This opinion is just nuts. Trust a court that you were told for years didn't even exist? A secret court? How about no.
Secret courts lead to abuses: https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/jo-shaw/secret-cour...
What is secret about the FISA Court is its decisions, not its existence (and that should change slightly as a result of the USA Freedom Act's requirement to release "significant" opinions).
Interestingly, regular courts can and do hear cases involving classified information.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_Information_Procedu...
It's not that cases involving classified information somehow get transferred to the FISA Court; instead, the FISA Court only hears cases involving surveillance requests arising under FISA.
Because the only way to oversee top-secret data is with a top-secret court.
Not only must justice be done but justice must be seen to be done.
If we can't audit or inspect the courts then there is zero assurance they are acting in a lawful or moral manner.
The whole point of courts is so that people can't make shady deals in back rooms.
That army that you keep on claiming is yours is closer politically to libertarian than you are to the army.
Is it the approval rate? Is it the lack of transparency?
If it's the approval rate, in my experience the reason why court warrant approvals are so high is because intelligence / law enforcement are very risk adverse and will not submit requests that are likely to be rejected. Anecdotally, the officers I talked to considered it career poison to submit a request that got rejected by a court.
In a way I'm heartened by stories about NSA employees acting inappropriately, it means that they're being caught and disciplined and the Office of the Inspector General is doing its job. If it was routine and accepted it wouldn't be a newsworthy story and the inspector general.
That said, I don't think employee abuses have much bearing on the effectiveness of the FISA court as a source of judicial oversight for intelligence operations inside the United States.
Either the NSA is really accurate or something smells.
It also reflects that unlike other types of warrants the court can request revisions or additional information before making a decision and requests can be withdrawn before a formal rejection can take place.
Some estimates put the reject/withdrawal rate closer to 25%
Some more information: https://newrepublic.com/article/115257/fisa-warrants-court-t...
https://web.archive.org/web/20140402093319/http://www.uscour...
The FISA court is already a rubber stamp. Encryption is one of the only ways to non-passively protest.
Edit: Can't reply to my replies, likely because of the down votes on my parent's comment.
Re: FISA, yes to both. That anecdote may be truth but I am still hung up on NSA employee looking up ex-girlfriends' emails the day he got access to do so.
Re: Army, you aren't wrong but that's not encouraging. It's true, at the end of the day the most powerful military will win.
But it's an argument that only wins against those with something to lose, like people who care about their family or nation states with a future. I guess that's why the ultimate response over a long enough timeline to an unbeatable military force is terrorism.