I mostly agree with you about the mindlessness of the FISA process, and how it is an excuse for secrecy with a host of safeguards that not only don’t work, but aren’t intended to work.
Some facts for estimating the workload from Wikipedia:
- Over 33 years, there have been 33,942 FISA warrants granted,
- ... with only 12 denials.
That works out to roughly 1000 warrants per year, or 4 per working day. It’s a lot, but not so many that some care can’t be exercised (although with that approval percentage, it’s obvious that its usually treated as a rubber stamp).
And what are we told, each one being 100 pages?
FWIW, I think good faith is applied most of the time. My point is that the bad faith stuff is going on like gangbusters, avoiding that "make work" charade because the function of the illicit snoop is illicit - like getting political advantage, or revenge, and so on. The system allows warrantless snooping, and the data conduits (AT&T to name one) comply without a particularized warrant. NSA is wholesale monitoring, and FBI has the hardware to get what it wants. I could drive a car on the public roadways before I was licensed to do so - just don't get caught. There is VERY LOW risk of getting caught doing illicit snooping. Who could possibly know?
I think the whole point of getting the Carter Page FISA warrant was to legitimize past illicit snooping. Once the FISA court issues a warrant, the FISA law immunizes the snooper. And the FISA warrant allows a backward in time look, so all the past snooping is covered by the warrant.