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With regard to (1), the FISA court has carved out an exception to the Fourth Amendment Power is not given to the courts to make new law. The legal contortions

• s_q_b 13y ago
  "Power is not given to the courts to make new law. The legal contortions required to twist the intent and letter of the Fourth Amendment so that it agrees with NSA, without making new law would be obscene." Unfortunately that's exactly what happened. When the government went to the FISA court and asked for approval to conduct broad monitoring, the FISA court ruled that such monitoring, so long as it was limited to metadata and used for certain purposes, was exempt from the Fourth Amendment under the "special needs" doctrine. The case they relied upon was Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives Association, not Skillman as previously stated, which involved drug testing of Federal railway workers. There the court ruled that, given the overriding interest of protecting public safety, limited encroachments upon personal freedoms were not violative of the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on "unreasonable" searches. Basically, the FISA court is writing its own Fourth Amendment jurisprudence in secret, which can't be effectively challenged by surveillance targets as they lack standing in the courts to sue. Here's a nice summary from the NYT: http://http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/us/in-secret-court-vastly-broadens-powers-of-nsa.html http://http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/us/in-secret-court-...