FISA − the Secret U.S. Court

Ashcroft Seeks to Abuse Use of ‘Secret Court’ in the New York Newsday talks about a court in the U.S. that is responsible for granting requests for “searches of its own citizens for foreign intelligence gathering”. This court is called the FISA court (which stands for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act…and don’t you sleep better knowing that’s around). It’s necessary because the constitution often gets in the way of surveillance of individuals that the government already knows are guilty, so it grants the “legal” right to the Justice Department (another somewhat outdated name, similar to the Department of Defense) to conduct “searches that would be denied as unconstitutional by any conventional court”.

OK, so maybe in extreme cases, the government needs to just get some information, any way it can (just playing the devil’s advocate here, I think that argument is garbage). How many cases can they possibly process? “This court has never rejected an application for surveillance despite more than 1,000 such applications each year.” In, fact, “FISA eavesdropping orders now outnumber conventional ones.” It sounds like the Justice Department already has some pretty fair running room for getting around the Fourth Amendment. You’d think that would be enough. You’d be wrong.

And even the fact that no request has ever been turned down keeps the Justice Department honest. They’re doing everything they can to keep a perfect record. “[An] opinion released Thursday details more than 75 cases in which the Justice Department supplied false information to the court to carry out secret searches.” And remember, these are the cases in which they’ve actually admitted to lying.

Now, just having this court is not enough for Ashcroft’s Justice Department. He wants to be able to funnel more “criminals”, terrorists and probably those pesky communists (though their danger seems to be all but forgotten, huge as that threat was in the 20th century) into this court:

“Most alarming is the disclosure of a plan by Ashcroft to change the role of the court in spying on citizens. Not only would the court no longer have foreign intelligence gathering as its primary purpose, but Ashcroft’s prosecutors would be in direct control of the use and dissemination of information gathered on citizens. … The plan would allow a greater array of cases to bypass the federal courts, be exempted from basic constitutional requirements and then be handled in total secrecy.”

These are the wonderful secret searches that were so broadened by the Patriot Act signed in 2001. These are the searches of which you don’t even have to notified, you don’t have to see a warrant, you don’t have to even know you’re suspected. It clears up the whole “accountability” issue nicely for a fascist government.

“Under FISA, a team can enter your home, quickly scrub your computer, wire your house, install a device to record every keystroke on your computer and rifle your files. There is little deterrent of abusive action because the victims are unaware that their privacy has been invaded.”

There is good news. Ashcroft’s attempt to change the FISA court “to be used primarily for a law-enforcement purpose and not its original foreign intelligence-gathering purpose.” was rejected by the court itself, who “refused to sign on to such an interpretation and refused to allow the expanded use of FISA material”. Also, the fact that the court broke its customary silence and “released this opinion” should be taken as a “warning to citizens” that this administration is still doing what all adminstrations inevitably do: try to hold onto power, in whatever manner they can. So far, these are just the attempts at expanding legal, or sanctioned power. Who knows what illegal grabs at power are coming (or have already occurred)?