Using informants to spy on a campaign or its operatives is extremely intrusive and has a high potential for abuse. It should not be done based on a few disturbing connections between campaign surrogates and foreign powers. There should be hard evidence of ongoing, corrupt activities or plotting.
Moreover, if spying is to be conducted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, then FISA must be followed. To conduct FISA surveillance of an American citizen suspected of being an agent of a foreign power, there must be probable cause that the American citizen is knowingly – not unwittingly – engaged in clandestine activities on behalf of the foreign power; and those clandestine activities must be a probable violation of federal criminal law.
Furthermore, by the FBI’s own procedures, approved by the Justice Department, facts are not supposed to be submitted to the FISA Court unless they have been verified. It is not enough that an agent or former agent who has gathered together information about the observations of other people has a good track record. There must be corroboration of the alleged facts on which the court is being asked to base a probable cause finding.
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