You know, when you think about how Michael Flynn has basically been ruined financially for lying to the FBI while hacks like James Comey and Andrew McCabe haven’t even been charged with anything, it’s kind of amazing. Turns out Comey the Clown ignored whistleblower reports about how ineffective and broken the warrantless spy program was.
| Comey ignored FBI whistleblower who exposed ineffective warrantless spy program |
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An official who supervised the FBI’s Section 215 warrantless phone surveillance program revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013 says he warned then-Director James Comey it was woefully ineffective in catching terrorists and needed to be modified.
Retired Special Agent Bassem Youssef, the chief of the FBI’s Communications Analysis Unit, said in an exclusive interview with The Hill that no action was taken by Comey in response to the concerns he raised.
He said his efforts were prompted by an audit his team conducted showing the program had searched through thousands of Americans’ records but had helped only disrupt one possible terrorist plot over more than a decade.
“I explained to Director Comey that the special program was largely ineffective, very costly and highly burdensome to our agents in the field,” said Youssef, who supervised the program on a daily basis from 2005 through 2014.
Youssef, a decorated counterterrorism agent and prior FBI whistleblower, told The Hill that he sought in the summer of 2014 to get the FBI to reform the program out of concern it gave the FBI easy access to Americans’ telephone data, leaving it open to potential abuse while generating spurious connections between innocent people and bad actors.
“I believe that the program, as it was, was ripe for potential abuses,” he said. “I think that every law-abiding citizen should feel comfortable and secure in their home in terms of their privacy and that was not the case.”
Youssef also said he’s recently been interviewed by at least one congressional panel investigating possible problems with the FBI’s surveillance practices.