application they can review the application and challenge the order and everything that comes from it. Keith Gartenlaub, who was targeted as a Chinese spy based off basically nothing, currently has a pending challenge in his FISA case in the 9th Circuit.

His attorney, John Cline, has already written the court pointing out that the release of Page’s FISA application demonstrates DOJ’s 50 year fearmongering about FISA is really overblown.

As with the HPSCI memoranda, the declassification and disclosure of the redacted Page FISA materials demonstrates that it is possible to discuss publicly aspects of a FISA application without damaging national security. In addition, the declassification and disclosure of the redacted FISA materials highlights the absurdity of the government’s assertion, in this and other cases involving motions to suppress FISA surveillance, that any disclosure of any portion of a FISA application, even to cleared defense counsel under the protections of CIPA, would harm national security. If the redacted Page FISA materials can be disclosed publicly without harming national security, as the Executive Branch has
determined, even more substantial disclosure of the Gartenlaub FISA application can be made to cleared defense counsel under CIPA without causing such harm.

It is likely that we (or rather, Cline, Gartenlaub’s cleared attorney) would learn far more about the things FBI gets away with in FISA applications from Gartenlaub’s application than Page’s.

If defendants like Gartenlaub can carry out such review, we actually might be able to make FISA more reasonable.

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6 replies
  1. Rapier says:

    My usual pessimistic case is that if the 9th finds for Gartenlaub it will be appealed and the SC will reverse.

    This sudden release after 50 years of stonewalling seems bizarre on it’s face since the information is damning but that doesn’t matter because the GOP narrative. that it shows the FBI was corrupt, is already the received wisdom among the brethren and he said she said the story in the press.

    https://www.eschatonblog.com/2018/07/american-journalism-in-one-tweet.html

    • SpaceLifeForm says:

      That process will take years of course.

      Important in the short-term, if one can, vote 2018-11-06.

      No reason to worry about McConnell threats.

      If you fail to vote, it will not matter anyway.

    • Charles says:

      …but that doesn’t matter because the GOP narrative. that it shows the FBI was corrupt, is already the received wisdom among the brethren and he said she said the story in the press.

      Just as whales rely on krill, big lies need factoids on which to feed. All that matters in the propaganda system is that there be a story about Carter Page. Fox and Sinclair will filter out the substance to get the excerpts or sound bites they need to keep the base inflamed and irrational.

  2. SpaceLifeForm says:

    Manafort is the ping-pong ball.

    Trials delayed.

    EDVA – 2018-07-31
    DC – 2018-08-28

  3. SpaceLifeForm says:

    It goes high and wide.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-butina-exclusive/exclusive-alleged-russian-agent-butina-met-with-u-s-treasury-fed-officials-idUSKBN1KC0DC

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Maria Butina, accused in the United States of spying for Russia, had wider high-level contacts in Washington than previously known, taking part in 2015 meetings between a visiting Russian official and two senior U.S. officials.

    The meetings, disclosed by several people familiar with the sessions and a report prepared by a Washington think tank that arranged them, involved Stanley Fischer, then Federal Reserve vice chairman, and Nathan Sheets, then Treasury undersecretary for international affairs

    ….

    The meetings were documented in a Center for the National Interest report seen by Reuters that outlined its Russia-related activities from 2013 to 2015. The report described the meetings as helping bring together “leading figures from the financial institutions of the United States and Russia.”

    [Very Important:  Federal Reserve and US Treasury are *COMPLETELY SEPARATE ENTITIES*.   Federal Reserve *IS NOT* a US Government institution]

    [Though, pre-y2k, they had same website]

  4. SpaceLifeForm says:

    Nunes is not thinking.

    Burr breaks with Nunes: ‘Sound reasons’ for judges to approve FISA warrant

    https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/24/politics/richard-burr-devin-nunes-sound-reasons-for-judges-to-approve-fisa-warrant/index.html

    Now Nunes wants the rest of the October 2016 FISA application and three subsequent renewals to be made public.

    But Burr told CNN he has concerns that the document was released in any form.

    “I cease to be amazed by how much stuff we release publicly now,” Burr said.

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