Episode description

Last week, we learned that a FISA court gave the government permission to monitor the communications of Carter Page, a foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign. Such warrants are only granted when there is probable cause that the target is operating as an agent of a foreign power. In Page’s case, it’s not hard to guess which foreign power. In 2013, Page admitted to the FBI that he gave documents to a Russian spy ring.

On the latest episode of The Breach, Liza Goitein joins host Lindsay Beyerstein to reveal how our separate, secretive national security court system, known as FISA Court, works – and whether its benefits outweigh its risks. Liza is the co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. She is a former counsel to Senator Russ Feingold and a former lawyer for the Civil Division of the Justice Department.

Recommended Reading:

• Julia Ioffe’s “The Mystery of Trump’s Man in Moscow,” TNR, 2016.

• Emma Ashford’s "The Real Factions of Trumpland and U.S. Foreign
  Policy,” War on the Rocks.