Secret FISA court won't release wiretap rulings
A shadowy federal court that meets behind closed doors to hear wiretapping requests says it won't publicly release even portions of its rulings.
In response to a formal request from the ACLU, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said on Tuesday that it won't divulge the abridged text of the orders dealing with the Bush administration's eavesdropping scheme on grounds that it could endanger national security.
The 24-page opinion (PDF) disagreed with the Bush administration's suggestion that the ACLU's request be necessarily dismissed out of hand. But after considering the request, the court rejected it on grounds that the public enjoys no general (or First Amendment-based) right of access to its proceedings under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The opinion is noteworthy for two other reasons: It is the first time that anyone except the U.S. Department of Justice has argued, even in writing, before the court. Second, it's only the third time in the history of the court that an opinion has been released publicly.
Here's an excerpt from Tuesday's opinion:
The ACLU acknowledges that there is no tradition of public access to FISC orders. The ACLU argues, nonetheless, that the orders at issue here are distinguishable because they are "of broader significance and include legal analysis and legal rulings concerning the meaning of FISA."Even assuming that it is proper to apply the "experience" test to a narrow subset of FISC decisions of broad legal significance, however, the FISC has, in fact, issued other legally significant decisions that remain classified and have not been released to the public (although, in fairness to the ACLU, it has no way of knowing this).
Thus, the FISC is not a court whose place or process has historically been open to the public, and the ACLU Motion does not satisfy the experience test for a First Amendment right of access.
Declan McCullagh, CNET News' chief political correspondent, chronicles the intersection of politics and technology. He has covered politics, technology, and Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, which has turned him into an iconoclast and a skeptic of anyone who says, "We oughta have a new federal law against this." E-mail Declan. 
time they waste. They make some good cases occasionally but
are the most dangerous organization in the United States.
FISA was setup to deal with matters of tapping other countries not things in the US. The government will always try and keep things hidden when they don't want people to know about the truth. This court was setup to deal with a small problem in the past. It is well beyond that now. What its doing is not what it was setup for and is not the way this country was setup to operate but those in power remain in power because the money they have control of keeps them in power.
destroys habeas corpus, tortures, and maintains secret courts and
prisons is a harmless puppy.
We need to draw clear lines. Not only politicians but citizens who
support the destruction of liberty are evil.
The only thing that ACLU is doing is looking out for the rights and liberties of all people in the United States, even the people accused of crimes and are trying to make the government be open with the people in this country in order to make sure that they do not put a person who is innocent of what they are being accused of in jail, or put someone in jail for something that is a crime but should not be because it violates the civil rights of people out there (statutory rape, child sexual abuse and a ******** of sexual morality laws come to mind easily).
- And I bet you wondered......
- by mariusthull December 12, 2007 12:15 AM PST
- How oppressive governments the world over have gotten elected. You know what is truly scary? There is a large portion of my fellow Americans that support everything this President does. Now, if they were just blindly throwing away their own Rights I wouldn't mind. The trouble is they are taking mine away as well.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
-
- Apologies for an incomplete quote
- by mariusthull December 12, 2007 12:30 AM PST
- The second quote of my post was incomplete and it also lacked a source. Here it is in it's entirety and the source.
- Like this
-
(13 Comments)After 9-11 I knew America was in trouble. Every person they had on the news screamed for more security. Our children had to be protected. The next attack had to be prevented at all costs. The American way of life must be preserved. I heard all that and saw the politicians grasping for anything and everything that would make us safer and more secure in out beds at night. And I knew, I knew we were in very big trouble. There is a bigger threat to this country than all the terrorists in the world. And no, it isn't Bush and Cheney, although they run a close second. The biggest threat to this country is the scared American. He's your neighbor who thinks the Patriot Act is a good idea. She's the mother of three who will gladly throw away all your Rights to keep her babies safe. The scared American is the man who will throw away the tenets and ideals of this country because it will help catch terrorists.
To end my post I give you two quotes from a Republican President who faced a greater and even more immediate threat to the survival of this country.
"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume I, "Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum,of Springfield, Illinois (January 27, 1838), p. 109.
Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
* Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose. If to-day he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, ? "I see no probability of the British invading us"; but he will say to you, "Be silent: I see it, if you don't."
The provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.
o Letter, while US Congressman, to his friend and law-partner William H. Herndon, opposing the Mexican-American War (15 February 1848)