Those of you that have been paying attention know that the investigation into Donald Trump and Russian collusion during the presidential campaign was triggered bye FBI agents who received a FISA warrant to surveil Carter Paige. Some of you probably know that the information contained in the warrant application was not only falsified but was planted by the FBI in newspapers, with the cooperation of the reporters, in order to justify obtaining said warrant. I think we all know how bad that is. But it turns out it is much worse.
The FISA courts were created to allow law enforcement agencies at the federal level to obtain warrants to surveil foreign entities or people. Those who may be spying upon the United states or trying to influence the outcome of elections or similar activities. Section 702 that created the FISA courts specifically said it cannot be used to obtain warrants to surveil American citizens. And many of us suspected that the FBI nor the FISA courts were adhering strictly to that rule as we learned more about the investigation into Donald Trump.
The Inspector General presented their findings to Congress this week after they began looking at the practices of the Department of Justice, the FBI, and other federal law enforcement agencies in utilizing the FISA courts to obtain warrants. The testimony stated that at least 30% of warrants obtained through the FISA courts allowed for what they called mistaken surveillance or searches. The clarification was that searches were conducted on U.S. citizens or without proper documentation of the need for the surveillance or search. That amounts to just over 1,000,000 illegal searches in what I understand to be a 5-year time frame. And what we know about the Twitter files, it is not much of a stretch to believe that the Department of Justice and other agencies were using the FISA court to spy upon what they considered to be political opponents.
The 5th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, in part, protects our right to life, liberty, and property. Those rights cannot be infringed without the due process of law. As with the Twitter files and documents indicating similar behavior with other media entities, the abuse of the FISA court means we did not have due process. I would argue, as do several legal authorities, that we do not have due process if the information used to obtain the warrants was incorrect, unverified by independent sources, or falsified.
I have argued in this column, my Monday podcast, and on my radio show that we are quickly traveling down the road to tyranny. This is what banana republics and communist nations do to their political opponents. I know some of you on the left side of the aisle support the actions because you've been led to believe that your feelings are more important than the rule of law. You just happen to like the people committing these crimes or hate the people expressing opinions you don't like. If the shoe were on the other foot…
It's time we take our country back by speaking out against such tyrannical acts. But we must also take our school systems back because topics such as our rights protected under the constitution have not been taught to our children. That's why these people are able to get away with such heinous actions.