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FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

nytimes.com

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Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#51

Post by schoen »

rtpg wrote: post #26
3pt14159 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the FISA court has been called an "almost parallel supreme court" by the New York Times, and given that it only hears one side of a case, makes this all the more troubling.

people have talked about only hearing one side of the case, but that's the same for all warrant proceedings. FISA court isn't about declaring people guilty, it's about declaring whether there's reasonable suspicion.

On the other hand, we do have expiry (by default) of the secrecy surrounding regular warrants when they're executed, plus the ability to challenge them at trial and in appellate proceedings, with the result that there's an enormous amount of regular case law about them, even though all of them were originally issued ex parte.

So that is very different.

The main exception that we know about in the regular criminal justice system has been cell site simulators and cell site location information, where the government tried super-hard to prevent people from knowing that this information was being collected or challenging its collection or use.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#52

Post by ikeboy »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #49
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you from first hand experience that getting a warrant TO the FISA court from a sponsoring agency is a massive bureaucratic battle in and of itself. Reason being, the agency powers that be don't want to send something up that will be disapproved because it takes significant time and effort of general counsel and leadership of these agencies to process, implement and track to maintain compliance - even if th…

So, it's OK that the court is effectively a rubber-stamp, because we can trust that the agencies requesting warrants won't ask for things they don't think are reasonable? No.

I believe you misunderstood him. He seems to be saying that almost no invalid requests were submitted, because there was a rigorous review before submission. The court might not be a rubber-stamp, but the agencies happened to only send reasonable requests, so they got approved.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#53

Post by bazillion »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #42
dmix wrote: post #9

Just a reminder about FISA's historical performance: > Between 2001 and 2012, the FISA judges approved 20,909 surveillance and property search warrants - an average of 33 a week. During that 12-year period, the judges denied just 10 applications. Prosecutors withdrew another 26 applications. > From 2007 to 2012, FISA judges also approved 532 "business record" warrant applications, the category used in the order that…

I can tell you from first hand experience that getting a warrant TO the FISA court from a sponsoring agency is a massive bureaucratic battle in and of itself. Reason being, the agency powers that be don't want to send something up that will be disapproved because it takes significant time and effort of general counsel and leadership of these agencies to process, implement and track to maintain compliance - even if th…

This is exactly the case. The reason there are almost no denials is that there would have been a great amount of due diligence performed to ensure that FISA collection was warranted. The fact that there are any denials after such analytic rigor takes place, suggests that the FISA court is not a rubber stamp.

Every single year people who are read onto FISA must complete a comprehensive course on how to deal with FISA data, and it's not taken lightly. People lose their job over mishandling of this type of data, for reasons such as: poor query construction, failure to timely delete accidental collection on US Persons, or collecting without prior justification.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#54

Post by caskance »

fru2013 wrote: post #13

I personally think that creating laws to prevent government surveillance is a pointless endeavor. The NSA has ignored and broken laws in the past, why would we expect them to follow new ones that are passed? The only way to prevent surveillance is with a technical solution (encryption), not a legal solution (more laws).

Encryption does not prevent surveillance, it just means surveillance changes to more watching people and devices and less watching traffic. You can use all the end to end encryption you want, it does you no good when the ends are insecure.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#55

Post by rayiner »

joshuak wrote: post #43
rtpg wrote: post #33

The reasoning here is pretty sound: - In any case the USA FREEDOM Act explicitly rules out bulk collection by the NSA in 6 months ( it's done by the phone companies afterwards, not sure if that's really any better) - The Second Circuit ruled that Section 215 of the Patriot Act was not intended to allow for mass surveillance. But they did not issue an injunction, saying that further action is dependent on the USA FREE…

And yet how does the FISA court have jurisdiction in the matter at all? My understanding was that the FISA court existed solely for the purpose of evaluating the validity of warrants that if applied for in a general court would prove a natural security risk.

The FISA court does not handle criminal warrants. It was created to add a layer of judicial oversight for foreign power surveillance activities that previously did not require warrants.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#57

Post by anigbrowl »

fru2013 wrote: post #13

I personally think that creating laws to prevent government surveillance is a pointless endeavor. The NSA has ignored and broken laws in the past, why would we expect them to follow new ones that are passed? The only way to prevent surveillance is with a technical solution (encryption), not a legal solution (more laws).

Don't look to technical solutions for human problems. You'll be disappointed.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#58

Post by AndrewKemendo »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #49
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you from first hand experience that getting a warrant TO the FISA court from a sponsoring agency is a massive bureaucratic battle in and of itself. Reason being, the agency powers that be don't want to send something up that will be disapproved because it takes significant time and effort of general counsel and leadership of these agencies to process, implement and track to maintain compliance - even if th…

So, it's OK that the court is effectively a rubber-stamp, because we can trust that the agencies requesting warrants won't ask for things they don't think are reasonable? No.

I'm not saying anything about how much trust you should put in the system, rather that the review process is significantly more in depth than what these statistics can show.

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#59

Post by lesmiserable »

bazillion wrote: post #53
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you from first hand experience that getting a warrant TO the FISA court from a sponsoring agency is a massive bureaucratic battle in and of itself. Reason being, the agency powers that be don't want to send something up that will be disapproved because it takes significant time and effort of general counsel and leadership of these agencies to process, implement and track to maintain compliance - even if th…

This is exactly the case. The reason there are almost no denials is that there would have been a great amount of due diligence performed to ensure that FISA collection was warranted. The fact that there are any denials after such analytic rigor takes place, suggests that the FISA court is not a rubber stamp. Every single year people who are read onto FISA must complete a comprehensive course on how to deal with FISA…

The issue seems to be what is considered warranted/justified. Legal vs Moral

If the rules/procedures/expectations are well defined, one will attain a great rate of success simply by virtue of having a system which can be predicted ( failing candidates early, prior to submission ). This doesn't mean that the system is a rubber stamp, simply that it is reasonably consistent and that the expectations are clear.

This view of rigor/justice contradicts perhaps a common sense understanding which could be rephrased perhaps along the lines of 'should this be warranted/justified?'

It is frustrating perhaps as a result of this mismatch.

How many people are denied marriage applications?

Yet, recently with Marriage Equality...

Re: FISA court rules NSA can resume bulk data collection

#60

Post by coldtea »

r00fus wrote: post #50
dmix wrote: post #9

Just a reminder about FISA's historical performance: > Between 2001 and 2012, the FISA judges approved 20,909 surveillance and property search warrants - an average of 33 a week. During that 12-year period, the judges denied just 10 applications. Prosecutors withdrew another 26 applications. > From 2007 to 2012, FISA judges also approved 532 "business record" warrant applications, the category used in the order that…

> In a statement, he said: "The perception that the court is a rubber stamp is absolutely false." Is it me? I just hear Nixon saying "I'm not a crook"...

Or "Read my lips. There will be no new taxes".

Given the track record, I wonder what kind of mindset it takes for people who still believe official statements of that kind.

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