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Though much of the court's workings are classified, there are known instances in which FISA's "probable cause" standard prevented the government from getting warrants where common sense made it perfectly clear surveillance was justified. Notably, there was the case of Wen Ho Lee, the Chinese--American scientist who worked at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab. Lee downloaded nuclear codes and databases from the lab's secure computers. "In the wrong hands," his boss noted, such information could "change the global strategic balance." Despite this, and the fact that Lee had access to a warhead design that had leaked to the Chinese, had visited China in the period when Beijing apparently acquired the data, and had obvious friendly ties to Chinese nuclear scientists, it was judged that a FISA warrant could not be obtained. It didn't matter how grave the damage might be if Lee was actually engaged in espionage; what mattered was the government had no real evidence that Lee was a likely spy.
The article you just posted (with link to it in your post 222 is EXCELLENT!)
I highly recommend that everyone on this thread read it.
Here is a link to your thread again:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1547770/posts
Everyone, please go to the above link, then also continue on to read the article in full at the Weekly Standard -- they have specific examples of the damage FISA is doing.