Bush was denied wiretaps, bypassed them (FISA Court denied them in unprecedented numbers)

UPI ^ | Dec. 27, 2005 | UPI

[Pragmatic_View]

WASHINGTON, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- U.S. President George Bush decided to skip seeking warrants for international wiretaps because the court was challenging him at an unprecedented rate.

A review of Justice Department reports to Congress by Hearst newspapers shows the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than the four previous presidential administrations combined.

The 11-judge court that authorizes FISA wiretaps modified only two search warrant orders out of the 13,102 applications approved over the first 22 years of the court's operation.

But since 2001, the judges have modified 179 of the 5,645 requests for surveillance by the Bush administration, the report said. A total of 173 of those court-ordered "substantive modifications" took place in 2003 and 2004. And, the judges also rejected or deferred at least six requests for warrants during those two years -- the first outright rejection of a wiretap request in the court's history.

[ricks_place]

The United States Judiciary is not entrusted to defend the United States. The power to defend and protect is vested in the Executive.

[Pragmatic_View]

"The United States Judiciary is not entrusted to defend the United States. The power to defend and protect is vested in the Executive."

========

BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Steve_Seattle]

The strange thing - mentioned by at least one other poster - is that the court started making it harder to get wiretaps AFTER 9/11.

[mware]

Yes there seemed to be some resistance to the President before 2003, but the denials and modifications happen the most in 2003. I will have to check and see who got appointed that year.

[Pragmatic_View]

An excellent editorial, posted by RWR8189, pointing out that exactly the FISA court created the problem that contributed to the intelligence failure that contributed to 9-11, so what do they do now, making things even worse in a post 9-11 world.


Disorder in the Court (FISA)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1547743/posts


"According to the December 2002 report of the House and Senate intelligence committees' Joint Inquiry into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, for one, the FISA system as a whole-and the FISA court in particular-went seriously off the rails sometime around 1995. A false impression began mysteriously to take hold throughout the government that the FISA statute, in combination with the Fourth Amendment, erected an almost impermeable barrier between intelligence agents and law enforcement personnel where electronic eavesdropping was concerned. And by the time, a few years later, that Osama bin Laden had finally become an official counterterrorism priority, this FISA court--enforced "wall" had already crippled the government's al Qaeda monitoring efforts.

snip

Sounds like it would have been a really, really good idea for NSA to have gone ahead and done this stuff back before 9/11. So why is it such an atrocity that President Bush has them doing it now?"

[Dog]

Mark Levin has had the same thoughts as us about the FISA court overstepping its bounds. DARE I SAY, MAYBE THE PROBLEM IS THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE COURT? [Mark R. Levin] Its constitutional authority for making war-related decisions is certainly more precarious than the president's explicit authority as commander-in-chief. Why would we assume that these federal judges are anymore respectful of the limits of their power when serving as FISA judges ruling on foreign intercepts than they are when ruling on, say, most any other issues? If Congress is going to hold hearings on FISA and NSA intercepts, let's hope their inquiry includes a review of the conduct of the judges as well -- who also operate in secret. Posted at 12:45 PM

[txhurl]

seemed to be some resistance to the President before 2003

I wonder if there are any JRock prints on setting a future trap for W, per his -D playbook/memo.

[mware]

Kazen was appointed on 05/18/03

Robinson was appointed on 05/19/02

[Pragmatic_View]

" the denials and modifications happen the most in 2003. I will have to check and see who got appointed that year."

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See post 18 by Howlin:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1547700/posts?page=18#18

Looks like George P. Kazan was appointed to FISA in May 2003, and several were appointed in mid 2002.

Also see post 148 by Condor51 about who appointed each judge.


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1547700/posts?page=148#148

Looks like George P. Kazen was appointed to the bench by none other than Jimmy Carter.

I guess your theory fits.

(The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court appoints judges to FISA, but he picks from the Federal Court judges)

[ez]

The court operates in complete secrecy. We don't even know the identities of the eleven judges who make up the FISC.

So CNN says the 11 members are secret yet you are able to publish them. Are you a member of the star chamber. Admit it!! (/sarcasm)

[mware]

Chief Justice Rehnquist didn't have much to choose from. They have to reside within a number of miles of DC. I guess most come from the DC circuit.

[Kaslin]

Great grounds for impeachment.

How dare President bush protect the country from another 9/11. That is a no no. Al Qaida and the terrorist must be allowed to attack us again

< /sarcasm>

[Pragmatic_View]

Goes to show you how uninformed CNN is and how lazy their journalists are, they coudn't even bother to look on the web.

[Pragmatic_View]

" They have to reside within a number of miles of DC."

==

I didn't realize that. Well, no wonder...

[mware]

That is what another person said on this thread. Not sure if it is true.

[ez]

Goes to show you how uninformed CNN is and how lazy their journalists are, they coudn't even bother to look on the web.

I'm sure they probably took the word of a Moveon.org political e-mail or blast fax...

[ndt]

"Who? I want names."

So as long as a government spys on it's citizens in secret there is no violation? Did you ever work for the KGB?

"The Judiciary has never had oversight on the execution of a war and if the Congress wants them to then they have the authority to make that law and pass the buck if they want to."

The Congress is the only branch that can declare war and they have not. If you have a link to a congressional declaration of war, please do post it.

"Don't give the President a blank check if you don't want him to use it."

The Congress can not give the president the power to violate law. They can change law to give him powers he might not otherwise have, but they can not give a "blank check" to bypass constitutional limits.

[Citizen Soldier]

I didn't realize an appointed lawyer (cum judge) is the commander in chief!

[demkicker]

Good find. Thanks for sharing. I'm a HUGE Mark Levin fan.

[mware]

A post from Amish Dude who did the statistics on the case modified.

Suppose there were two rogue judges on this court. Judges who would reject every wiretap. Every time a 3-judge panel was formed, those judges would vote to at least modify the request. Furthermore, suppose that approximately half of the 5645 requests since 2001 were in the 2003-4 era. So, suppose there were 3000 requests in the high-rejection era (early part of 2001 would be slow).

If we chose a panel at random, the probability that you would get one of these rogue judges is 0.0545.

Multiply this by 3000 and you get 164 -- very close to the number of rejections in this era.

I am conjecturing that nearly all the modifications and rejections resulted from the same two judges being on the panel

God I love this place.