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Has FISA-authorized surveillance been found constitutional?

by ISL 14y ago

tptacek 14y ago
It's never come before SCOTUS directly (a technical question about whether lawyers can speculatively sue for information about specific cases was heard in October and will be decided next year) but has survived in lower courts. I'm obviously not an expert but the odds seem very high that warrantless electronic surveillance of specific foreign targets will be found constitutional; warrantless searches of Americans are constitutional in many circumstances. It's important to remember that "constitutional" is not a synonym for "correct". There's a lot of things we could do that are constitutional but ridiculous. Late edit: Note that while it's hard to find FISA case law, it's not as hard to find case law on the principles animating it. Here's SCOTUS, US v US District Court 1972: Moreover, we do not hold that the same type of standards and procedures prescribed by Title III are necessarily applicable to this case. We recognize that domestic security surveillance may involve different policy and practical considerations from the surveillance of "ordinary crime." The gathering of security intelligence is often long range and involves the interrelation of various sources and types of information. The exact targets of such surveillance may be more difficult to identify than in surveillance operations against many types of crime specified in Title III. Often, too, the emphasis of domestic intelligence gathering is on the prevention of unlawful activity or the enhancement of the Government's preparedness for some possible future crisis or emergency. Thus, the focus of domestic surveillance may be less precise than that directed against more conventional types of crime.
mtgx 14y ago
No, because it has been very hard to even get a lawsuit against it accepted, either because NSA or the White House tried to dismiss the cases because they don't have standing, because they can't prove NSA is spying on them, or by using the state secrets privilege. EFF has one case against it now: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/eff-government-state-secrets-jewel-nsa https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/eff-government-state-s...

Has FISA-authorized surveillance been found constitutional?

by ISL 14y ago

Has FISA-authorized surveillance been found constitutional?

It's never come before SCOTUS directly (a technical question about whether lawyers can speculatively sue for information about specific cases was heard in October and will be decided next year) but has survived in lower courts. I'm obviously not an expert but the odds seem very high that warrantless electronic surveillance of specific foreign targets will be found constitutional; warrantless searches of Americans are constitutional in many circumstances. It's important to remember that "constitutional" is not a synonym for "correct". There's a lot of things we could do that are constitutional but ridiculous. Late edit: Note that while it's hard to find FISA case law, it's not as hard to find case law on the principles animating it. Here's SCOTUS, US v US District Court 1972: Moreover, we do not hold that the same type of standards and procedures prescribed by Title III are necessarily applicable to this case. We recognize that domestic security surveillance may involve different policy and practical considerations from the surveillance of "ordinary crime." The gathering of security intelligence is often long range and involves the interrelation of various sources and types of information. The exact targets of such surveillance may be more difficult to identify than in surveillance operations against many types of crime specified in Title III. Often, too, the emphasis of domestic intelligence gathering is on the prevention of unlawful activity or the enhancement of the Government's preparedness for some possible future crisis or emergency. Thus, the focus of domestic surveillance may be less precise than that directed against more conventional types of crime.

mtgx 14y ago

No, because it has been very hard to even get a lawsuit against it accepted, either because NSA or the White House tried to dismiss the cases because they don't have standing, because they can't prove NSA is spying on them, or by using the state secrets privilege. EFF has one case against it now: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/eff-government-state-secrets-jewel-nsa https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/eff-government-state-s...