Just The News

The FBI on Tuesday announced a "massive worldwide takedown" of criminals around the globe with a sting operation in which the agency marketed and sold smartphones purported to encrypt messages, leading to roughly 500 arrests.

The sting operation, called Operation Trojan Shield, was led the agency's San Diego bureau.

FBI officials said in a press conference that the agency and other law enforcement groups worldwide, in an effort to nab criminals, created a fake company called ANØM to marketed the sleek black smartphones that were encrypted

However, when users sent messages, the phone would attach a master key that allowed law enforcement officials to decrypt and view the messages.

I find this extremely troubling. The FBI here created an explicit expectation of privacy under false pretenses and then spied on their "customers", presumably without warrants. I do not care that their actions appear to have resulted in catching real criminals; this action by the FBI appears entirely inappropriate and unconstitutional.

A credible case can be made for FBI agents Lisa Page and Peter Strzok talking to various reporters about the Trump-Russia investigation. This is mentioned in the FISA memo, sourced from various text messages from them that have been publically leaked, and some specific stories and reporters can be identified by closely examining the timing.

The FISA memo says that Steele was terminated as a paid FBI informant for talking to the media.

Why weren't Page and Strzok terminated for talking to the media? Are the rules different for FBI agents than paid informants? Weaker? Why?

Sure, at first, you can argue no one knew what they were doing (clearly in their text messages to each other they were trying to hide it from their colleagues). But then the messages came out. They were transferred, demoted... but not fired. Why not?

There are 15 publicly identified lawyers employed by Meuller for his Trump investigation witch-hunt. Nine of them are Democratic donors. Below is a list of those that have had political bias exposed. See also Sharyll Attkisson's list of FBI officials; her list is slightly broader since it is not limited to those on Meuller's team.