Politics

CNN’s Brian Stelter: Spying on Trump justified if there’s ‘fear’ of something ‘suspicious’

Incidents like this are the reason that many now view CNN as the least-trusted name in network news.  On Sunday, CNN propagandist Brian Stelter claimed that it’s okay for the federal government to spy on a political campaign if there are “very real fears” about “something very suspicious going on.”

While speaking with Newsmax CEO Christopher Christopher Ruddy, Stelter justified the Obama administration’s use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to monitor members of the Trump campaign.

Ruddy reminded Stelter that after more than a year, no evidence of collusion with Russia has been found, prompting Stelter to respond: “There certainly evidence of a willingness to collude.”

“We had unprecedented surveillance of a political campaign in American history,” Ruddy said in response. “The House Intelligence Committee says at least 100 members and associates of Donald Trump were surveilled and unmasked, and I think that’s the big story. Why did that go on, based again, on a phony allegation in search of a crime?”

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“Because there were very real fears that there was something very suspicious going on with Russia,” Stelter argued.

“Just because a liberal group has a fear about a conservative candidate doesn’t mean they should open up a political investigation,” Ruddy responded, prompting a chuckle from Stelter.

According to the Daily Caller:

Stelter then cited “Russian bots” and fake news on social media to justify the Obama administration’s actions.

The 4th Amendment to the Constitution protects American citizens from “unreasonable searches and seizures” by the federal government.

FISA empowers the government to monitor and record communications of foreign nationals, but does allow surveillance of American citizens only under very specific circumstances, such as when an American citizen is acting as an agent of a foreign government.

With the release of the FISA memo, we now know that the surveillance was conducted as the direct result of a fake political document.

Here’s video of the interview:

Related:

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Joe Newby

A 10-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, Joe ran for a city council position in Riverside, Calif., in 1991 and managed successful campaigns for the Idaho state legislature. Co-author of "Banned: How Facebook enables militant Islamic jihad," Joe wrote for Examiner.com from 2010 until it closed in 2016 and his work has been published at Newsbusters, Spokane Faith and Values and other sites. He now runs the Conservative Firing Line.

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