Margot Cleveland
A Little Known Tweak To FISA Rules In 2015 Has Big Implications For The Carter Page Warrant
Congress requires the FISA court to maintain a pool of lawyers friendly to civil liberties who are willing to challenge the Justice Department’s applications for a spy warrant. But the court almost never uses them.
Let’s break it down: As part of the broader USA Freedom Act, Congress directed the presiding judges of the FISA court to designate as amici curiae at least 5 individuals with expertise in privacy and civil liberties, intelligence collection, or communications technology, who were also qualified to review classified material. For any matter coming before the FISA court that presented “a novel or significant interpretation of the law,” the USA Freedom Act requires the secret court to appoint an amicus curiae to the case. In other circumstances, the FISA court has discretion to decide whether to appoint an amicus curiae.
Currently, four of the five designated amici curiae have clear connections to Democrats. Along with Zwillinger, Jonathan G. Cedarbaum, and David Kris all donated to Hillary Clinton, and Cedarbaum and Amy Jeffress served in the Obama Administration: Jeffress served as former “Attorney General Eric Holder’s counselor on national security and international matters,” while Cedarbaum spent “two years in the leadership of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, where he ultimately served as Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Office, which provides authoritative legal advice to the White House, the Attorney General, and all executive branch departments and agencies. During his time at OLC, Mr. Cedarbaum handled the cybersecurity and surveillance docket …