[rev_bird]

This isn't what happened at all, and I suspect you know that. For starters, the dossier wasn't the beginning of the investigation, as we've seen in multiple articles that came out over the last few weeks. Also, Trump was NEVER "wire tapped," unless you are privy to information the rest of the world doesn't have, and the only reason his "associates" were caught up in surveillance reports is because they called criminals who were already under surveillance. It's like if the FBI is wire-tapping Al Capone, and you called Al Capone. Sure, you'd get listened to, but they aren't tapping YOU.

[StanislavPetrov]

In reality, we don't know if Trump - or anyone else - was "wire tapped" - and we won't ever know thanks to the passage of this bill. One of the crucial elements of the Amash amendment was that those who were unconstitutionally spied upon via 702 authorization would have to be eventually notified that they were spied on - now they don't. That's one of the many things that's so awful and frightening about these police-state powers. There is no oversight and no notification.

[WillPostForFood]

We do know:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/18/politics/paul-manafort-governm...

[pdx]

> the dossier wasn't the beginning of the investigation, as > we've seen in multiple articles that came out over the > last few weeks.

Yes, a pile of articles, stating without proof, the same thing, all coming out at the same time .. almost as if they were coordinated. When specific facts of said articles are proven to be incorrect, small retractions that never make the news cycle are issued.

  > the only reason his "associates" were caught up in 
  > surveillance reports is because they called criminals 
  > who were already under surveillance. It's like if the 
  > FBI is wire-tapping Al Capone, and you called Al Capone. 
  > Sure, you'd get listened to, but they aren't tapping YOU.

It was the unmasking that was illegal and blatantly politically motivated. NSA has wide discretion to conduct surveillance on people outside of the US, but there are supposed to be legal barriers to snooping on US citizens. If the NSA picks up communications from a US citizen in the course of monitoring a foreign national, it is practice to "mask" the identity of the US person. Additionally, the identification of a US citizen mentioned in discussions between two foreign nationals is supposed to be masked.

[seanp2k2]

>but there are supposed to be legal barriers to snooping on US citizens

There are supposed to be legal barriers, and renewing this law continues to reject what we're supposed to have in place, for everyone.