Domestic Spying Program to Get Judicial Oversight

Alchemist253 writes "The U.S. Justice Department has consented to court oversight (albeit via a secret court) of the controversial domestic wiretapping program (the "Terrorist Surveillance Program") previously discussed at length on Slashdot. From the article, "[oversight] authority has been given to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and [it] already has approved one request for monitoring the communications of a person believed to be linked to al Qaeda or an associated terror group.""

Comments

So it was 100% legal before ...

[khasim]

... but with a different Congress ... suddenly it's going back to the court with warrants and everything?

Makes you kind of wonder how "legal" it was in the first place. And whether this is just an attempt to avoid an investigation.

Re:So it was 100% legal before ...

[mrogers]

By backing down they don't just avoid an investigation, they avoid testing the legality of the program. That could be useful if they want to reinstate the program under the next Congress. But more importantly, the claims about wartime Presidential powers that were used to justify the wiretapping program are still being used to justify other questionably legal actions (perhaps even including the covert expansion of the Iraq war into Iran and Syria). The administration wants to avoid a direct court battle over those powers, and by backing down over the wiretapping program it's hoping to pacify Congress without establishing any precedents.

For more information:

[the_REAL_sam]

This link explained alot for me. Too bad it's a secret court, but it's better than no court, and at least it's a court within the judicial branch of the federal government.

http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/fisc_bdy! OpenDocument&Click=


Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court

Congress in 1978 established the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as a special court and authorized the Chief Justice of the United States to designate seven federal district court judges to review applications for warrants related to national security investigations. Judges serve for staggered, non-renewable terms of no more than seven years, and must be from different judicial circuits. The provisions for the court were part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (92 Stat. 1783), which required the government, before it commenced certain kinds of intelligence gathering operations within the United States, to obtain a judicial warrant similar to that required in criminal investigations. The legislation was a response to a report of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (the "Church Committee"), which detailed allegations of executive branch abuses of its authority to conduct domestic electronic surveillance in the interest of national security. Congress also was responding to the Supreme Court's suggestion in a 1972 case that under the Fourth Amendment some kind of judicial warrant might be required to conduct national security related investigations.
Warrant applications under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act are drafted by attorneys in the General Counsel's Office at the National Security Agency at the request of an officer of one of the federal intelligence agencies. Each application must contain the Attorney General's certification that the target of the proposed surveillance is either a "foreign power" or "the agent of a foreign power" and, in the case of a U.S. citizen or resident alien, that the target may be involved in the commission of a crime.
The judges of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court travel to Washington, D.C., to hear warrant applications on a rotating basis. To ensure that the court can convene on short notice, at least one of the judges is required to be a member of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The act of 1978 also established a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, presided over by three district or appeals court judges designated by the Chief Justice, to review, at the government's request, the decisions the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Because of the almost perfect record of the Department of Justice in obtaining the surveillance warrants and other powers it requested from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the review court had no occasion to meet until 2002. The USA Patriot Act of 2001 (115 Stat. 272) expanded the time periods for which the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court can authorize surveillance and increased the number of judges serving the court from seven to eleven.

Not good enough

[schwaang]

1. It sounds like they won't be pulling NSA cables out of the AT&T (and other) facilities. They're just claiming to use them under FISA now. This wired blog raises some interesting questions about this.
2. During Attorney General Gonzales' previous congressional testimony on this topic, he was very careful and lawerly in asserting that his statements only applied to the program under discussion, that is the "Terrorist Surveillance Program". The clear implication is that there are other programs besides TSP which have not seen the light of day.

In short, don't let this stop the oversight hearings.

Re:But what about the illegal wiretapping?

[Ardeaem]

The President has clearly said he is not breaking the law, and despite what the liberal media is telling you, each and every wiretap still requires an warrant

Here you go, about half-way down at www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040420- 2.html

Bush said this BEFORE he got caught doing wiretaps without warrants. I agree, wiretaps DO require warrants, but Bush has claimed that he doesn't need them (the quote in the parent post not withstanding) and he authorized a program of domestic spying without warrants. If you don't recall this, you are woefully uninformed.

Since you think the "liberal media" may be lying to you, how about a court decision regarding the program? The first TWO SENTENCES reveal that 1. the program exists and 2. the administration does not dispute that is exists. http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/nytimes/do cs/nsa/aclunsa81706opn.pdf [pdf link]

People that ignore facts on the basis that they were reported by the "liberal media" confuse me. About 2 seconds of research are all that is required to confirm much of this stuff. If you ignore facts because they came from the "liberal media" you are part of the problem; people in power can sit back and do what they like realizing that you are going to take what they say at face value and not take advantage of the resources at your disposal (the media) to see that they are lying.

Now, since you quoted Bush directly saying that wiretaps require warrants (in 2004), and I have linked to you a court document which reveals that Bush authorized warrantless wiretaps in 2002, what does this mean, logically? He lied, plain and simple. You don't even need the media, the government's own documents the lie.