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Secret Court: Government Lied to Get Wiretaps Approved 377

Posted by michael from the blindfolded-and-wielding-a-sword dept.
Paersona writes "Ever wonder what Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is doing to pass the time while she waits for the next step in the Microsoft case? Apparently she is now serving as the lead justice of the FISA court that oversees intelligence agencies' requests for domestic wiretapping. Today, the Washington Post reveals that the FISA court has released a rare public report rebuking the FBI and Justice Department for their handling of wiretap requests." The New York Times also has a story about the FISA court. The court's opinion is available.
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Secret Court: Government Lied to Get Wiretaps Approved More

Secret Court: Government Lied to Get Wiretaps Approved

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  • Hmmmmm....the FBI which holds american citizens without charge, denies them bail or access to a lawyer all based on secret evidence has been slapped on the hand for their tactics by....wait for it....that's right. A SECRET COURT!? Be very afraid......
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • The "secret court" isn't a big deal. Governments deal with classified information. The secret court is the one with the judges that have a security clearance to hear this stuff.

      Be glad we actually have a separate branch of gov't looking over their shoulder.

      Some secrets *ARE* necessary, for the protection of National Security. However, too many politicians confuse "National Security" with "my career" and "protection" with "embarassment".

  • For perspective... (Score:5, Informative)

    by chill ( 34294 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @09:30AM (#4125796) Journal
    More wiretap requets were approved under the Clinton administration (8 years) than under the Reagan and Bush (the first) combined (12 years).

    Reagan's excuse was the War on Communism. Clinton's was the War on Drugs. GW's is going to be the War on Terrorism.

    BTW, we *ARE* talking about wiretaps on U.S. citizens and on U.S. soil. The CIA has jurisdiction for foreign nationals and there is a much less stringent procedure. (i.e. -- insert tape, push "record")
    • I wonder if you compared year by year, you'd find it's a continuously increasing trend. It wouldn't suprise me.

      • Re:For perspective... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by chill ( 34294 )
        Me neither, but not if you go back far enough.

        The number of wiretaps used by J. Edgar Hoover to root out Communists, M.L. King and supporters, Jews and anyone else JEH didn't like was a huge number.

        There were less oversights then, though.

        Still, it wouldn't surprise me if G.W. is going for a record.
      • > I wonder if you compared year by year, you'd find it's a continuously increasing trend. It wouldn't suprise me.

        Same here. But I'd be on the lookout for bogus statistic use. The population of the US continues to grow. If 1% of the population is under surveillance, the number of wiretaps will grow.

        There's also a very real factor, of course, which is that the amount of effort required to do a wiretap has decreased.

        That's Moore's Law in action - in the 50s, it meant wires clipped onto wires, and a G-Man with a pair of headphones, writing stuff down in real time, and/or using a big clunky tape recorder.

        Today, it's a hard drive and a few keystrokes in the phone company switching office, and one guy can probably skim through the audio stream ("just ordering a pizza", "whups, phone sex, gotta save that one for after work!", "hey, there's something interesting!") of 4-5 suspects the way you and I flip through a playlist of MP3z.

        Ten years from now, it'll be an AI-holocube and a guy asking the AI-cube "So, did any of my 500 suspects make phone calls to anyone else's suspects today", or "This guy's wanted for downloading MP3z. Over the past three years, cross-reference names of all bands he describes as 'cool', 'l33t', and 'kickass' with CD purchases from credit card records. Print me out a list of all bands he likes but doesn't own CDs of. And why are you denying me access to the phone sex, Holocube? I might need those in an investigation someday! For an AI, you've been a right bastard ever since I tried to keep tabs on my wife from the office. We used to be able to do that, you know!"

        Bottom line - expect the number of wiretaps to increase with the number of suspects an individual officer can keep under surveillance at any given time.

        Given the alternative - hiring hundreds of thousands of officers to do it the Old-Fashioned Way, wasting billions of tax dollars in the process, and the risks that come with the addition of hundreds of thousands of (corruptible, and often corrupt) humans to the system, I'd prefer the all-seeing holocubes that only answer what they're allowed to answer.

    • Why is ths news. "The governmet lied...". Now, it would be news if they didn't...

    • Re:For perspective... (Score:4, Informative)

      by shaldannon ( 752 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @10:25AM (#4126099) Homepage
      From what I read of the article it sounded like the concern *was* that "insert tape, push record" evidence was being acquired from NSA/CIA/etc and used in FBI investigations and (later) in court.

      Still, I'm bothered by the ongoing trend I see here. We have cross-pollenation of surveilance info amongst the three-letter-agencies, we have things like Carnivore and Magic Lantern, and we've seen the FBI use its power irresponsibly in the cases of the Branch Davidians and others.

      While I don't necessarily agree with the ideas of those sorts of people that find themselves under government scrutiny (cults (define cult please...), militia groups, etc), I think we've seen plenty enough evidence that certain government agencies, particularly under the Clinton administration, were running out of control. (I am libertarian, so this is not good old fashioned Republican-beats-up-on-Democrat).

      The other thing that bothers me is that we know there is a secret court reviewing this sort of stuff...what is going on that we don't know about and may not be subject to review (besides IRS audits)?
      • Several books have reported the standard "trick" of the CIA/NSA listening to a foreign national talking to a U.S. national, then passing the info on to the FBI. This allows the FBI to get around the surveillance laws because they didn't do the tap.

        As far as a "secret" court. Again, the court itself isn't a secret, the material is. The judges need security clearance to review the material. Not everything should be made public on a whim.

        At least the Judicial Branch is exercizing SOME oversight on the Executive Branch -- like they are supposed to.
    • I smell lying with statistics here.

      First question: how many PEOPLE were those wiretaps approved for? After all, a single person often has more than one phone, and every phone line requires another wiretap request. Back in the day (pre AT&T breakup, which quite possibly happened before most slashdotters were alive), getting a new phone line took a hell of a long time. Now, I can get a new land line in a week, and a new cell phone in an hour. Each one would require a new wiretap request. If I know this, so do drug dealers, mafioso, and terrorists.

      Second question: Is the number of PEOPLE getting wiretaps going up RELATIVE TO THE POPULATION of the country? There are something like 20 million more people in the US than there were when Regan started his presidency.

      Once we have normalized the data, we can properly evaluate the hysteria. My guess is that you'll get far different results when you think about what the raw numbers mean, but that doesn't advance the "government bad" agenda of some people, so scare numbers are used instead.

      -jon

      • Not quite. Multiple phone requests for the same person doesn't usually get through, from what I have heard. The big problem is the more phones you tap, the bigger the chance of getting unintended "non-targets" in the mix -- which results in a big problem.

        The law states that when a judge authorizes a wiretap, they are also supposed to monitor the way in which things are done. This would create a major paperwork problem, and end up with a lot of info thrown out due to "non-target" intercepts.

        BUT, all that is conjecture as I can't find the articles/stats I've seen to back it up. What CAN I document...

        PER CAPITA intercepts

        1988 = 738 wiretap requests (Reagan 2nd term starts)
        1998 = 1,329 wiretap requests (Clinton 2nd term)

        Using your number of 20 Million more people -- only 'cause I'm too lazy to look up the exact figure -- that would be a population increase of about 8-9%.

        A 738 + 9% = 804, which is a FAR CRY from 1,329. That is a 55% increase, if my math is correct.

        Check out this site [cdt.org] for a good summary. It also has links to an "authoritative" site -- the U.S. Court System webpage and the officially published stats.

        What you smell isn't B.S. "hysterical" stats, it is the B.S. spread telling you Big Brother is doing this for our own good -- stop questioning the gov't.
        • And I don't buy your figures. Court orders for wire taps on cell phones (and pagers and email) are increasing rapidly:

          Wiretaps on cell phones, pagers, e-mail and other electronic communication devices nearly tripled in 1998 and, for the first time, wiretaps on cellular phones outnumbered wiretaps on conventional phones. (USA Today)

          Pagers might have been common in 1988, but not cell phones. That means you might get 2 wire taps per person. But now, you'd get at least 4, with little fear of "non-targets"; after all, a cell phone and an email address are considered pretty personal items.

          What you're talking about is putting a wire tap on a family member's phone. This is problematic. On a cell phone? Not an issue.

          Until you tell me how many PEOPLE wiretaps were issued for, I'm going to not put any creedance in those numbers. If you do and the figures show some sort of impressive jump, then I'll be worried.

          See, that's called being rational. When people start mumbling about "Big Brother" then I start doubting their rationality.

          -jon

        • So I went to the site you suggested, and it pretty much contradicts what you are saying.

          First of all, the number of wire taps DROPPED from 1350 to 1190 between 1999 and 2000. What happened, did Big Brother give everyone time off for subservient behavior?

          Secondly, despite your claim that there' s a lot of concern about "non-targets", virtally no wire taps were refused between 1996 and 2000 (3; 2 in 1998 and 1 in 1996). Only 23% of the conversations taped were "incriminating" and 196 people were intercepted on the average wire tap. Whose concern are you talking about, exactly?

          Now, as for the number of people who are targets of these wire taps. Well, I can't find an exact number, but there is an interesting table that shows the arrests and convictions that came from the use of wire taps. While the number of wire taps has gone up, more or less, the number of convictions is sorta going up, but not so convincingly. The number of convictions from wire taps have gone (from 1990 to 2000) 1734, 2084, 2234, 2358, 2535, 2910, 2302, 2395, 2721, 1977, 736. The figures are tricky to work with, because as time goes on, you can get more arrests and convictions; for example, one person was arrested in 2000 based on a wire tap in 1990.

          The data also shows a ratio of more than one conviction per wire tap (except in 2000, presumably because many of these cases were still in trial when the statistics were being collected). Now we need to take the above numbers, compare them to the number of overall wiretap, figure in population growth, and we'll get an idea of what's going on with the use of wire tapping.

          You can find this table at http://www.uscourts.gov/wiretap00/table900.pdf and many other wiretaps statistics at http://www.uscourts.gov/wiretap00/contents.html

          Another chart breaks out the types of wiretaps issued. Unfortunately, cell phones aren't broken out from other kinds of phones, but oral and electronic (pager, fax, email) are. There were 71 "combination" wire taps, which means a wire tap that fell into more than one of the three categories.

          And, as a final bit of info, in 2000, of the 1139 wiretaps requested, only 472 were by the feds. So everyone worried about John Ashcroft and the FBI should really be looking at their friendly cop on the beat.

          Amazing things, numbers.

          -jon

          • Amazing things, numbers.

            And for a more amazing thing, the official federal numbers say 1139 wiretaps in 2000, while the watchdog report says 1190, which explains why I have one number at the top of my post and another at the bottom. I think the feds might be right on this one.

            -jon

          • I used 1988 - 1998 simply because it was a 10 year span. Yes, I'm aware of a slight decrease in 1999 and a bigger one in 2000. The overall trend is pretty a steep climb when graphed as raw requests.

            What is the ratio of phones/person in 1988 vs 1998? I don't know, but it probably increased substantially with the proliferation of cell phones. However, pagers did decrease and it wouldn't surprise me if it was a similar amount.

            The number of convictions per wiretap SHOULD be > 1, since at LEAST two people are going to be on the phone. In any "organized" crime effort, odds are there is more than 2 people involved. You don't have to actually be on the phone yourself to have an arrest linked to a tap -- simply having your name mentioned would be good enough.

            Yes, most (almost all) wiretaps requested of the courts are approved. I was referring to the internal process of an agent (FBI, police, etc.) going to his boss and saying "tap so-and-so" and the boss saying "do you have probably cause to believe a felony is being committed/planned/etc". Everything isn't fed up the chain. If it gets as far as the Judge, and they err on the side of the good guys, most SHOULD get approved.

            As far as only 472 of 1139 being requested by the Feds. That is a useless statistic. I never claimed only the FBI and Ashcroft needed watching -- anyone with the power to spy on U.S. citizens needs watching. Also, the FBI frequently works WITH local agencies -- who frequently fill out the forms. The FBI is by no means large enough to be everywhere -- nor should they be. We have local/State police for a reason.

            My ultimate point is -- we have three branches of gov't for a reason. Oversight of one by the others is a critical part of our gov'ts design. We do NOT need to loosen the rules for spying on our own citizens. Judicial oversight is NECESSARY to protect the freedoms of Americans.

            Gov't OF the people, BY the people, FOR the people, remember?


    • > Reagan's excuse was the War on Communism. Clinton's was the War on Drugs. GW's is going to be the War on Terrorism.

      The problem with democracy is that you eventually get the kind of government the voters deserve.

      With elections coming up in 2-3 months we've already been treated to six months of ads for politicians promising to throw more people in jail. When have you ever seen a politician run on a platform of keeping innocent people out of jail, or of cutting back on the state spying on it's own citizens, which it is supposedly "of the, by the, and for the"?

  • Da Motts (Score:4, Informative)

    by realgone ( 147744 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @09:33AM (#4125813)
    Can anyone find a link to the document the court released yesterday?
    You mean this link on the same page as the Washington Post article? =)

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/tr anscripts/fisa_opinion.pdf [washingtonpost.com]

  • Good sign (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DoctorFrog ( 556179 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @09:36AM (#4125825)
    This is a good sign that Kotar-Kotelly isn't afraid to take on the current powers that be. Many people, even ones with good track records, have taken up a don't-rock-the-boat attitude since you know when. It's good to see that it hasn't hit K-K. If she's willing to stand up to the PATRIOT-enabled FBI, it bodes well for her honesty in the Microsoft case.
    • Judge Kotar-Kotelly is one of the powers-that-be. The FISA court seems to be doing what it's supposed to do, and playing a little politics in the press by releasing this report. Good for them.

  • Slashdot should interview Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by emil ( 695 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @09:36AM (#4125829)

    This woman seems to wield a lot of power over both individual citizens and major corporations. I would like to know more about her.

    • Re:Slashdot should interview Colleen Kollar-Kotell (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Col. Klink (retired) ( 11632 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @09:49AM (#4125905)
      Y'know, if Judge Jackson had NOT given interviews, the MS case might have been finalized by now. The appellate courts didn't overturn his Findings of Facts or guilty verdit. They didn't even say that his penalty was inappropriate. They merely said that his penalty *appeared* to be biased, based soley on the fact that he given interviews before the case was over.
      • Y'know, if Judge Jackson had NOT given interviews, the MS case might have been finalized by now. The appellate courts didn't overturn his Findings of Facts or guilty verdit. They didn't even say that his penalty was inappropriate. They merely said that his penalty *appeared* to be biased, based soley on the fact that he given interviews before the case was over.

        Actually, they overturned quite a few of his rulings, but they decided not to throw out the Findings of Fact (which MS asked them to do). They ruled that the DoJ didn't make a strong enough case for several of the 'guilty' verdicts that Jackson handed down, and that the appearance of bias was reason enough to remove him from the case, and they overturned Jackson's Final Judgment. Furthermore, of those portions that were not outright overturned, many portions of the case are 'on remand', meaning that those portions of the case must be reheard before another ruling can be made based on those portions of the case (and as of yet they have not been).

        As for the penalty:
        We vacate the District Court's remedies decree for the additional reason that the court has failed to provide an adequate explanation for the relief it ordered. ...
        The District Court has not explained how its remedies decree would accomplish those objectives. Indeed, the court devoted a mere four paragraphs of its order to explaining its reasons for the remedy.

        Check for yourself (PDF) [uscourts.gov] It's in section V.

        Followed by Section VI. Judicial Misconduct: ... Section 455(a) of the Judicial Code requires judges to recuse themselves when their "impartiality might reasonably be questioned." ...
        All indications are that the District Judge violated each of these ethical precepts by talking about the case with reporters. The violations were deliberate, repeated, egregious, and flagrant.

        (emphasis added)

        I really wish more people would at least get a good first-hand overview of the 125 page document before they try to state what the court did and did not say. They might also understand why the DoJ changed their tune so quickly after the appeal if they looked over the portions of the case that were thrown out or remanded.

    • Re:Slashdot should interview Colleen Kollar-Kotell (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @10:23AM (#4126086) Homepage
      She's an Capricorn, a natural blond with a GSOH, and her turns ons include long moonlit walks, back rubs, and putting the fear of god into arrogant, power abusing men.

  • Amazingly enough... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gilroy ( 155262 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @09:39AM (#4125844) Homepage Journal
    ... this shows that the rule of law is not dead in the United States, despite previous appearances. It's some of the best legal news since 9/11 -- not that the FBI overstepped its bounds (which could be expected) but that a court preemptively slapped them down for it.


    Sometimes I feel that the federal judiciary is the only place that "gets it" about fundamental American rights and legal traditions. Then, of course, I think of Judge Kaplan and I get depressed again.

    • I have been feeling very bitter of late, watching the slide of America from democracy to corporate oligarchy and, finally toward corporate faschism.

      So much so that I have been seriously considering emigration, and have been giving a lot of thought to what metric I would use to determine the "drop dead" (ie. okay, no more delays, time to go) moment.

      But this ruling is a rare breath of fresh air, and restores some of my faith in our tattered civil institutions. Not a great deal, mind you, but some. It is freightening to have two of the three branches of governmetn (legislative and executive) willfully and knowingly ignore the constitution in the persuit of their goals (howerver laudable [the eradication of terrorism] or despicable [the introduction of digital prohibition to prop up the media and copyright cartels]), but not nearly as freightening as it would be if all three branches had chosen to shred that venerable document ... something all too many lower courts have seemed to be willing to do in any case regarding the aformentioned media cartels. Like you, I think of Judge Kaplan, or the supreme court's repayment of political debts to The Shrub in the last election, and my moment of optomism fades.

      Nevertheless, this was a courageous and important act. A few more like this and we might actually save and reclaim our democracy. The odds are long, mind you, but the goal well worth persuing anyway.
      • I have been feeling very bitter of late, watching the slide of America from democracy to
        corporate oligarchy and, finally toward corporate faschism.

        I don't think the nature of American government has been changing, just that the amount of ugliness that we're able to see in it has been growing. It's a trend that really took off with Watergate, a whole generation ago, and still continues today.

        The good news is that exposing corruption in malfeasance in government is the first step towards reducing it.

    • Sometimes I feel that the federal judiciary is the only place that "gets it" about fundamental American rights and legal traditions.

      The politicians find it profitable to alienate the citizens' inalienable rights, but the judiciary is expected to observe a higher standard than merely serving corporate masters.
    • It's all about how they are selected.

      We select the people in executive and legislative branches, based upon how good they are at selling out. It sounds ridiculous, but it's true: the less trustworthy they are, they more we want them. It's because we still stupidly watch TV to be marketed their candidates, and the way to get on TV is to have lots of money, and the easiest way to have lots of money is to sell out.

      When there are chokepoints (I hesitate to call them "monopolies") on one-to-many communication (candidates talking to voters), then democracy is its own enemy.

  • Non-NYTimes story Links (Score:5, Informative)

    by uncleFester ( 29998 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @09:40AM (#4125850) Homepage Journal
    Found these via Drudge [drudgereport.com]...

    Special Court Rejects Ashcroft Rules [washingtonpost.com] and Secret Court Rebuffs Ashcroft [washingtonpost.com] (related to the main story).

    And from the second story... "The department discovered the misrepresentations and reported them to the FISA court beginning in 2000.".. which means the improper actions occured before 2000.. i.e. Before Bush. So Bush/Ashcroft are not responsible for those infractions.

    Having said that (and despite being a conservative), I do hope these revalations reign in some of the trampling of civil liberties Ashcroft/Bush are considering. I fully understand their desire to fight terrorism, and I understand some liberties we were used to in the past may be crimped in the process. But eliminated? Virtually removed? A number of their proposals (and some things currently put in place) are simply troubling and I hope this is a wake-up call they cannot simply trample over the Constitution in the name of protecting the public. Freedom is not without its risks, either to those who defend it or the society which enjoys it. We all simply need to be aware of that risk and vigilant in our own way to insure we don't lose our freedom to either the terrorist, the criminal or our own government.

    (and no, I don't get my music via gnutella either)

    -'fester
    • From the Times article:
      At a forum in April at the University of Texas, Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who recently stepped down as the court's presiding judge, praised Attorney General John Ashcroft and his staff for ending abuses of the system for requesting wiretap authority.

    • Re:Non-NYTimes story Links (Score:5, Insightful)

      by j3110 ( 193209 ) <samterrell&gmail,com> on Friday August 23, 2002 @10:09AM (#4126001) Homepage
      > before 2000

      What do you smoke? well, maybe you actually missed it, but in that first link, it states that the court was upset with how the FBI acted in about 75 cases occuring in 2000 and 2001, not before 2000. Just because a good guy in the mix pointed it quickly, doesn't mean that all the abuse occured before the investigation began. Why is it that everyone is eager to blame the problem on someone else? The FBI is historically corrupt. That's why people don't like the Patriot ACT. Hoover abused his power as the head of the FBI, and no one trusts them til this day. After this ruling, we now know it's for good reason. They use any means available to them whether it's ammoral, unethical, or even illegal for their own agenda.
      • >maybe you actually missed it, but in that first link, it states that the court was upset with how the FBI acted in about 75 cases occuring in 2000 and 2001, not before 2000

        If you actually read the opinion [washingtonpost.com] (page 16), you'll find: "In September 2000, the government came forward to confess error in some 75 FISA applications." So, presumably, those 75 errors occurred in 2000 or before.

  • Aren't we at all concerned... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by program21 ( 469995 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @09:41AM (#4125861) Homepage Journal
    with the fact that a secret court exists and issues wiretaps authorizations?

  • The System Works? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jweb ( 520801 ) <jweb68 AT hotmail DOT com> on Friday August 23, 2002 @09:42AM (#4125867)
    "We believe the court's action unnecessarily narrowed the Patriot Act and limited our ability to fully utilize the authority Congress gave us," the Justice Department said in a statement.

    So, in other words, Congress (Legislative Branch) attempted to give additional (unconstitutional?) power to the Justice Department (Executive Branch), and this power was taken away by the court (Judicial Branch). Apparently the system, corrupt and ineffective though it may be, actually DOES work sometimes.

    Now, if only we can get the DMCA overturned.....

  • The Government Lied? (Score:3, Funny)

    by wiredog ( 43288 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @09:44AM (#4125878) Journal
    No? Really? I am so surprised.
    • Robert Byrd, Dem Senator from West Virginia, had this to say about Bush's prospective attack on Iraq without a congressional declaration of war, and I paraphrase:

      "Sheep would not be so easily led to the slaughter if they knew to ask 'where are you taking us'... and could get an honest answer."

      Classic.

  • Shameful (Score:2, Informative)

    by Aknaton ( 528294 )
    It seems to me that the terrorist have already won, as we (the citizens of the U.S.) are so cowardly that we will give up our freedoms for a bit of safety. And anyone who thought that the government wouldn't eventually abuse its increased powers was naive.

  • It's all about TRUST (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Hurricane_Bill ( 96738 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @09:50AM (#4125911)
    Campaign finance reform, Corporate reform, Patriot act and similar legislation, our involvement in Israel/Palestine conflict...

    It's all about trust. Until issues of trust are resolved, we will never get anywhere. and remember that actions -should- speak louder than words.

    I'm glad that this judge has exposed these actions of the FBI. The next time the FBI says that it's ridiculous that any agent would abuse these broad powers given to them under the Patriot Act, we can just point to this example. The next time the FBI says that these powers are necessary in order to combat terrorism, just point to this example.

    -Sorry, you gotta earn my trust! and you haven't been doing a very good job (referring to this administration). Talk is cheap.
    • You said: Campaign finance reform, Corporate reform, Patriot act and similar legislation, our involvement in Israel/Palestine conflict...

      Gosh, these are all areas where government stuck its nose in it too often, and now the blowback comes to bite us.

      Pretty much why I'm a libertarian...

  • Gee, the system might work... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pease1 ( 134187 ) <bbunge@ladyandtr ... m minus language> on Friday August 23, 2002 @09:51AM (#4125923)
    I seem to remember slashdot reporting on FISA a few months back and the out cry on /. was that unless procedings were all public, the court was just a rubber stamp for the Justice Dept.

    Guess that hasn't been the case.

    Refreshing.

    • Re:Gee, the system might work... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by BeBoxer ( 14448 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @11:13AM (#4126449)
      the out cry on /. was that unless procedings were all public, the court was just a rubber stamp for the Justice Dept.

      The court might be slapping the FBI on the wrist, but there is no reason to believe that it isn't still a rubber stamp. From the article:



      A senior Justice Department official said that the FISA court has not curtailed any investigations that involved misrepresented or erroneous information, nor has any court suppressed evidence in any related criminal case.

      And

      Until the current dispute, the FISA court had approved all but one application sought by the government since the court's inception. Civil libertarians claim that record shows that the court is a rubber stamp for the government; proponents of stronger law enforcement say the record reveals a timid bureaucracy only willing to seek warrants on sure winners.

      But given the fact that the FBI was willing to give false information to FISA in order to obtain warrants, I think we can file the "timid bureaucracy" claim under bullshit.

  • Not surprising (Score:2, Interesting)

    by AAAWalrus ( 586930 )
    This is hardly surprising, considering the FBI and Justice Department have always seen the ends to justify the means. The Justice Department, FBI, and CIA have always looked for loopholes in the law, pushed the limits of the constitution, and flat out broken the law in attempts to circumvent our right to privacy in order to obtain information about people. They seem to think that they have a right to know anything about any person at any point in time, and that their "right" to know pre-empts people's right to privacy because it's in the best interest of the country.

    If you write an email that suggests something unpopular, or that you have considered (but not taken) a particular course of action, should the government step in as a "preventative measure"? Common sense says no, but is there a case you can think of where the ends justify the means? Case in point:

    If the FBI had sought the right to tap the phones of the suicide bombers 3 days before Sept. 11th, but had no real evidence or reason to do this, could you have condoned it at the time, not knowing that it could have prevented the greatest domestic disaster in our lifetimes?

    Basically, government agencies have tried to prey on the fears of Americans after 9-11 in order to achieve the greater flexibility in domestic espionage that they have always sought. Are they justified? I say no, because I believe that our personal liberties are inalienable. But some people believe that the sacrifice of certain freedoms is preferable to living in fear.

    Thoughts?

    -AAAWalrus


    • > Basically, government agencies have tried to prey on the fears of Americans after 9-11 in order to achieve the greater flexibility in domestic espionage that they have always sought. Are they justified? I say no, because I believe that our personal liberties are inalienable. But some people believe that the sacrifice of certain freedoms is preferable to living in fear.

      And the irony is that 9-11 killed about as many people as we lose to motorcycle accidents every year, or to auto accidents every month [automag.com], but look at how people kick and scream and complain about the loss of trivial freedoms whenever the feds come out with a new highway safety regulation that causes a minor driving inconvenience or raises the price of a new car by a couple of hundred bucks.

  • ..for all those that say "no big deal"... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by presearch ( 214913 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @10:08AM (#4125996)
    from Orwell:
    "By comparison with that existing
    today, all the tyrannies of the past were half-hearted and
    inefficient. The ruling groups were always infected to some
    extent by liberal ideas, and were content to leave loose ends
    everywhere, to regard only the overt act and to be uninterested
    in what their subjects were thinking. Even the Catholic Church
    of the Middle Ages was tolerant by modern standards. Part of
    the reason for this was that in the past no government had the
    power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance. The
    invention of print, however, made it easier to manipulate
    public opinion, and the film and the radio carried the process
    further. With the development of television, and the technical
    advance which made it possible to receive and transmit
    simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an
    end. Every citizen, or at least every citizen important enough
    to be worth watching, could be kept for twentyfour hours a day
    under the eyes of the police and in the sound of official
    propaganda, with all other channels of communication closed.
    The possibility of enforcing not only complete obedience to the
    will of the State, but complete uniformity of opinion on all
    subjects, now existed for the first time."


    "All the beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental
    attitudes that characterize our time are really designed to
    sustain the mystique of the Party and prevent the true nature
    of present-day society from being perceived. Physical
    rebellion, or any preliminary move towards rebellion, is at
    present not possible. From the proletarians nothing is to be
    feared. Left to themselves, they will continue from generation
    to generation and from century to century, working, breeding,
    and dying, not only without any impulse to rebel, but without
    the power of grasping that the world could be other than it is.
    They could only become dangerous if the advance of industrial
    technique made it necessary to educate them more highly; but,
    since military and commercial rivalry are no longer important,
    the level of popu lar education is actually declining. What
    opinions the masses hold, or do not hold, is looked on as a
    matter of indifference. They can be granted intellectual
    liberty because they have no intellect. In a Party member, on
    the other hand, not even the smallest deviation of opinion on
    the most unimportant subject can be tolerated."

    • Didn't you hear, Fair use was revoked (Score:4, Funny)

      by The Optimizer ( 14168 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @01:06PM (#4127430)
      You can not quote exceprts from historically significant literature and use them to place relevant and insightful thoughts into the brains of other people (see 1984 EULA sec 256.1.0.2.4) even if said people have a valid license (to view and store in their short term memory only) the copyrighted material in question.

      You have been reported to the Book Publisher Industry Assosiation (BPIA) and will be prosecuted for copyright violations and failure to uphold corporate profits.

      Please stay by your computer while we send the authorities to pick you up for reeducation.
  • If you find out she's the judge in your case, cry. By the way she handles M$ and the DoJ, I'm guessing she wakes up every morning with the same thought on her mind: "Whose ass am I going to kick today?" Excellent work, Colleen!

  • ... and she's deciding whether or not to accept the DoJ's capitulation in the case against Microsoft. And Microsoft has gone on the record several times claiming that judges have no power over them. (I hear this tends to piss off judges.) Why am I starting to smile?
  • This is ALL about YRO. Today, it may be wiretapping, but I assure you, they are tapping other stuff. It is only a matter of time before the new McCarthyists are reading and listening to EVERYTHING we do.
  • OK, this is way offtopic, I'll admit.

    There has been a lot of discussion about refering to the New York Times for articles (due to the required registration), and the usual response is that the stories aren't available elsewhere.

    Now we have a story that is submitted coming from the WP, and Michael has to throw in an entirely gratuitous link to th NYT again. Time to stop refering to those twits!

    Come to think of it, my opinion of Michael goes down every time he adds something to a story, so much so that he's down to about 4JK[1] now. Time to start focusing on delivering the stories without the added commentary, Michael!

    Bah. End of rant. Thanks for reading.

    [1] The JK scale is a measure of an editor's relative worth vs. Jon Katz. All unknown editors start at 10JK (ten times as relevant, readable, and rational as J.K. himself) and move up or down, depending on performance. Once an editor drops below 2JK, he or she gets ignored.

  • Misstatements!=Crime? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sean Clifford ( 322444 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @12:04PM (#4126868) Journal
    the errors related to misstatements and omissions of material facts

    So that's what they're calling perjury, lies and fabrication of evidence? Why the hell haven't these agents been prosecuted?

    This is exactly why we should NEVER have secret courts and secret evidence. I can't friggin' believe this is being allowed to happen here.

  • President can make a mockery of the legal system - a system which serves as the foundation for our government, spawn a generation of kids who think that oral sex isn't sex, and not but three years later be entertaining contract offers that would make him the highest paid talkshow host in the history of television, this shouldn't surprise anyone. There's far too little accountability, and with respect to Clinton, absolutely no sense of shame.

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