FISC Chief Judge: We Can't Effectively Oversee the NSA 185
An anonymous reader writes "According to the Washington Post: 'The leader of the secret court that is supposed to provide critical oversight of the government's vast spying programs said that its ability to do so is limited and that it must trust the government to report when it improperly spies on Americans. The chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said the court lacks the tools to independently verify how often the government's surveillance breaks the court's rules that aim to protect Americans' privacy. Without taking drastic steps, it also cannot check the veracity of the government's assertions that the violations its staff members report are unintentional mistakes.' President Obama said in June, 'We also have federal judges that we've put in place who are not subject to political pressure. They've got lifetime tenure as federal judges, and they're empowered to look over our shoulder at the executive branch to make sure that these programs aren't being abused.' Not so much, Mr. President."
we don't have checks and balances (Score:5, Insightful)
we haven't had checks and balances in our government since the Gore V Bush decision, when Bush's dad's appointed supreme court ruled it's more important to abide by Florida's arbitrary date to count their votes than to count all the fucking votes using as much time as is necessary to insure an accurate count. why the fuck would anyone trust the US courts now? especially after the "corporations are people" decision.
Re:And the peices fall into place (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama delivered on the Transparency though, can see right through him
I Salute Your Courage! (Score:5, Insightful)
So, your honor, please tell us why you didn't bring these concerns to our attention before somebody with more guts than you'll ever have brought the matter up?
Hell, you probably could have brought these concerns up without even revealing anything classified, or breaking any rules. They probably didn't remember to make it a state secret that you have no oversight powers worth mentioning, so it would have been entirely licit for you to complain about that.
We might as well be honest here: Every day that you knew you had no oversight; but remained as a FISC justice, much less chief justice, you knowingly operated as a rubber stamp and a pitiful facade of rule of law. A rubber stamp for a program that you cannot have been stupid enough to think was entirely on the up-and-up. Unimpressive. Cowardly. Unworthy of your office.
Re:And the peices fall into place (Score:4, Insightful)
Is that a portmanteau of "repressive representative" government?
Re:Sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. .. they'll add more "oversight".
This'll just mean the republicans will get in next time with a landslide.
People who vote think the system works. Voting reinforces that.
All of this will be blamed on Obama... and the next government will make some visible but ineffective changes. After running on "ending the spying" or some such.
They won't abolish these programs or punish the illegal spying.
Re:They should just appoint a special investigator (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, I'm sure they'll pick someone from the NSA who will report to the NSA, and the report will be sealed and we'll get to watch a press conference where the President intones very seriously "I won't comment on the contents of the report, but suffice to say you can trust me and there's nothing to worry about."
Re:I Salute Your Courage! (Score:4, Insightful)
No, but what a judge can do if he feels that those laying out their case in front of him can do is refuse any ruling, or indeed throw out the request, if he feels he's been fed partial or incorrect knowledge.
Re:I Salute Your Courage! (Score:5, Insightful)
FISC judges, LIKE ALL JUDGES, are at the mercy of those walking into their court to provide them information
Then it wouldn't really be accurate to refer to that as "oversight", would it?
Re:And the peices fall into place (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't partisan hackery. Plenty of people who thought that Obama was going to make things better have been thoroughly disillusioned.