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Re:Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones by ross-life on Sunday March 13, 2016 @06:43PM (#11279766)
> As a citizen, you are expected to trust the FISA court.

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...

Re:Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones by schoen on Sunday March 13, 2016 @07:08PM (#11279864)
The existence of the FISA Court has never been a secret. It was created by FISA in 1978 and is right there in the text of the statute. Even the members of the FISA Court are publicly disclosed (they're all existing Federal judges who are appointed to temporary terms).

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).

Re:Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones by ross-life on Monday March 14, 2016 @05:50AM (#11281856)
As a European that still effectively screams "secret court" to me, just with some word games around it. Part of the problem is the US also broadly applies "Top Secret" to too much information, even the mundane, so then it "has to go to the secret court because it's "Top Secret".
Re:Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones by schoen on Monday March 14, 2016 @03:17PM (#11284863)
Oh, I'm happy with the description of the FISA Court as a "secret court"; I just wanted to answer the misconception that this means people didn't know that the court existed.

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.

Re:Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones by mozumder on Sunday March 13, 2016 @06:48PM (#11279793)
Would you prefer if there were NO judicial oversight?

Because the only way to oversee top-secret data is with a top-secret court.

Re:Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones by noir_lord on Sunday March 13, 2016 @06:50PM (#11279803)
> As a citizen, you are expected to trust the FISA 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.

Re:Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones by ibejoeb on Sunday March 13, 2016 @07:00PM (#11279840)
That's entirely antithetical to a system of checks a balances. Distrust has always been a key part of the framework.
Re:Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones by mozumder on Sunday March 13, 2016 @11:23PM (#11280856)
Which is why we don't give the Judicial branch an armed military force, and that we can impeach them.
Re:Re: Obama on Fetishizing Our Phones by mikerichards on Sunday March 13, 2016 @06:54PM (#11279818)
My army can beat your army.

That army that you keep on claiming is yours is closer politically to libertarian than you are to the army.