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right, because the FIS judges who say no get fired. this is survivor bias in action. Congress and law enforcement are behaving as if the core problem facing th
by awinter-py 11y ago
right, because the FIS judges who say no get fired. this is survivor bias in action.
Congress and law enforcement are behaving as if the core problem facing the legal system is a new one, 'how do you catch criminals on tor'. Pro-privacy activists are saying it's 'how do you engineer the social contract to prevent rebellion' (i.e. the same problem legal systems have always faced).
In general, privacy rights and property rights are linked. It's not a coincidence that the brandeis paper which introduced privacy to american jurisprudence was phrased in the vocabulary of real estate & tresspass. It's no coincidence that large institutions that pay for things (home loan banks & health insurers) have an automatic right of tresspass in many cases.
It will be interesting to see if erosion of information privacy leads to erosion of property rights. You can argue that increasing police seizures is already a symptom of this. Let's cross our fingers that at the point where property rights are at risk, courts (the non-secret ones) will start doing their job again and reverse the balance.
- nxzero 11y agoAny evidence of mass social engineering?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- schoen 11y ago> right, because the FIS judges who say no get fired. this is survivor bias in action. Any indication that judges have ever been "fired" from the FISA Court? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court#Composition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig...
- rhino369 11y agoPlus they are federal judges. Even if they could be fired (I see no mechanism for that), they are still federal district court judges for life.
- awinter-py 11y agoThe judges take turns in one week duty cycles (http://fas.org/irp/news/2013/07/fisc-leahy.pdf http://fas.org/irp/news/2013/07/fisc-leahy.pdf). One can assume DOJ is smart enough to avoid the judge who says no. Page 8 of the PDF is worth a read. The head judge of the FISC is claiming that non-government entities have the opportunity to be heard by the court because they can (1) refuse a court order which (2) triggers a contempt hearing if (3) the DOJ permits it.
- schoen 11y ago> One can assume DOJ is smart enough to avoid the judge who says no. I can imagine that that happens to some extent, but it's quite a bit weaker than what you originally suggested (and maybe there are other factors that prevent or deter the applicants from exercising complete control over who reviews their applications).
- awinter-py 11y agoHmm, maybe. Given the court's secrecy and the general tendency of judges to defer to law enforcement on what constitutes an emergency, I assume there are cases where the gov't acts first and gets permission afterwards. If that's the case (and I recognize it's an if), and if every request is approved by the weak-willed judges (history suggests yes), then they have complete freedom to choose their judge.