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George Croner Profile picture
George Croner
@GeorgeCroner
Senior Fellow @fpri; Fmr. principal litigation counsel at National Security Agency; Frequent commentator and lecturer on FISA; Views expressed are mine alone
human Profile picture Anson Kennedy Profile picture phal Profile picture Karen Salitis 🇺🇦🇺🇲🇺🇦🇺🇸🇺🇦 Profile picture 5 subscribed
Apr 13 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
There really is no reason for professed "bafflement" here. Sacrificing any semblance of principle in favor of crude opportunism, the Brennan Center allied itself with the likes of Gaetz, Boebert, Biggs, Roy, and Taylor Greene - a group that couldn't develop a coherent /1 explanation of the 4th Amendment if you supplied them with a tutor, texts, and 2 weeks of study.

The 4th Amendment is predicated on the concept of reasonableness - it guarantees that Americans will be protected against unreasonable searches and seizures. Federal courts have /2
Aug 14, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
So, let me understand this line of bulls#it. If Trump carried a document upstairs with his cheeseburger and the information in that document was, just to cite a few examples: (1) derived from NSA having decrypted a complex foreign encryption system used to transmit information /1 unavailable from any other source where disclosure of the document would compromise this critical intelligence source; or (2) derived from a human intelligence source with unique access whose safety would be compromised by disclosure of the document or its information; /2
Aug 12, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
We're not writing on tabula rasa here. E.O. 13526 prescribes, at times in excruciating detail, the handling of classified information. Without disappearing into the weeds on whether a president can unilaterally declassify information (yes) without following any of the /1 notification procedures of E.O. 13526 (unlikely w/o amending the E.O.), there is no record of Trump declassifying any of the Mar-a-Lago information while president. Once out of office, his access to classified information is fully under the purview of E.O. 13526. This means /2
Aug 12, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Release of the warrant and property receipt, which are the only documents subject to the DoJ motion, may not provide materially more detail other than the criminal statutes identified in the warrant and, perhaps, a more particularized description of the focus of the search. /1 The guts of the predicate for the search will be in the affidavit(s) that accompanied the government's motion for issuance of a search warrant. There seems to be considerable confusion failing to differentiate between the affidavit(s) (likely signed by one or more FBI /2
Apr 17, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Frankly, this is just political posturing. Not cheap political posturing, to be sure, because it would cost a fortune to implement, but posturing. Full disclosure, I gave 17 years of military service to spare my (middle class) parents the cost of college and graduate school /1 debt. I then paid full boat to spend my son to college and law school. Now, you want to take my taxes to relieve millions of the decision THEY made to incur college and graduate school debt. Did all these folks get their degrees and can't find any job? /2
Feb 4, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
If the WAPO report is true, coercion of political activity is only one of the problems with this memo. Unprocessed raw collection resides in multiple data bases at NSA and “unprocessed” means not minimized. If these data bases include FISA collection, /1 especially if collected under a FISA section 106 order, then the approval was predicated upon using specific minimization procedures for USP communications because targeting foreign communications almost inevitably produces /2
Jan 14, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I was originally scheduled as a panelist on this edition of The Stream but was bumped as a production decision to accommodate more time for Stella Morris. I write because, as aired, the program presented a decidedly uniform viewpoint on the extradition and prosecution of
/1 Julian Assange. That viewpoint insists that the Assange prosecution represents a grave danger to international press freedom but the argument is always voiced in generalities without any articulation of how a single prosecution in the U.S. applying U.S. law to the unauthorized /2
Jul 20, 2021 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Amidst the widespread journalistic euphoria for AG Garland's recently announced restrictions on the use of compulsory process to obtain info from the media, I have a few nits to pick:
1. As a general matter, it is not entirely clear how the AG memo substantively differs from /1 the current content of 28 CFR §50.10 which sets out DoJ policies in pursuing info from members of the news media.

2. Section 50.10 specifically includes, as a factor in the balancing test referenced in Garland's memo, the need to safeguard "the essential role of the free /2
Jun 29, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Yes, to be clear, the report that LeBlanc excoriates is the classified report the PCLOB submitted to Congress, NSA and other concerned federal agencies addressing NSA’s XKeyscore collection program and, in fairness, it seems much easier to take public shots at the content of /1 the classified report with which LeBlanc obviously disagrees when the actual content of the report cannot be publicly disclosed. That said, there are aspects of LeBlanc’s criticisms that suggest he perceives a role for the PCLOB that exceeds the statutory mandate Congress /2
Jun 13, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I have documented my concerns regarding the issue of essentially immunizing the press through a de facto federal shield law where leaks involve the disclosure of classified national security information. E.g. law.upenn.edu/live/news/1105….
So, like @charlie_savage, I'm curious 1 about the details of the new Biden-Garland DOJ policy. For example, let's assume the leak divulges classified information concerning the communications intelligence activities of the U.S. According to 18 USC §798, the transmission of such classified information is a crime AND 2
Jun 6, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Bravo, @DavidLaufmanLaw. A voice of reason. 🧵

The subpoenaing of reporters has been much in the news with many media organizations lauding the Biden Administration’s statement that issuing subpoenas for the records of reporters in leak investigations is not consistent with 1 the President’s policy as provided to DoJ. If this statement means the Administration has ruled out subpoenaing reporters under any circumstances in any leak investigation, this is, frankly, contrary to existing DoJ regulations developed and implemented during the Obama, not 2
Mar 31, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I'm delighted at the successful effort by DoJ in this leaks case. But, again, the prosecution stops at the transfer to the reporter. Why? It's clear from the DoJ press release that the recipient reporter's news outlet published, in whole or in part, no less than 23 of the /1 documents leaked by Hale. Further, "[e]leven of [those]documents were marked as Top Secret or Secret."
DoJ's superseding indictment in the Julian Assange case lays out the approach to prosecuting the reporter/publisher receiving classified information, and I write about /2
Mar 16, 2021 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
To be clear, this ODNI report is a declassified version of the classified report, which remains classified. It differs from the 2017 IC Analysis, which focused exclusively on Russian activities and intentions regarding the 2016 election, by evaluating the conduct of other /1 foreign actors directed at the 2020 election. The Report uses the same estimative language as the 2017 version but, unlike 2017 version, does not identify the views of individuals agencies within the IC.
Key takeaways: (1) there is no indication that any foreign actor /2
Feb 25, 2021 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
There is a need for some context here. The FBI's FISA process has received justified criticism with respect to its Carter Page FISA applications. However, it is worth noting, given the implications of this post, that a review of other FBI FISA applications identified by the /1 DoJ IG revealed no material errors. Still, the Page situation produced plenty with which to be concerned about the FBI's FISA process. But, best not to get too far ahead on this case. The defendant, Gartenlaub, filed a motion to suppress in his criminal trial that was denied /2
Nov 11, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Since the NYT article refers to PA litigation, in PA there is a statute called the Dragonetti Act that codifies an action based on the wrongful use of civil proceedings.

But, more importantly, in federal court where this farce is playing out in PA, /1 there is good, old Rule 11 of the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure. It says: when a lawyer signs on to a lawsuit, the signature is a representation that (1) the action is not being filed for an improper purpose, (2) the claims are warranted under existing law or /2
Nov 10, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Your parallels with Iran-Contra are well-taken. I worked on the Iran-Contra interagency group that coordinated the review and release of information to the Tower Commission, the Intel Committees, and the Independent Counsel. The decapitation of the Defense Department /1 the emasculation of the ODNI, and, now, even the installation of a partisan hack as General Counsel at NSA will only serve to muddy accountability and mask activities controlled out of the White House (like Iran-Contra) without customary oversight. We, at the interagency group /2
Oct 15, 2020 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
The former "acting" (and I use that term in its most literal sense) DNI is completely adrift on the "unmasking" issue, just as he was when he ordered the substantively pointless but politically motivated declassification of an NSA memo detailing Flynn unmasking requests made /1 at the end of 2016. Anyone who doubts the legitimacy of the surveillance that contributed to the questioning of Flynn needs to read Sally Yates's testimony given to the Senate Judiciary Cmte. in August. Here's the Washington Post's summary: 1) The Trump transition team was not /2
Oct 7, 2020 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
I see where @KimStrassel has taken a swipe at @NormEisen for Eisen's endorsement of the report discussed in today's @washingtonpost that addresses Barr's politicized DoJ.

Kim, you're quite insistent about not letting facts in the way of taking myopic /1 swipes at Comey/Brennan even when Mueller, Horowitz, and the entire IC have convincingly demonstrated that (1) the Russians interfered, in 2016, (2) Putin wanted to hurt Clinton, and (3) the Russians wanted to (and did) help Trump. This is what the unanimous Intel Community /2
Sep 30, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
@LindseyGrahamSC described the Horowitz report this morning at the Comey hearing as a "thorough examination" - while Bill Barr has done nothing but impugn the conclusion that the FBI investigation was adequately predicated. Graham is a grandstanding ham who is misrepresenting /1 the background and timing related to the information included in the Carter Page FISA applications. Graham is futilely trying to undermine an entire FBI investigation that Horowitz concluded was adequately predicated. Graham says he is trying to insure that what happened to /2
Sep 30, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
It required only a short trip, but @LindseygrahamSC has moved from hypocrite to farce with his release of the bogus intelligence assessment declassified for him by the spineless tool now serving as DNI. That unverified assessment, suggesting that Hillary Clinton led an effort /1 to link Trump with Russian election interference efforts in 2016, was so baseless that it was rejected by the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee "as having no factual basis." Graham, exhibiting the same mendacity as when he swore that he would oppose /2
Sep 10, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Some who follow me on Twitter have decidedly different views from mine on the current WH inhabitant. I happened to see this link posted in one of their Twitter feeds. I wouldn't ordinarily re-post it, but its absurd commentary is representative of the absurdity of the Far /1 Right, sort of like bogus anti-vax rantings. Here is the link:
americanthinker.com/blog/2020/09/w…

Take particular note of the quoted Tweet stating that "Obama CIA Director John Brennan ran a secret task force out of Langley with its own separate budget to investigate Trump campaign and /2