https://jonathanturley.org/2019/12/16/an-apology-to-carter-page/

After he was acquitted in a major fraud trial, former Labor Secretary Ray Donovan asked, “Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?” The trial was ruinous for Donovan, personally and financially, and the question was a fair one. Donovan, however, at least received a trial. Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page has never been given a fair hearing, let alone a trial, to clear his name. As the two political parties spin the results of a report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, one matter remains unaddressed. Someone needs to apologize to Page.
…
As Horowitz has now stressed, there is a difference between starting an investigation based on mere allegations and continuing the investigation based on known falsehoods.
…
At what point does someone apologize to Page? He is, in fact, the victim of this criminal referral. He is the victim of what Horowitz describes as a “misleading” basis presented to the FISA court. He is a victim of media “groupthink” that portrayed him as the sinister link proving collusion with Russia, an allegation rejected by the FBI, by the inspector general, and by the special counsel. Of course, Washington does not work this way. Page served his purpose and the trashing of his reputation was a cost of doing business with the federal government for many members of Congress and the media. In recalling the question by Donovan, there is no such office. Page is simply supposed to disappear and leave his reputation behind.

They are and have been part of the Swamp that needs to be drained. Their job was to make sure the FBI was not lying, partly by making sure everything said fulfilled all conditions.

neo: That post covered the waterfront!

Free will is such a tricky topic. I remain firmly on the free will side, though I’ll grant it is more than a matter of saying, “I will…”

When I was young, the poem “Invictus” sounded like more of the crap they taught us in high school. When I was older, I looked it up and discovered it was a damn serious poem by a young man in a damn serious situation — he had already lost one leg and had just been operated on the other, which he might lose as well.

In that poem the poet, William Henley, was pinning his colors to the mast to remain resolute and strong, whatever life might bring him. I understood the poem differently after learning that.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

–William Ernest Henley

Irv, Kate: It does seem classic “Fruit of the Poisonous Tree”:

Fruit of the poisonous tree (objection) is a legal metaphor in the United States used to describe evidence that is obtained illegally. The logic of the terminology is that if the source (the “tree”) of the evidence or evidence itself is tainted, then anything gained (the “fruit”) from it is tainted as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree

Please read this post of mine from 2013 about Clarence Darrow and poetry, as well as Darrow’s relationship with Edgar Lee Masters.

That’s the same Edgar Lee Masters, the poet, who wrote “The Spoon River Anthology.” Which most people know by the poem, “Richard Cory,” from high school English or from the Simon & Garfunkel song.

I didn’t know Masters was also an attorney, who even worked for Clarence Darrow.

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/richard-cory

“Simon & Garfunkel”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAGKpoVFbmw

Once upon a time American poets covered a broader range of people. More substantial too, I’d say. “Spoon River” is still a great read.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/12/mainstream-media-ignore-fisa-court-slamming-fbi-over-trump-related-surveillance-applications/

To quote our esteemed hostess:
https://www.thenewneo.com/2019/12/18/the-impeachment-vote-the-only-news-was-the-numbers/#comment-2471299

My argument, and that of most people here who agree with me, is that Democrats and/or independents who buy this stuff are often very low information voters who are busy leading their lives and not paying a whole lot of attention. I know, because long ago (in a different atmosphere, however) I was pretty much like that. So I think I know a great deal about how such people tend to think. They also dismiss the idea that their sources of news – which they tend to not read in great depth, although they read some – are fundamentally biased. And you know what? If you don’t delve into it at all deeply, and you read only the MSM, you can remain quite convinced of what they say./b>

… and what they don’t say, well, you never even know about that.

One portion of the cure, as OBLoodyHell suggests, is to widen the participants to include judges who would play the part of defenders of the surveilled, somewhat like the Devil’s Advocate, the popular title of the person appointed by the Roman Catholic Church to challenge a proposed beatification or canonization, or the verification of a miracle.