FISA Judges Oppose Plan for Privacy Advocate
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges have said the creation of a privacy advocate in the secret court could be counterproductive and hamper its work.
The FISC court was set up under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which requires the government to obtain a judicial warrant for certain kinds of intelligence gathering operations.
The creation of the position of a privacy advocate, to represent privacy and civil liberty issues in the court, was first suggested in August by U.S. President Barack Obama in the wake of demands for reforms of the surveillance programs of the National Security Agency. The agency came under scrutiny after disclosures through newspaper reports by former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden, of its dragnet surveillance, including the bulk collection of phone records of Americans.
A panel appointed by Obama, called the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology, has also recommended a number of changes in the way NSA programs are conducted, including taking the collected phone records out of the hands of the agency and requiring individual court orders for most searches of the records database.
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