Shoring Up the Constitution: At SCOTUS, a Plea To Reveal Secret Surveillance Rulings

[ancianita]

from today's NYT front page section:

... [Merrick Garland's] general point about secret law, though, provides an important framework, according to a brief supporting the A.C.L.U. in the new case filed by two groups that do not always agree — the Brennan Center for Justice, which leans left, and the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a libertarian group affiliated with the Koch family.

“Secret law of all types causes several concrete harms that are antithetical to democratic norms,” their brief said. “Secret law prevents the public from understanding and shaping the law and thus inhibits democratic accountability; disables checks on governmental abuses of the law; and weakens the quality of the law itself.”

The surveillance court, created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, or FISA, rules on government surveillance requests and programs in the context of national security. It generally hears from only one side — the government — and much its work is of necessity secret. But its interpretations of federal laws can be enormously consequential...

Mr. Toomey, the A.C.L.U. lawyer, said the case was essentially about whether the Supreme Court has any role to play. “One of the key questions here,” he said, “is whether the Supreme Court can and should exercise its powers of review over the FISA court’s decision making.”

For even more interesting arguments:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/20/us/supreme-court-fisa-surveillance-rulings.html