Once the Patriot Act was signed, the standards for wiretaps was changed but that did not occur in 2000. The Clinton administration was trying to do an end run around their own rules....for instance, the Gorelick wall which prevented the FBI from information sharing.
I'm not going to blame the court (in this instance) for ignoring existing law and holding the government to their own standards. For as much complaining as we do about judicial activism on this forum, sometimes it seems we're a-ok with it as long as it involves something we support.
"The Justice Department went to the FISA court and admitted giving misleading, incomplete and erroneous information on 75 wiretaps."
You seem obdurate to the fact that this "erroneous information" consists of leaving out that some of the people being tapped also were also of interest due to their criminal actions.
The Justice Department saw no need to mention that. It's all part of the Gorelick Wall that was strictly an artificial construct.
This is why they were called "trivial objections." 3,000 people may have died because of some pointless legalism. You defend that?