More FISA Orders Were Denied During President Trump's First Year in Office Than in the Court's 40-Year History (zdnet.com)

In its first year, the Trump administration kept one little-known courtroom in the capital busy. From a report: A secretive Washington DC-based court that oversees the US government's foreign spy programs denied more surveillance orders during President Donald Trump's first year than in the court's 40-year history, according to newly released figures. Annual data published Wednesday by the US Courts shows that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court last year denied 26 applications in full, and 50 applications in part. That's compared to 21 orders between when the court was first formed in 1978 and President Barack Obama's final year in office in 2016.

Comments

Comparison to 2016

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, let's do a little research and look at the actual data. We can get all the reports since transparency was mandated in 2015:

USCourts Report on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts' Activities

According to FISA's data, in 2016:
"The FISC disclosed that it received 1,752 applications in 2016. After consideration by the court, 1,378
orders were granted, 339 orders were modified, 26 orders were denied in part, and 9 applications were
denied in full."

Meanwhile, in the latest report, from 2017, during the first year of the Trump administration:
"The FISC disclosed that it received 1,614 applications in 2017. After consideration by the court, 1,147
orders were granted, 391 orders were modified, 50 orders were denied in part, and 26 applications
were denied in full."

So what does this tell us? Applications for survellience were actually a bit lower, but denials went from .5% of Obama's FBI to 1.5% of Trump's FBI's requests. Does that mean the requests were of lower quality in 2017? The FISA court was feeling a little chastened by all of the publicity of its usual rubber-stamp policy? Or the FISA court is a bunch of liberal cheeto-haters? Hard to say?

Re:This fits the narrative of lefties

[youngone]

You completely misunderstood the point of the article, and have it back to front:
This is the FISA court refusing government surveillance orders. The implication is that the current regime is asking for things they shouldn't get.

Obama refused 21

21 orders between when the court was first formed in 1978 and President Barack Obama's final year in office in 2016.

That quote is from TFA, you should read it.

A secretive Washington DC-based court that oversees the US government's foreign spy programs denied more surveillance orders during President Donald Trump's first year than in the court's 40-year history, according to newly released figures.

That is also from TFA, first sentence.
Let's not pretend that secret courts are a good idea however.

Better stats

[leehwtsohg]

2010: 1511, 0 rejected
2011: 1676, 0 rejected
2012: 1789, 0 rejected
2013: 1588, 0 rejected
2014: 1379, 0 rejected
2015: 1457, 5 rejected
2016: 1485, 34 rejected
2017: 1614, 26 rejected

https://epic.org/privacy/surve...

Re: Also it makes you wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the administration that is doing the denying.

Re:Also it makes you wonder

[Actually, I do RTFA]

So it seems clear that what has changed is the nature of the requests -- or possibly the number, but it would require a massive increase in number of requests to cause this change. My money is on the nature of the requests.

The number of requests is actually down (but barely.) The rate of rejections tripled.