Bill Planned That Would Introduce Adversary to Secret Court
Oh, I shouldn’t forget the add the pefructory LGF’er phrase “and he is propsing this change in law despite the fact that Greenwald has quietly retracted most of his claims”.
There, ready for you guys.
Wednesday’s narrow vote on the Amash-Conyers measure to defund bulk NSA data collection reflects real momentum in Congress to rein in the government’s massive domestic spying operations. As we’ve noted, there is a fairly large number of bills that would increase transparency of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the “secret court” that has not only been approving surveillance requests but apparently creating an entirely new body of law governing what is appropriate for the government to collect.
One of the more interesting ideas being discussed—including by a former FISC judge—is to have an advocate inside FISC to argue against the government when it comes to approving new surveillance programs.
Not having an adversary in court when the government seeks an individual surveillance request is normal in civilian courts—but not when new case law is being created, as is apparently happening at FISC.
Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California and former assistant prosecutor in the US attorney’s office in Los Angeles, is drafting a bill that would do just that.
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