I believe you misunderstood him. He seems to be saying that almost no invalid requests were submitted, because there was a rigorous review before submission. The court might not be a rubber-stamp, but the agencies happened to only send reasonable requests, so they got approved.

Damn near everything they sent to be approved was in line with how FISA rules on such things.

We've got two arguments

    - Did FISA properly check submissions were appropriate for their rules/laws.
    - Are FISA rules/laws appropriate for USA #1

I think we can all agree the first might be true (and thus they are not rubber stamping), whilst simultaneously mostly agreeing the second is definitely doubtful

This is a great summary of the problem, and of why we're talking at cross purposes. Defending the accuracy of the FISA decisions only defends points one, while almost everyone attacking the court is talking about point two.

Whoever mentions the numbers on how few applications were rejected as an argument seemingly can't be talking about point two. And that was what prompted this particular discussion, so I don't think you can claim the people involved are talking about point two.

The NSA asks for "general warrants" and you think that's "reasonable"?

NSA: Can we spy on everyone at once?

FISA: Why yes of course you can - BUT, you have to fill out this form first...and do it properly or we'll never approve you!

NSA: Oh..but that's such a drag! Okay, fine, we'll do it.

That's kind of what seems to be happening.

NSA: Aw man the supreme court just told us to stop. Fisa: Don't worry about them I'll approve it for "six" more months lol.

That's not what happened here.

Could have fooled me.

Not sure if you read the OP, but it made it clear the conflicting ruling was from the Second Circuit, not the Supreme Court. Also, the Second Circuit ruling was based on Congress not being clear on what was allowed; now that Congress passed another law that extends bulk collection for 6 months, that argument no longer applies.

I didn't say that, I actually have little idea what has been requested. I was just explaining what the above comment meant.

Also, my "reasonable" meant "legally reasonable".

I'm not saying anything about how much trust you should put in the system, rather that the review process is significantly more in depth than what these statistics can show.

Maybe so, but what evidence does the public have of that claim? We get only the tiniest peeks at this process, and they look terrible, and then we're told "it's not so bad, you don't have enough information to know."

Which is exactly what people have complained about.