General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRoberts’s Picks Reshaping Secret Surveillance Court
WASHINGTON The recent leaks about government spying programs have focused attention on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and its role in deciding how intrusive the government can be in the name of national security. Less mentioned has been the person who has been quietly reshaping the secret court: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
In making assignments to the court, Chief Justice Roberts, more than his predecessors, has chosen judges with conservative and executive branch backgrounds that critics say make the court more likely to defer to government arguments that domestic spying programs are necessary.
Though the two previous chief justices, Warren E. Burger and William H. Rehnquist, were conservatives like Chief Justice Roberts, their assignments to the surveillance court were more ideologically diverse, according to an analysis by The New York Times of a list of every judge who has served on the court since it was established in 1978.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/26/us/politics/robertss-picks-reshaping-secret-surveillance-court.html?pagewanted=all&pagewanted=print
villager
(26,001 posts)Therefore, I don't need my 4th Amendment!
Quit attacking Democrats!
Etc.
deurbano
(2,895 posts)... especially those related to Surveillance... but I can't see how any Democrat would approve the current process.
<<Viewing this data, people with responsibility for national security ought to be very concerned about the impression and appearance, if not the reality, of bias for favoring the executive branch in its applications for warrants and other action, said Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat and one of several lawmakers who have sought to change the way the courts judges are selected.
Mr. Blumenthal, for example, has proposed that each of the chief judges of the 12 major appeals courts select a district judge for the surveillance court; the chief justice would still pick the review panel that hears rare appeals of the courts decisions, but six other Supreme Court justices would have to sign off. Another bill, introduced by Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, would give the president the power to nominate judges for the court, subject to Senate approval.>>