To expand on an earlier closed thread.....

Perhaps FISA wasn't so easy anymore....

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So does that indicate unreasonable intransigence on the court's part in throwing out reasonable requests for wiretaps? Or unreasonable intransigence on the administration's part for insisting on unreasonable wiretaps?

That story is nearly meaningless unless you have some idea of what exactly was being asked for as compared to what was asked for and given in previous administrations. It proves nothing.

Well actually it proves nothing unless one is looking for any possible reason to exonerate the Current Administration's actions.

Comparing the FISA Court's reactions to the Current Admin's requests for authorizations to its reactions to Previous Admin's requests for authorizations without detailing the differences in the contents of those requests looks like it will be the latest tack taken by the "Talking Points Crowd."

So......let me get this straight, the court "modified", ie didn't reject, 3% of his requests and that is a big deal?

Other than saying it was no longer as easy as had been claimed in a previous thread, I offered no comment.

My lack of comment should not have been interpreted as an indictment of the court. It should have been interpreted as a lack of comment.

I am fully aware of the statistical factors that come into play with the approval/rejection rate. The other thread has been closed so I opened a new one.

Thanks anyway for the condescending logic lesson guys.

Hey RI, if I'm in the "Talking Points Crowd" I think it is unfair tha I have been excluded from the meetings. How do I get on the mailing list? Is the food any good?

I pointed out in that thread that in the history of that court, 99.939% of requests were granted. Your post points out that for Bush specifically, 97% were approved as is with 3% being approved with some modification. My point was that the FISA court is a rubber stamp and thus there was no need to avoid it with secret, illegal taps. What is yours? That 97% approved as is and the rest approved with modification is not a rubber stamp and that it did need to be avoided with secret, illegal taps?

What say you to the FISA procedure which allowed tapping any person for any reason without a FISA court warrant for up to a year, with additional extensions available, simply by notifying the court and a few committee heads in congress? Was that also, like the 3% of requests approved with modifications, too cumbersome so that the law had to be tap danced around, no pun intended?

I guess the answer to that would have to be...."it depends".

If the modifications were overly restrictive or took inordinately long then it could have created a problem. If time was of the essence, then the new problem could have led to bigger problems (ie. not catching the bad guy).

I have two conclusions:

1. It is impossible to determine whether the administration is "right" or "wrong".

2. The FISA route that you had claimed was a slam dunk, was not viewed as such by the administration. They may be correct or incorrect in their interpretation.

And thanks for putting your usual partisan spin on what I said. It does work both ways, of course...it's equally usable evidence in vilifying the court for the "Bush Bad" crowd. Neither of which on its own establishes my point: it's null data. Without knowing the content of the requests it's impossible to vilify or exonerate either one.

The only thing it does do is put paid to the idea that FISA was basically a "rubber stamp", as some expressed here.

I think what we are seeing is a transparently obvious scramble for some sort of justification for what they did.

Again, even accepting those numbers as some sort of legit concern that the rubber stamp wasn't so rubber, it doesn't explain not using the procedure by which they could tap absolutely anyone they wanted with no FISA court order or even review for up to a year with additional extensions available for the low, low price of just notifying the court and a few committe heads from congress.

Offering the notion that the FISA Court approval of a tap request was not a slam dunk doesn't nullify the total slam dunk that was available with the "no warrant" procedure.

An alternative explanation as to why they avoided using even that unfettered "procedure" could be that they were tapping some people for whom there would be no reason on earth for them to tap or perhaps taps that were obviously political in nature. Taps so bad that the court and the committemen would have screamed bloody blue murder if they knew, even if they did so privately in letters to the President. Hard to believe but at this point, I have no faith in this administration's judgment, discretion or honesty.

Is it possible that some of the taps were against high profile celebs or politicians that quite possibly could have been caught talking to, funding or otherwise supporting the terrorist network. But the court didn't want to get in trouble if it found out they approved such requests?

Just a thought.

The why of it is mystifying. There had to be a reason they took the risk of this coming out. Either they felt they had to from a security standpoint or they are hiding something they did that was either monumentally stupid or monumentally wrong. Something like what Bib has suggested that there was some technical reason they had to do it that way or something like having tapped Patrick Fitzgerald's blackberry.

Doesn't explain them not using the FISA procedure by which they can tap for a year without having to ask the FISA court for a warrant.

So....Barbara Streisand was talking to Al Queda cell leaders and activist judges on the FISA court were protecting her. Is that your theory?

Maybe not Barb, but pretty much yeah. Someone more likely in government that would have found out possibly that they were being tapped and the courts rejected it, else they get FISA court into trouble. Wouldn't it be interesting to see who and what the taps were for that got rejected?

That is the thing. None were rejected, just modified. My understanding is that on appeal, they all were ultimately granted. The administration were in some dutch with the court when it became clear in a number of cases that they were not being honest in their allegations or, to be fair, were simply overstating things to a degree where it gave the court concern.

Again, your reading skills are bad today.

Hmmm....Stuck down here in Australia so not up tospeed on this....Since when do we need a warrant to conduct Foriegn Intel? Or is this collection on a US citizen?

The ones rejected were granted on appeal.

Since, I've also been excluded from those meetings, although I suspect it's for an entirely different reason than your exclusion, since I completely disagree with their point of view, I cannot answer your entirely reasonable questions.

I can however offer you an idea on how to gain better access to the inner circle; simply increase your campaign contribution level from "Junior Woodchuck" to "Ranger."

I've heard, although I admit it may be entirely based on malicious rumors, that such an increase does wonders for your access level with the current administration. (And, yes monkey boy, that has always been and most likely always will be true, despite which admin is the current one.)

You're Welcome.

It's nice to live in a country where the free expression of one's partisan opinions can be openly and honestly done without fear of anything more than an ineffectual message board tongue lashing from those who don't agree with you.

Just think how terrible it would be to live somewhere where free expression of one's political views could result in say, your phones being tapped and your conversations recorded just because your views don't match those of the current administration. Why in such a hypothetical country even your private e-mails could be routinely read, just to ensure that you weren't supporting terrorism. And of course, in such a country, high profile people would automatically give up their constitutional protections because of the fact that many people know who they are.

I'm so glad that my twenty plus years of military service in support of the Constitution of the United States has helped to ensure that something like that could never happen here.

Yep, in such a hypothetical country, checks and balances are such an eighteenth century idea, and partisan to boot.

It’s nice to know that we don’t ever have to worry about such things, isn’t it?

US Persons. FISA has one procedure for suspected agents of foreign governments and another for what it calls "US Persons". I may be wrong but my understanding is that the Constitution applies to people within the USA, not just citizens, so that might be what they mean by "US Persons". The FISA procedure for a warrant against a suspected agent of a foreign government who is not a US person is basically that you get a warrant simply for the asking and you get to start tapping them long before you ever have to bother even asking for one. The thing to remember here is A) the warrants are virtually always granted; B)you tap immediately and ask about a warrant later; C)you can tap without a warrant for up to a year with extensions available just by notifying the court (notify, not ask permission) under seal and some committemen in congress and D) the FISA court is classified. I don't have a recollection of the court ever having leaked a tap.

FISA was enacted in 1978 and has been expanded on occasion, most dramatically by the Patriot Act after 911. It was developed to address the problem of clear abuses by security agencies on the one hand and the need for intel on the other. In its entire history, I think they have rejected something like 4 warrant applications, all of which were subsequently granted on appeal. Because it is classified, the information about the FISA courts are limited.


In 2004, the government submitted 1,758 applications and 1,754 were granted. Of the remaining 4, the government withdrew 3 of them before the court ever ruled on them. One of those was resubmitted and then granted. The last one of the 4 was submitted late in 2004 and was approved, but not until 2005. Thus, not a single application in 2004 was denied in whole or in part. FISA Annual Report 2004

In 2003, the government made 1,727 applications, 1,724 of them were approved. One of the denials resulted in a motion for reconsideration by the Gov't which was granted in part leading to an application that was ultimately granted. Essentially, two were denied and the government did not even bother appealing them. FISA Annual Report 2003

In 2002, 1,228 applications were submitted and 1,226 were approved. The remaining 2 were approved as modified. The decision to modify them was appealed and was successful so that ultimately, all 1,228 applications were granted exactly as requested. FISA Annual Report 2002

In 2001, the court approved 932 applications out of 934. Two were submitted late in the year and not approved until 2002 so all applications were approved.FISA Annual Report 2001

In 2000, the court approved 1,003 of 1,005 applications. Two of the 1005 were submitted in late December 2000 and were approved in January of 2001 so actually, all applications were approved. FISA Annual Report 2000

That means that between 2000 and 2004, there were 6,652 applications. Of them, 6,639 were approved. Of the remaining 13, 5 were submitted late in December of that year and approved in January of the following year which leaves 8 applications. Of those, 3 were withdrawn before the court could decide on the applications and 1 of them was resubmitted and approved. That gets us down to 5 applications not approved. Of those, 3 were approved but modified and of those, 2 were successfully appealed so of those 3, you really only have 1 left and that was actually approved with modifications. The last applications "not approved" were never appealed by the government which tells you how weak those requests had to have been.

The final score is 6,652 applications and 6,649 approved, 1 approved with modifications and 2 not approved but also not even appealed. I'm not sure if those numbers match the article linked to by VA Bills but I have linked the actual reports so I am confident of my numbers.

That is an approval rate of 99.95%, higher if you include the one that was approved with modifications. If you throw out the ones the government themselves decided were either bogus or simply not needed, throw out the ones granted on appeal, throw out the ones the government never bothered to appeal apparently agreeing that they were no good and include the lone "approved as modified" application, you really get a 100% approval rate.

Since 2005 is not over just yet, we will have to wait for the 2005 annual report.