BUG ZAPPER

Trump accuses Bam of dirty ‘spy tricks’

President Tr u mp unleashed a series of blistering tweets on Saturday, accusing his predecessor, Barack Obama, of ordering a digital spy effort at Trump Tower during the election. “Terrible . . . This is McCarthyism!” he railed. An Obama spokesman denied the charges.

Secretive and controversial, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is the only body empowered to clandestinely tap into Americans’ phones and computers without having to bother getting a criminal warrant.

The powerful tribunal was created in 1978 by Congress in the wake of the Watergate scandal — and expanded after 9/11.

Even the CIA and FBI have to get its approval to snoop on Americans suspected of working as spies for America’s enemies.

If the Justice Department, under former president Barack Obama, actually hacked a Trump computer with permission from the special court, it would be “really significant,’’ said author Andrew C. McCarthy, a former chief assistant US attorney.

“The Obama DOJ must have been saying that the people named in their application [to the court] were American agents for a foreign power.”

The applications and any evidence collected are strictly classified.

“This is never, ever supposed to see the light of day,” McCarthy said.

The court’s secrecy has drawn the ire of civil libertarians ever since its inception.

Advocates charge the anonymous judges who sign off on surveillance requests are little more than rubber stamps for the government.

“They are very indulgent of the government,” McCarthy said.

“So it’s highly unusual for [investigators who’ve gotten the court’s approval to go in and get completely dinged,” as appears to have happened in the investigation into the Trump campaign.

“It seems they had looked into doing a criminal investigation . . . and found nothing,’’ McCarthy added.

“Normally if you don’t have enough evidence, you shut [the investigation] down. It appears instead that they turned it into a national-security issue.”

The court consists of 11 federal judges selected by the Chief Justice of the US.

Its deliberations are so secret, it sometimes meets in the middle of the night, ABC News said.