Wow, I had no idea that our federal government was so consistently perfect in it's decisions to place people under surveillance. Not once did they step out of line and go too far. Rest assured, Americans, our government's battin' a thousand... and we didn't even know about it.
So humble. Who knew?
Last year, the Federal Intelligence Surveillance court approved every one of the federal government's 1,856 requests to either search or electronically surveil people within the United States, "for foreign intelligence purposes." The perfect record was disclosed in a report last week from the Justice Department.
The report (.pdf), released Tuesday to Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader from Nevada, provides a brief glimpse into the caseload of what is known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. None of its decisions are public.
The 2012 figures represent a 5 percent bump from the prior year, when no requests were denied either.
The secretive court (commonly referred to as the "FISA" Court) was formed back in 1978 by Congress in response to the Nixon administration's Watergate scandal back in 1974. The court gets most of its power through the recently reauthorized (for five more years)
FISA Amendments Act. The reauthorization by Congress occurred late last year just days before it was to expire.
Wired.com has the story:
The act allows the government to electronically eavesdrop on Americans’ phone calls and e-mails without a probable-cause warrant so long as one of the parties to the communication is believed outside the United States.
However, the law doesn't require the government to identify either the targeted individual or facility they wish to monitor. It allows the government to begin surveillance seven days before making the request, and the surveillance is allowed to continue all the way through any appeals process should one be necessary.
Luckily, the appeals process seems like a moot point given the government's unblemished track record when it comes to choosing targets to surveil.
All the while, the government has interpreted the law to mean that as long as the real target is al-Qaeda, the government can wiretap purely domestic e-mails and phone calls. That’s according to David Kris, a former top anti-terrorism attorney at the Justice Department.
In short, Kris said the FISA Amendments Act gives the government nearly carte blanche spying powers.
Between 2009 and 2011, Kris was the head of the Justice Department's National Security Division. He wrote the following in the the revised 2012 edition of National Security Investigations and Prosecutions:
"For example, an authorization targeting ‘al Qaeda’ — which is a non-U.S. person located abroad — could allow the government to wiretap any telephone that it believes will yield information from or about al Qaeda, either because the telephone is registered to a person whom the government believes is affiliated with al Qaeda, or because the government believes that the person communicates with others who are affiliated with al Qaeda, regardless of the location of the telephone."
A challenge to the surveillance law was rejected by the Supreme Court by a 5-4 margin. The court concluded that because the surveillance is always done secretly neither the ACLU, journalists or human rights groups have legal standing to bring a case due to the absence of evidence of targeting by the law itself.
To me, that's a clear case of circular logic. But that's just me.
There was a bright spot, however, in the report. The federal government issued 1,282 less so-called National Security Letters last year -- issuing 15,229 letters -- down from 16,511 in 2011.
The letters are written demands from the FBI that compel internet service providers, credit companies, financial institutions and others to hand over confidential records about their customers, such as subscriber information, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, websites visited and more.
Barring the success of an appeal brought by the Obama administration, the number of NSLs issued this year forward will most likely be way down, considering the process was declared unconstitutional last month. The decision was stayed, however, for ninety days for the duration of the appeals process.
Cross your fingers.