Retired Federal Judge: Your Faith In Secret Surveillance Court Is Dramatically Misplaced

[kpete]

As a former Article III judge, I can tell you that your faith in the FISA Court is dramatically misplaced.

A retired federal judge warned Friday against blind faith in the secret court deciding the scope of U.S. government surveillance. During a panel discussion on constitutional privacy protection in the wake of a leaked Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court decision that revealed widespread NSA data collection, U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner stood up in the audience to counter the statements of conservative law professor Nathan Sales that secret surveillance requests are subject to meaningful judicial review. She cautioned:

Two reasons: One … The Fourth Amendment frameworks have been substantially diluted in the ordinary police case. One can only imagine what the dilution is in a national security setting. Two, the people who make it on the FISA court, who are appointed to the FISA court, are not judges like me. Enough said.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/14/2163441/retired-federal-judge-your-faith-in-secret-surveillance-court-is-dramatically-misplaced/