We're talking about the FISA process, Retired General Michael Flynn, and the failure of the American Health Care Act. 

The Pearls

We comfort ourselves about our miserable election predictions by noting that we predicted that the American Health Care Act would not make it through the House of Representatives. And it didn't. Big winners: the American people for not being subjected to a half-baked, not-really-about-health-care-health-care-bill. Big losers: Paul Ryan, Donald Trump, Republicans generally. 

Sadly, we have two incidents of violence to acknowledge. A British man, Khalid Masood, rammed his vehicle into a crowd at Westminster Bridge in London after stabbing a police officer. His connections to Saudi Arabia have police still investigating his possible motives. On Sunday morning, a dispute escalated into a shooting in a Cincinnati, Ohio, night club, leaving one person dead and 15 injured. Our prayers are with everyone impacted in London and Cincinnati. 

For our compliments to the other party, Sarah tipped her hat to the Freedom Caucus for standing their ground in opposition to the AHCA. Beth complimented the Democratic lawmakers behind the Making Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness Act (the MAR-A-LAGO Act), which would require the White House to publish its visitor logs and mandate the release of visitor logs when the President conducts business...elsewhere. 

The Suit

We start with a mini-primer on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ("FISA"), which was enacted in 1978 to protect Americans’ privacy in the midst of counter-terrorism efforts. A law enforcement training white paper helped us significantly in understanding key provisions of FISA. FISA was enacted to limit the presidents' power and to create a judicially-manageable standard for issuing warrants in national security investigations. 

The key provisions of FISA were: 

1. Non-criminal electronic surveillance can only occur for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence and foreign counterintelligence
2. Foreign powers and agents of foreign powers could be targeted for electronic surveillance (foreign powers and agents of foreign powers are defined in the statute—explicitly says “non US persons” — US persons are citizens, legal permanent residents, US corporations, unincorporated associates with a substantial number of members who are citizens or lawful permanent residents) 
3. The government needs probable cause to conduct surveillance (and set a probable cause standard)
4. Established foreign intelligence surveillance courts (FISC) at the district and appellate...
   

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