Slashdot Mirror
US Spy Court Didn't Reject a Single Government Surveillance Request In 2015 (zdnet.com)
schwit1 shares news from ZDNet's security blog: In more than three decades years, the FISA Court has only rejected 12 requests. A secret court that oversees the US government's surveillance requests accepted every warrant that was submitted last year, according to new figures.The Washington DC.-based Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court received 1,457 requests from the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to intercept phone calls and emails. In long-standing fashion, the court did not reject a single warrant, entirely or in part.
The FBI also issued 48,642 national security letters, a subpoena-like power that compels a company to turn over data on national security grounds without informing the subject of the letter. The memo said the majority of these demands sought data on foreigners, but almost one-in-five were requests for data on Americans.
It'll be interesting to see if the numbers go down any in 2016, since in November the court appointed five new lawyers to push back against government requests. Meanwhile, a new report shows an increase in the number of government requests to Facebook about their users, more than half of which contained a non-disclosure order prohibiting Facebook from notifying those users.
The FBI also issued 48,642 national security letters, a subpoena-like power that compels a company to turn over data on national security grounds without informing the subject of the letter. The memo said the majority of these demands sought data on foreigners, but almost one-in-five were requests for data on Americans.
It'll be interesting to see if the numbers go down any in 2016, since in November the court appointed five new lawyers to push back against government requests. Meanwhile, a new report shows an increase in the number of government requests to Facebook about their users, more than half of which contained a non-disclosure order prohibiting Facebook from notifying those users.
US Spy Court Didn't Reject a Single Government Surveillance Request In 2015
Of course they didn't, why would they? This "court" is well known to be a Kangaroo Court with a specific purpose of rubber-stamping all that is put before it. This, and the continued existence of the so-called "Patriot Act" are why I, a life-long liberal who made the mistake of voting for Mr. Obama twice, will not be voting for his almost certain successor, the slimy Hilary Clinton. What a corrupt political landscape where a man like Donald Trump is truly the lessor of two evils...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
"In more than three decades years"
Not even trying
This encourages people not to trust the justice system anc commit more crimes. Great idea!
I see the judges on this court as traitors. They clearly don't apply any critical analysis to requests that they are presented with and they even approved at least one warrant that they knew had nothing to do with foreign intelligence.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
...like when Saddam was up for re-election!
You think they'd submit some totally bogus/badly written requests just for the court to reject to make the optics on the numbers look better. It's not like the actual details get released on any of this. This is how little the gov't gives a shit (and how little the people give a shit either, since this is barely 'news' outside Techdirt and the like).... they can't even be bothered to do the small amount of work to FAKE oversight...
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow...
I agree that it's not a given, but at least with Trump there is a chance something is done to benefit the public. Not a high chance sure, but with Clinton we are guaranteed to get 4 more years of the same ole shit, and probably worse. She's a vindictive and spiteful old twat.
Didn't turn down a single request for snooping, and yet the San Bernardino attack happened.
FBI & NSA!
It's well known the FISA court gets so many requests they simply don't have the ability to properly review them. As a result, the default action is to grant a warrant and the court ends up being a rubber stamp. It's been that way for a long time.
Lawyers appointed by the FISA court, part of the federal government, to argue against the federal government is a conflict of interest. There is no reason to believe the lawyers arguing against the government will do so in an effective manner, nor is there a way to verify the effectiveness of the lawyers because of the secrecy of the court. Being a public defender paid by the government to argue against the government is a conflict of interest. When there's no oversight of the process, the problem is even more severe.
Why would anyone expect the FISA court to reject any requests? File this story under the "no shit" category.
Every judge and lawyer is run through a gauntlet of security background checks. Does anyone honestly think that a former ALCU lawyer or human rights advocate is going to past muster? They are only going to approve the most authority respecting hanging judges they can find.
Even for those defendants who want to hire a lawyer has to get that lawyer and their firm approved. Again an actual lawyer who believes in things such as the constitution or knows who side they are on are going to survive the testing. If your lawyer is rejected from the process you can still have them but they don't get to see your case.
Also a critical factor in winning cases that are already stacked against you is to hire a lawyer who then puts 10 interns onto the case along with a handful of investigators, none of whom are either going to be allowed to see anything or do an investigation. Thus these are nearly unwinnable cases.
Then the entire US justice system is adversarial. So any group of prosecutors and judges who don't have an opposing side are going to easily run circles around defendants who don't even know they are on trial (being investigated).
The key to all this is that there are already plenty of laws that deal with nearly every form of crime that a terrorist might do or plan. If you plan on murdering people then oddly enough that is a crime and can be investigated including wire taps. Murdering people is probably against the law. Hiring murders is, funding criminals is, hiding criminals, all existing crimes. There are all kinds of interesting things such as probable cause, RICO, etc that give police everything they need. Not everything they want, just everything they need.
The crazy thing is that this continues at pretty much full speed. It is almost like the constitution is some kind of measuring stick where they get to measure the size of their dicks by how many part of the constitution are ignored or suspended on their behalf. Like the stupid war on drugs, their efforts are going to only have overall negative returns. Maybe once in a blue moon they catch an actual bad guy as opposed to a straw bad guy they pretty much had to build from scratch. But for every bad guy they catch they will spread untold misery, economic problems, and potentially an increased death toll by slightly increasing the overall stress and unhappiness of the entire population. I will be discussing this sort of thing over the phone and sometimes the other person will say that they aren't comfortable talking about this on a phone. Crazy.
I would say that the only way that this madness ends is if crystal clear laws are put into place that wholesale ban this sort of behaviour. Potentially all the way to a constitutional amendment. Otherwise it will simply be a ratchet type approach. Every time there is a scare they will get a few more regulations or laws that favour the ending of this right or that privacy. These laws are typically one way. Very rarely are they repealed. Also there don't seem to be any willing investigators actively prosecuting those who have already violated existing laws.
I wonder what any of the space of likely presidential winners will do? Will they curtail these abuses and the entire abusive direction. Or will they realize that it just makes them more powerful?
Easy to understand, it's 30 square years, of course.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
How the hell do non-disclosure orders not violate the first amendment? If anything should be protected speech, telling the public about unreasonable and excessive search warrants ought to be. The authors of the Bill of Rights would be ashamed to see what's going on here.
The memo said the majority of these demands sought data on foreigners, but almost one-in-five were requests for data on Americans.
But, what? 80% does seem to meet and exceed the definition of "majority." Is that good? Obviously not. Does it meet their weasaly legalese? Yup.
This is one of the few parts of the justice system that works as intended
Obviously this post is misguided. The court exists for the public benefit and the various government entities only submit the most compelling cases, each with well reasoned and erudite supporting documentation. That it hasn't been a 100% acceptance rate is clearly a failing of the court and not government overreach. That it has been 100% recently, indicates that appropriate judges have been appointed more recently.
In further news, we've always been at war with Eurasia...
US Spy Court Didn't Reject a Single Government Surveillance Request In 2015
Of course they didn't, why would they? This "court" is well known to be a Kangaroo Court with a specific purpose of rubber-stamping all that is put before it
In North Korea as well as in China their so-called 'parliament / congress' and their so-called 'court system' are nothing but made up of living rubber stamps
Anything and everything the Great Leader wants, no matter how ridiculous the goal is, no matter how heinous the motive, and no matter how nefarious the objectives are, get approved, without any objection
We are the United States of America, we are supposed to be different, but are we?
Our congress critters, no matter if they are Republicans or Democrats, are not doing their job
Our court systems too --- from the prosecutors to the judges, are basically singing the same tune as that from the White House
When 'Toeing The Line" becomes the norm, then we might as well stop fooling ourselves
Our nation is no longer the 'Land of the brave' nor the 'Home of the Free'
We are becoming a new member of the fascist group of nation. I am sure North Korea and China wouldn't mind having us as their 'junior member'
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And knowing the horror the US government did in the past with its secret agencies, and the very very weak "proof" which were used to identify drone target, one can only conclude the the US government can not be trusted and you have to assume the worst.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
And this surprises people how? The only reason this court exists is to give legitimacy (on paper anyway) to government surveillance overreach.
In a perfect world, the prosecutor or police would know the law so well that he wouldn't ever submit a warrant that wouldn't be approved if the judges knew the law, took the time to learn the particulars of the case, and followed it to the letter of the law as it applies to that case. If that's the case, then WOO-HOO, "no rejections" is a good thing.
I'm not that naive. In a "good" world, this would account for 90-99.9% of "non-rejections."
I'm not even that naive, especially when it comes to secret courts or warrant applications that remain sealed forever (whether rejected or not). But I'm sure *some* of the non-rejections are because the police or prosecutor did their homework and only asked for warrants that any reasonable, knowledgeable, fair/impartial judge who took the time to learn the case would approve. I'm naively hoping that this accounts for the vast majority of "non-rejections" but we, the general public, will probably never know for certain.
As for the not-as-close-to-zero-percent-as-I-would-like of cases where the judges either rubber-stamp or worse, collude with prosecutors, to sign a legally-unjustified warrant, I can only hope that a future Congress, appellate court, or Supreme Court will reign in the practice and that a new opportunity to appeal will be granted to those who were unjustly harmed by the unjust warrants.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
UnAmerican - Anti-American, that's where the government is now.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
...who has reached the decision that I'd just prefer a life without government? I honestly believe that outside of some immediate local coordination needs, there's not much that would be worse if government was removed from existence. Modern communications should have eliminated the need for it at least 2 decades ago. Anyone who has not spent time living with different cultures may believe the lie that there is real threat that "others" are out to get us. The only group on the planet actively pursuing dominance over our lives is government.
When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law he tore his robes.2Kings22:11
Clinton is a square shooter
They could drive that down to 10% accepted just by submitting bullshit requests (I want to spy on the duck in my yard, or the POTUS, etc.). The percent accepted/rejected is nearly meaningless. If would be better to know (for the government to show) how these actions are DIRECTLY related to criminal activity. I would add that all requests, accepted or rejected, should automatically be publicly available a few (say 5) years afterwards (if they are not already). There's nothing quite like the light of public review to force people to re-think their bad habits.