It's been publicly revealed that they only deny something like .03% of all requests.[1] If that isn't a "rubber stamp" then I don't know what is. Of course they have a response to that "Well, the requests are so well done that there are very few that there is any reason to deny them" but that doesn't pass the "smell test" as far as I'm concerned.
but that doesn't pass the "smell test" as far as I'm concerned.
So it's gone from a 'given' to 'in your opinion'.
It's easy to explain the 0.03 figure if there are a large number of routine boilerplate small scale requests. It seems highly plausible that this is the case.
The fact that the figure is plausible doesn't rule out the possibility that abuses might be being rubberstamped, but the truth is that we don't know, not that it's a 'given'.
Anything can be argued... I take it as a given that we aren't living inside a computer generated simulation known as The Matrix. But somebody, somewhere, could make a case that we might be. But for all practical purposes, it is a given that we don't.
For all practical purposes, it is a given that the FISA courts are a rubber stamp. Just because there is some amazingly-low-probability and unlikely scenario to explain that away, is no reason not to accept the utter and obvious truth.
Without knowing anything about the nature of the requests it doesn't tell us anything.
Imagine there are something like 800 actual terrorist suspects - people who have been identified via human intelligence, e.g. Known to have met with terrorist cells, visited training camps, etc.
Of 10,000 requests, it's easily possible that the vast majority could be simply following up on the immediate network surrounding those people - e.g. 'Suspect X called person Y, person Y is new to us, let us check whether person Y is linked to other suspects by phone or email'.
Requests like that would be made using a boilerplate form, and would be correctly rubber-stamped as long as they were closely connected to suspects identified by other means. We should expect many of those kinds of requests to be being generated every day by analysts.
The .03 needs to be put in the context of the number of non-routine requests that are being approved. It doesn't seem at all unreasonable that for every 10,000 boilerplate followups generated by desk clerk analysts, there are 10 more speculative ones generated as a result of more specific investigations, and of these 30% are deemed overreaching.
The vast majority of requests are likely to be boring inquiries generated by bureaucrats following procedure, rather than Jack Bauer like rogues constantly overstepping their authority.
I agree that more context is needed to really know what this number means, and I agree that mindcrime is overstating the case by claiming that it is sufficient to let us conclude absolutely that the FISA court is not doing its job.
But I still think the number probably indicates that there is a serious problem. Further investigation is certainly warranted.
Definitely. My guess is that the system is much less corrupt than people think in practice, although no less fundamentally dangerous.
The secrecy of the process is definitely harming the government's image here, but I can also see that if the exact limits of what could be approved were public, terrorists would be able to develop communications strategies to counter them.
Ironically if his happened, the government would probably react by escalating to broader approvals. So the secrecy might actually be helping to limit the scope of the surveillance.
[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=fisa+.03%25