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When FISA Court Rejects a Surveillance Request, the FBI Issues a NSL Instead
An anonymous reader writes We've talked quite a bit about National Security Letters (NSLs) and how the FBI/DOJ regularly abused them to get just about any information the government wanted with no oversight. As a form of an administrative subpoena -- with a built in gag-order -- NSLs are a great tool for the government to abuse the 4th Amendment. Recipients can't talk about them, and no court has to review/approve them. Yet they certainly look scary to most recipients who don't dare fight an NSL. That's part of the reason why at least one court found them unconstitutional. At the same time, we've also been talking plenty about Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, which allows the DOJ/FBI (often working for the NSA) to go to the FISA Court and get rubberstamped court orders demanding certain 'business records.' As Ed Snowden revealed, these records requests can be as broad as basically 'all details on all calls.' But, since the FISA Court reviewed it, people insist it's legal. And, of course, the FISA Court has the reputation as a rubberstamp for a reason — it almost never turns down a request. However, in the rare instances where it does, apparently, the DOJ doesn't really care, knowing that it can just issue an NSL instead and get the same information. At least that appears to be what the DOJ quietly admitted to doing in a now declassified Inspector General's report from 2008."
Basically, Law and a Programming Language should basically be the same, from the basic definition they are, but sometimes law is interpreted (this is good and bad both at the same time)
a.) in human interaction law specifies rules & processes for man
b.) in machine operation a programming language specifies rules & processes for machines
And in both domains people try to (ab)use the specified rules to behave in a way, which was not forseen/intended by the rule maker.
I judge this as an exploit of type priviledge escalation.
But we should start hacking law, FBI has a head start!
If I received a NSL and I were in the mind to ignore it to whom should that hypothetical me send that NSL to in order to get maximum press coverage before being shuffled off to prison?
Would a NBC or a CNN publish it?
Put it to you this way; if a thousand teenagers can rush and overwhelm a mall, then the NSA isn't all powerful. They didn't know what was going on beforehand. They are incompetent and cannot handle a real escalation, despite handing police departments military equipment, if a few thousand people decide they want a war, the government isn't going to do anything about it.
Just about everyone knows the government is corrupt and illegitimate; it's very apparent the current government is designed to target any opposing leadership financially and through the law, however, we are still in a democracy, and the moment we stop being in a democracy is when the government becomes illegitimate and the public takes action to throw them out. The Democrat and Republicans are part of the Scam Party, and that's the only party anyone votes for. Things will worsen, and as they do, real leaders will step up. This is part of the growing pains of the country, it'll survive it, given the Russian mob doesn't do something stupid and start WWIII.
I can't believe any FISA request was ever turned down. Basically, I thought the purpose of the FISA act was to suspend the constitution. What went wrong?
What went wrong? Apart from the too obvious naure of your karma whoring? (I guess I'll take that over lying.)
Secret court says it is no rubber stamp; led to changes in U.S. spying requests
The chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Reggie Walton, told members of Congress in a letter that the court’s internal records show that more than 24 percent of government requests for recent warrants had “substantive” modifications in the wake of court review.
The FISA Court Is Tougher Than the Media Says - October 18, 2013
You’ve probably read 20 or more times that the FISA Court approves more than 99 percent of the government’s applications for foreign surveillance orders. What few media have mentioned—and none has emphasized—is that the court often bounces applications and demands modifications before approval. It does so precisely because the application process is not adversarial and secret. As Judge Walton noted, the 99 percent figure does “not reflect the fact that many applications are altered prior to final submission or even withheld from final submission entirely, often after an indication that a judge would not approve them.” Those of us with inside knowledge have long known, and publicly said, that the FISA court scrutinizes the government’s applications with special care, but the data to prove it have been missing. Now we have them.
But the media have not reported an obvious comparison. How many federal and state applications for search-and-seizure warrants are modified before being granted? How many are denied? Knowing that would tell us a lot about how tough the FISA court is on the government.
In fact, the FISA Court looks tough when compared to the way federal district courts handle wiretap applications under Title III, as the federal law is known. Even if you stick with the misleading 99 percent figure, the approval rate for Title III wiretaps is higher. From 2008 to 2012, courts refused to grant only five wiretap applications among 13,593 applied for. That’s an approval rate of 99.96 percent. You can find that comparison in Judge Walton’s letter—it’s in footnote 6—and the information has always been available through the Administrative Office of the United States Courts for any journalist who isn’t afraid of numbers. But you won’t find it in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, or any other news outlet. Bashing the FISA court is too much fun to let numbers get in the way.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell