Trust us. Nothing to look at here…
Via PJ Media:
Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times has a shocking scoop on some of the secret decisions made by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that would indicate that there has been a fundamental shift in the government’s attitude toward 4th Amendment protections for American citizens.
A secret body of law has been built since 2010 that gives the government vast powers — all perfectly legal — to snoop on American citizens as long as the surveillance is connected to terrorism or some other national security issue.
The rulings, some nearly 100 pages long, reveal that the court has taken on a much more expansive role by regularly assessing broad constitutional questions and establishing important judicial precedents, with almost no public scrutiny, according to current and former officials familiar with the court’s classified decisions.
The 11-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as the FISA court, was once mostly focused on approving case-by-case wiretapping orders. But since major changes in legislation and greater judicial oversight of intelligence operations were instituted six years ago, it has quietly become almost a parallel Supreme Court, serving as the ultimate arbiter on surveillance issues and delivering opinions that will most likely shape intelligence practices for years to come, the officials said.
Last month, a former National Security Agency contractor, Edward J. Snowden, leaked a classified order from the FISA court, which authorized the collection of all phone-tracing data from Verizon business customers. But the court’s still-secret decisions go far beyond any single surveillance order, the officials said.
“We’ve seen a growing body of law from the court,” a former intelligence official said. “What you have is a common law that develops where the court is issuing orders involving particular types of surveillance, particular types of targets.”
In one of the court’s most important decisions, the judges have expanded the use in terrorism cases of a legal principle known as the “special needs” doctrine and carved out an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of a warrant for searches and seizures, the officials said.
An “exception” to the Fourth Amendment? Just when were they going to get around to telling us about that? And who died and made the FISA Court SCOTUS?