The 911 commission didn't think it was laughable...
http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200512191334.asp
In 2002, when the president made his decision, there was widespread, bipartisan frustration with the slowness and inefficiency of the bureaucracy involved in seeking warrants from the special intelligence court, known as the FISA court. Even later, after the provisions of the Patriot Act had had time to take effect, there were still problems with the FISA court — problems examined by members of the September 11 Commission — and questions about whether the court can deal effectively with the fastest-changing cases in the war on terror.
People familiar with the process say the problem is not so much with the court itself as with the process required to bring a case before the court. "It takes days, sometimes weeks, to get the application for FISA together," says one source. "It's not so much that the court doesn't grant them quickly, it's that it takes a long time to get to the court. Even after the Patriot Act, it's still a very cumbersome process. It is not built for speed, it is not built to be efficient. It is built with an eye to keeping [investigators] in check." And even though the attorney general has the authority in some cases to undertake surveillance immediately, and then seek an emergency warrant, that process is just as cumbersome as the normal way of doing things.
Lawmakers of both parties recognized the problem in the months after the September 11 terrorist attacks. They pointed to the case of Coleen Rowley, the FBI agent who ran up against a number roadblocks in her effort to secure a FISA warrant in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the al Qaeda operative who had taken flight training in preparation for the hijackings. Investigators wanted to study the contents of Moussaoui's laptop computer, but the FBI bureaucracy involved in applying for a FISA warrant was stifling, and there were real questions about whether investigators could meet the FISA court's probable-cause standard for granting a warrant. FBI agents became so frustrated that they considered flying Moussaoui to France, where his computer could be examined. But then the attacks came, and it was too late.
Rowley wrote up her concerns in a famous 13-page memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller, and then elaborated on them in testimony to Congress. "Rowley depicted the legal mechanism for security warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, as burdensome and restrictive, a virtual roadblock to effective law enforcement," Legal Times reported in September 2002.
The Patriot Act included some provisions, supported by lawmakers of both parties, to make securing such warrants easier. But it did not fix the problem. In April 2004, when members of the September 11 Commission briefed the press on some of their preliminary findings, they reported that significant problems remained.
Funny, I don't see any changes that have been made since 1978 in the section 1804 application required to make it easier for DOJ to prep an application. Have you ever seen what the FISA warrant application requires?
(1) the identity of the Federal officer making the application;
(two seconds to write a name)
(2) the authority conferred on the Attorney General by the President of the United States and the approval of the Attorney General to make the application;
(simple boilerplate, prepped once by the AG's constitutional lawyers and then zero time required by the field agents)
(3) the identity, if known, or a description of the target of the electronic surveillance;
(two seconds to write a name or address)
(4) a statement of the facts and circumstances relied upon by the applicant to justify his belief that—
(A) the target of the electronic surveillance is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power; and
(B) each of the facilities or places at which the electronic surveillance is directed is being used, or is about to be used, by a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power;
(two minutes to write why the suspect is a suspect)
(5) a statement of the proposed minimization procedures;
(more boilerplate saying 'how we won't use the extraneous info,' something like: if found not to be foreign intelligence information, if recorded the information will not be indexed, and thus become non-retrievable, if in hard copy from facsimile intercept or computer print-out it will be discarded, if an re-recordable media it will be erased, or if too bulky or too sensitive, will be destroyed.)
(6) a detailed description of the nature of the information sought and the type of communications or activities to be subjected to the surveillance;
(more specific than boilerplate but generally the same, i.e., foreign intelligence re: domestic spying/terrorist penetration into the U.S., let's say five minutes to be conservative)
(7) a certification or certifications by the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs or an executive branch official or officials designated by the President from among those executive officers employed in the area of national security or defense and appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate—
(A) that the certifying official deems the information sought to be foreign intelligence information;
(B) that a significant purpose of the surveillance is to obtain foreign intelligence information;
(C) that such information cannot reasonably be obtained by normal investigative techniques;
(D) that designates the type of foreign intelligence information being sought according to the categories described in section 1801 (e) of this title; and
(E) including a statement of the basis for the certification that—
(i) the information sought is the type of foreign intelligence information designated; and
(ii) such information cannot reasonably be obtained by normal investigative techniques;
(all a signature under boilerplate thus far, let's say two seconds)
(8) a statement of the means by which the surveillance will be effected and a statement whether physical entry is required to effect the surveillance;
(thirty seconds to write how the entry is to be made)
(9) a statement of the facts concerning all previous applications that have been made to any judge under this subchapter involving any of the persons, facilities, or places specified in the application, and the action taken on each previous application;
(thirty seconds to make sure the judge knows this isn't simply repetitive re-application)
(10) a statement of the period of time for which the electronic surveillance is required to be maintained, and if the nature of the intelligence gathering is such that the approval of the use of electronic surveillance under this subchapter should not automatically terminate when the described type of information has first been obtained, a description of facts supporting the belief that additional information of the same type will be obtained thereafter; and
(one minute either detailing the time limitation on the scope of the warrant or explaining why there shouldn't be one)
(11) whenever more than one electronic, mechanical or other surveillance device is to be used with respect to a particular proposed electronic surveillance, the coverage of the devices involved and what minimization procedures apply to information acquired by each device.
(more boilerplate saying 'how we won't use the extraneous info')
AND whenever the target of the electronic surveillance is a foreign power, and each of the facilities or places at which the surveillance is directed is owned, leased, or exclusively used by that foreign power, the application doesn't even need THAT.
So an AAG spends ten minutes with an agent to get the warrant info, ten minutes filling out the application, and then whatever time it takes to get a judge to sign the warrant, a judge grants them quickly, according to your NR source. Yet that isn't laughable?
According to your own source, the 9/11 commission, the REAL problem ISN'T with getting a warrant that takes minutes to fill out and fewer to get. According to your citation, that "the FBI bureaucracy involved in applying for a FISA warrant was stifling." Why should we give that agency or the AG the power to evade these simple warrant requirements, when what is keeping them from getting warrants is not the law but the bureaucratic nature of those agencies and the federal government? Saying the way to solve the problem with the federal government and bureaucracy is to give the bureaucracy more power and less law to follow is like saying the way to cure cancer is to shoot people who get it. The 9/11 commission's 'solution' to the problem is to turn the entire federal law enforcement structure into another huge unibureaucracy, when in fact the primary problem seems to have all been created by Clinton administration-era bureacrats and bureaucracy at the FBI. The solution to the problem is to fire the damn bureaucrats who screwed up in overinterpreting the law to restrict information sharing, give the agencies fewer tasks and thus less broad power necessary or to abuse in doing those tasks, and return the federal government to doing its job of defending this country against threats from afar, instead of screwing around with the myriad federal crimes that have little to do with its Constitutional role.
But the Patriot Act doesn't do that, doesn't change the application process, and didn't just make getting a warrant easier. Under Patriot, the FBI doesn't have to know that the target of the roving FISA wiretap is using the phone being tapped. The FBI could simply tap a neighborhood exchange where a suspect is spotted and hope a terrorist uses a phone there. And the FBI can now get a warrant to wiretap a phone or computer without specifying either the suspect under surveillance or the phones or computers to be tapped. Does that sound like a warrant at all?
"We think that SOMEONE may use A phone or computer to commit a terrorist act, but we don't know who, and we don't know which phone or computer, and we swear we'll only use that power for national security purposes. Can we get a blank warrant, now, judge? Love, Hillary."