4 ms·
Securing a warrant for domestic surveillance is incredibly trivial. "Before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the NSA went to the FISA court for war
by mushbino 4y ago
Securing a warrant for domestic surveillance is incredibly trivial.
"Before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the NSA went to the FISA court for warrants to eavesdrop on American citizens within the United States. Since the FISA court began meeting in 1979, it has approved almost 20,000 government requests for these electronic eavesdropping warrants and has rejected about five. The NSA does not need a warrant to eavesdrop on communications outside the country."
https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-22-3-c-the-national-security-agency-warrantless-wiretaps#:~:text=The%20NSA's%20Warrantless%20Wiretap%20Program&text=Before%20the%20terrorist%20attacks%20on,citizens%20within%20the%20United%20States https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-22-3-c....
- tptacek 4y agoIt would be more worrisome if the DOJ or NSA was routinely losing warrant applications in court; it would imply that they were taking flyers, rather than carefully documenting their targets and the rationale for surveillance. I'm not arguing that FISA warrants aren't abused, or that NSA couldn't get a warrant for a ham sandwich; I'm only saying that we probably can't learn much from their win count in court, since it's directionally what we'd hope it would be (I don't know if 20,000 is a lot or a little, and certainly we could debate that number).