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Disorder in the Court (FISA)
The Weekly Standard ^ | January 2, 2006 | David Tell, for the Editors

Posted on 12/27/2005 12:53:13 PM PST by RWR8189

Since shortly after September 11, 2001-and under the terms of a formal order signed by the president of the United States sometime early the following year-the Pentagon's giant signals--intelligence division, the National Security Agency, has monitored "the international telephone calls and international email messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants." So reported the New York Times more than a week ago. Official Washington is appalled.

Isn't this sort of thing supposed to be illegal-unconstitutional, even? And why would the president think such unilateral domestic spying necessary to begin with? Why couldn't the Justice Department first seek permission from the special judicial panel established for precisely such circumstances by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978? It's not as though this so--called FISA court was likely to turn them down, after all; that's happened fewer than a half--dozen times in nearly 30 years. And it's not as though the court's rules weren't flexible enough to accommodate the occasional intelligence--community emergency, either. When necessary, and by statute, the government is allowed to seek and secure FISA court approval for relevant wiretaps up to 72 hours after those wiretaps are turned on.

Besides which, if the president really was convinced that U.S. counterterrorism requirements included a program of domestic surveillance beyond what FISA authorized, how come he didn't just ask Congress to amend that law-instead of granting himself apparent permission to violate its very essence?

As we say, Washington is aghast. Mind you: It's not that anybody's especially eager to conclude that George W. Bush is a yahoo Texas cowboy engaged in sweeping, Big Brother--like invasions of American privacy simply because his coterie of whack--job Federalist Society lawyers tell him that presidents should do whatever the hell they want, and this would be an excellent way to prove it. That's not it at all. Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean reports that the mere contemplation of such a possibility is "painful" to him. He is bearing this pain, however-he and everyone else in the president's metastasizing army of critics. Their question persists: Why on earth-in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when our need for meaningful signals intelligence was presumably at its zenith-would the president not have turned first, for assistance, to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court?

Because that would have been insane, that's why.

Set aside, for the moment, all the broad and complicated questions of law at issue here, and consider just the factual record as it's been revealed in any number of authoritative, after--the--disaster investigations. 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.

Absent specific, prior authorization from the FISA court, federal al Qaeda investigators were formally prohibited from sharing surveillance--derived intelligence information about terrorism suspects and plots with their law enforcement counterparts. And in late 2000, after federal prosecutors discovered a series of legally inconsequential errors and omissions in certain al Qaeda--related surveillance applications the FISA court had previously approved, the court's infamously prickly presiding judge, Royce Lamberth, appears to have had a temper tantrum ferocious enough to all but shut down the Justice Department's terrorism wiretapping program. "The consequences of the FISA Court's approach to the Wall between intelligence gathering and law enforcement before September 11 were extensive," the Joint Inquiry explained. "Many FISA surveillances of suspected al Qaeda agents expired because [Justice officials] were not willing to apply for application renewals when they were not completely confident of their accuracy." And new applications were not forthcoming, the result being that, at least by the reckoning of one FBI manager who testified before the intelligence committees, "no FISA orders targeted against al Qaeda existed in 2001" at all. Not one.

Non--Justice intelligence agencies quailed before Judge Lamberth, too, it should be noted. The National Security Agency, for example, "began to indicate on all reports of terrorism--related information that the content could not be shared with law enforcement personnel without FISA Court approval." It used to be, not so long ago, that NSA's pre--9/11 timidity about such eavesdropping was universally considered a terrible mistake. The agency's "cautious approach to any collection of intelligence relating to activities in the United States," the Joint Inquiry concluded, helped blind it to the nature of al Qaeda's threat. NSA "adopted a policy that avoided intercepting communications between individuals in the United States and foreign countries." What's more, NSA adopted this unfortunate policy "even though the collection of such communications is within its mission," even though "a significant portion of the communications collected by NSA" has always involved "U.S. persons or contain[ed] information about U.S. persons," and even though "the NSA and the FBI have the authority, in certain circumstances, to intercept . . . communications that have one communicant in the United States and one in a foreign country."

"One such collection capability" mentioned in a heavily redacted section of the Joint Inquiry report sounds like it might be especially relevant to the current controversy over President Bush's Gestapo--like tendencies. It seems there's long been something called "the FISA Court technique," a category of electronic surveillance distinguishable from ordinary, FISA--regulated eavesdropping by its higher probability of capturing "communications between individuals in the United States and foreign countries"-but meeting the "approval of the FISA Court" just the same. Alas, "NSA did not use the FISA Court technique" against our nation's enemies in the old days, "precisely because" of its allergy to domestic surveillance. And "thus, a gap developed between the level of coverage of communications between the United States and foreign countries that was technically and legally available to the Intelligence Community and the actual use of that surveillance capability."

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?


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 911; bush43; domesticspying; fisa; intelligence; leak; nsa; patriotleak; spygate; spying; spyleak
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Now more evidence of the court's malfeasance has become public.
1 posted on 12/27/2005 12:53:16 PM PST by RWR8189
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To: RWR8189

Go David Go!


2 posted on 12/27/2005 12:57:39 PM PST by xcamel (a system poltergeist stole it.)
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To: RWR8189

And just today we learned from another newspaper article that the FISA court has rejected more Bush administration warrants than in the previous 4 administrations (24 years) combined!


3 posted on 12/27/2005 12:58:49 PM PST by Peach (The Clintons pardoned more terrorists than they ever captured or killed.)
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To: RWR8189

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.


4 posted on 12/27/2005 1:00:13 PM PST by Peach (The Clintons pardoned more terrorists than they ever captured or killed.)
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To: RWR8189

As the old saying goes "All I need to know about Islam, I learned on 9/11."

Now all I need to know about domestic spying is that there has not been another 9/11.

Thanks W.


5 posted on 12/27/2005 1:01:39 PM PST by Responsibility2nd
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To: All

And in late 2000, after federal prosecutors discovered a series of legally inconsequential errors and omissions in certain al Qaeda--related surveillance applications the FISA court had previously approved, the court's infamously prickly presiding judge, Royce Lamberth, appears to have had a temper tantrum ferocious enough to all but shut down the Justice Department's terrorism wiretapping program.

In another article, I read that FISA refused to accept warrants from a particular FBI agent because he had made an error in his application for a warrant. The FBI agent used FISA frequently and I think the FISA judges just got tired of dealing with his numerous applications.


6 posted on 12/27/2005 1:02:38 PM PST by Peach (The Clintons pardoned more terrorists than they ever captured or killed.)
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To: All

And new applications were not forthcoming, the result being that, at least by the reckoning of one FBI manager who testified before the intelligence committees, "no FISA orders targeted against al Qaeda existed in 2001" at all. Not one.


7 posted on 12/27/2005 1:03:27 PM PST by Peach (The Clintons pardoned more terrorists than they ever captured or killed.)
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To: Peach

wasn't that the height of the Jamie Gorelic rein of terror?


8 posted on 12/27/2005 1:06:27 PM PST by xcamel (a system poltergeist stole it.)
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To: xcamel

Definitely the height of the Janet Reno reign of terror.


9 posted on 12/27/2005 1:08:08 PM PST by txhurl (hook'em)
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To: RWR8189
Now more evidence of the court's malfeasance has become public

Yes, of course, we should stop monitoring communication from Al Queda. Let the terrorists have their conversations and email to their terrorists over here and let them bring nukes, vials and bins of chemicals and let them have our cities and devastate our land.

Yes, let the judges dally for 2 minutes while the terrorist conversation is finished, and of course, anything monitored before that is inadmissible.

Yes, of course we want Jamie Gorlick's wall back up and the Department of Homeland security to be abolished.

Aren't you proud now?

10 posted on 12/27/2005 1:12:51 PM PST by sr4402
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To: xcamel

Yes. And David Shrum details perfectly how FISA helped erect that wall.


11 posted on 12/27/2005 1:15:47 PM PST by Peach (The Clintons pardoned more terrorists than they ever captured or killed.)
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To: Peach

Bada-Bing!


12 posted on 12/27/2005 1:19:18 PM PST by xcamel (a system poltergeist stole it.)
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To: sr4402

If you're directing those comments toward me, then I think you misread my post.


13 posted on 12/27/2005 1:22:37 PM PST by RWR8189 (George Allen for President)
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To: RWR8189

bttt


14 posted on 12/27/2005 1:25:26 PM PST by Christian4Bush ("The only 'new tone' we hear should be that of the Left's telephone being disconnected. " dogcaller)
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To: RWR8189
If the FISA Court rules are followed to the letter but the FISA Court refuses warrants for whatever reason then the President must ignore the court and pursue the terrorists.

The United States Constitution invests in the President, the power and responsibility to defend and protect the United States. The United States Supreme Court and Inferior Courts such as FISA, are given zip in national defense. The duty and responsibility rests in the executive. He must follow the enemy regardless of what FISA decides.

15 posted on 12/27/2005 1:29:15 PM PST by ricks_place
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To: Peach; Marine_Uncle; Grampa Dave; Mo1; Howlin
And new applications were not forthcoming, the result being that, at least by the reckoning of one FBI manager who testified before the intelligence committees, "no FISA orders targeted against al Qaeda existed in 2001" at all. Not one.

Well....damn....that explains a lot.....

16 posted on 12/27/2005 1:30:00 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (History is soon Forgotten,)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

"Well....damn....that explains a lot....." ,br>
Truly. We are in deep ass trouble. Much more then a lot of good folks can comprehend. These clowns in so many cases should never have been hired by our Intel and Law Enforcement groups. We have so many totally incompetent and dangerously mislead goons running things of critical importance it is simply pathetic.


17 posted on 12/27/2005 1:39:54 PM PST by Marine_Uncle (Honor must be earned)
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To: Peach
"...the court's infamously prickly presiding judge, Royce Lamberth, appears to have had a temper tantrum ferocious enough to all but shut down the Justice Department's terrorism wiretapping program."
Why can't we have special laws put in place that of course are carefully monitored, and give permission to a small number of Intel Agency operatives to be able to beat this type guy up with lead pipes until he does not move.
18 posted on 12/27/2005 1:44:45 PM PST by Marine_Uncle (Honor must be earned)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

And Ernest, another article detailed that the FISA court rejected or amended more applications during the Bush administration than it had during the previous FOUR administrations (which totalled 24 years). No wonder the president went around FISA.


19 posted on 12/27/2005 2:09:10 PM PST by Peach (The Clintons pardoned more terrorists than they ever captured or killed.)
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To: RWR8189; All
Regarding Lamberth (who is a Reagan Administration appointee) is there anything to this article:

http://www.gordonthomas.ie/122.html

If true I find it very interesting when viewed in what this article states.

20 posted on 12/27/2005 2:10:48 PM PST by Arizona Carolyn
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