“The Fourth Amendment is clear; we should be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects, and all warrants must have probable cause. Today the government operates largely in secret, while seeking to know everything about our private lives – without probable cause and without a warrant”. Ron Paul

On Friday the dreaded memo was finally released. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth by the media. Case in point, the buffoon Joe Scarborough, who lamented often and loudly that the very security of the US would be at risk if sources and methods of the honorable people in the FBI, NSA, and assorted agencies was made public. At one point he bemoaned that the Republicans had besmirched the reputation of a FISA judge. Which one you may ask. We really do not know because the court that grants the State permission to spy on Americans is a secret. One wonders if there is even an actual court since they approve something like 99.7 of requests submitted. I’m quite sure that secret courts were not envisioned by the founders.

So what did the memo reveal. No sources and no uses so Joe can relax. What was revealed was that the State had in fact obtained FISA warrants and used it to spy on members of then candidate Trump’s campaign. The State used some opposition research funded by opponent Hillary Clinton’s campaign and not much else. Did the honorable members of the FBI, NSA, etc tell the secret FISA judge the source of the information? Hell no. I remember when Trump announced that he had learned members of his campaign had been spied upon. The media was apoplectic especially Joe. Hopefully in the coming days, some of those same members of the media will apologize. I’m not holding my breath.

In reality, the memo did not reveal anything that we did not already know. Our own government is spying on Americans on daily basis. Do you really think they would not spy on an opposition candidate. Also at play is the fact that the State was quite alarmed at what candidate Trump was saying. Before he was surrounded by the generals, he was saying crazy thinks like we should not be involved in foreign wars, we were stupid to go to war in Iraq, and we should normalize relations with Russia. What is surprising is that his two predecessors made similar statements. President Obama promised to end the wars and restore habeas corpus. During his administration, he involved the country in two additional wars (Libya and Syria). Likewise President Bush spoke out against nation building. After 911, his administration spent many trillions on said nation building. What this reveals is that the military industrial complex, the deep state, etc. is much more powerful than any candidate or elected official. The problem is systemic and voting for one candidate or another is not going to change things.