FISA Court Über Alles

Dear Mr. President,

“In Secret, Court Vastly Broadens Powers of N.S.A.” (today’s NY Times, p.A1) reveals that the FISA court has made secret laws, built a secret body of legal precedents, secretly exempted the NSA from most 4^th Amendment restrictions and has given the NSA powers the original Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act never intended. The court’s so secret that even where they meet in the Federal Courthouse in Washington is not revealed. The article calls the FISA court “almost a parallel Supreme Court” but the FISA court is not a real court, for they hear only one side—the government’s—which violates a fundamental tenet of American jurisprudence—adversarial arguments—and every decision, every finding, every interpretation of law is secret. This is the court you declared “transparent” on the Charlie Rose Show a few Mondays ago. Transparent to you maybe but not to us. This has become public because a number of current and former officials leaked it to the press and since everything about the court is classified, will these people be tracked down and charged with espionage? Hounded and punished like Assange, Manning Drake, Kiriakou and Snowden? The Times calls them “sources” not “leakers” but leakers they are, spilling the beans on this secret court whose operations are opaque and cloaked in the name of national security. It’s for the public’s protection, we’re told, that these secrets can’t be revealed but from out here on the hustings, it looks like it’s for your protection, Mr. President, and the protection of the appartchiks who just follow orders: your illegal wars and illegal surveillance on the rest of us. From out here, it looks more criminal than legal, more like tyranny than democracy. The FISA court, ironically, was created in 1978 to stop the abuse of illegal wiretapping but has morphed into a rubber stamp legal cover for illegal surveillance activity by the NSA. Only a handful of cases have ever been taken to the Court of Review and none have gone to the Supreme Court. Of the 1,800 requests submitted to the court last year, none were rejected and only 13 denials in 35 years. This is not justice or the rule of law or transparent government, Mr. President, this is an assault on democracy, the Constitution and We the People by the bright, thoughtful boy from Hawaii who became a smooth-talking presidential candidate from Illinois filled with false Hope and empty promises, whose true agenda was the greatest secret of all—the lust for power.