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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.
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...
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...
Who would you have picked in Obama's place? Mitt Romney? Obama's hardly the best president we've ever had, but he's hardly the worst either. If you want to vote for Trump, then alright, but . Trump either has absolutely no idea what he's talking about (most likely), or he's seriously talking about shutting down Twitter and Facebook, which I highly doubt. Hillary Clinton will further push spy programs down our throat, but Donald Trump would undoubtly rubberstamp any bill on it because he can't oppose everything other people do. Hillary Clinton might at least backdown if the response is strong enough because her whole campaign for 12+ years has been changing direction as soon as any hint of controversy appears. What I'm trying to say is that she might realize that most people are strongly opposed to it and stop such a program because she fears for her already battered public perception, whereas Trump has no qualms about holding a stupid view.
Quite honestly, no major candidate has a good policy towards internet privacy, there is no choice we can make this election cycle. Our best bet is to hope someone comes around in 2020 with a better view, and to continue to create a mess for the government until such a person arrives. If we're going to lose this fight, I'd at least want to win our other battles, and I think a president who has absolutely no clue how to do his job and thinks closing our borders and sticking our heads in the sand is how we improve our society is a fool.
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
How do you distinguish between:
a) a totally corrupt bench that will rubber-stamp any request put before the court,
b) a clueless bench that doesn't know when it is being lied to,
b) a good-faith effort by law-enforcement to err on the side of protecting civil rights by not presenting any requests that are even slightly questionable,
c) risk-adverse law-enforcement that is motivated more by avoiding the hassle of any challenged request than by defending rights or investigating crimes, or
d) over-worked law-enforcement that has more cases than they can investigate, so they triage based on ability to proceed?
I agree that it's not a given, but at least with Trump there is a chance something is done to benefit the public.
There's a 100% chance that his actions would be primarily motivated by what most benefits Donald Trump. Any benefit to the public would be entirely incidental. Fortunately, I'm not the least concerned that he has a chance of becoming president.
She's a vindictive and spiteful old twat.
Hillary is not my first choice - I I'd like to see Bernie Sanders in the White House - but if it's a choice between her and any Republican, I'm going to vote for her. I really do feel badly for the people who harbor such vitriol for her as she's likely going to be our president for the next 8 years. Gives 'em something to complain about, though, so there's that.
As to the article, you know things are bad when even the checks and balances aren't checking nor balancing the persistently abusive and unconstitutional government surveillance of American citizens. This upcoming election is the first time since the Snowden revelations that the majority of the American people have the opportunity to voice opposition to these practices. I sincerely hope (though secretly doubt) they don't fuck it up.
Who would you have picked in Obama's place?
Gary Johnson. By a mile.
And even in this next go around, Sanders.
Now you explain why supposedly freedom-loving liberals are supporting Hilary.