Slashdot Mirror
FISC Chief Judge: We Can't Effectively Oversee the NSA
An anonymous reader writes "According to the Washington Post: 'The leader of the secret court that is supposed to provide critical oversight of the government's vast spying programs said that its ability to do so is limited and that it must trust the government to report when it improperly spies on Americans. The chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said the court lacks the tools to independently verify how often the government's surveillance breaks the court's rules that aim to protect Americans' privacy. Without taking drastic steps, it also cannot check the veracity of the government's assertions that the violations its staff members report are unintentional mistakes.' President Obama said in June, 'We also have federal judges that we've put in place who are not subject to political pressure. They've got lifetime tenure as federal judges, and they're empowered to look over our shoulder at the executive branch to make sure that these programs aren't being abused.' Not so much, Mr. President."
I have finally figured out why the statue holding 'the scales of justice' wore a blindfold! ;-)
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Can we wantonly spy on your Internet activities?
YES WE CAN!
Can we store your email and search it at our leisure?
YES WE CAN!
Can we create a judicial overview process so flimsy and one-sided that there's almost no chance of any request being turned down?
YES WE CAN!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And in other unrelated news, the Incredible Hulk has come out as gay. "Me like wearing the pink undies." he was quoted as saying. Reports suggest he's dating Aquaman, though Aquaman's agent had not returned our calls by press time.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The NSA has worked out fusion?! Excellent, at least then some of the dollars spent might have a useful offshoot... if only we could get them to declassify it.
The DoD worked out fusion quite nicely about 65 years ago. The energy yields of the reactors are truly impressive---their best experimental reactor had an output of something like 60 petajoules from negligible input power. (The Soviets built an even bigger reactor with close to 200 PJ). It's the containment facility that's been giving us problems since then. Work out that little detail, and you're sitting on a gold mine.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.