re: #44 gunnison

“wirebrushing”
tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com

The FISC judges’ function has come under scrutiny in the wake of the leak of a top secret order — the first one ever to be seen publicly, according to NPR — issued by the court in April, requiring a Verizon subsidiary, Verizon Business Network Services, to turn over to the NSA the metadata about calls made by all its subscribers over a three-month period. Critics have called the court a rubber stamp for the government. According to an NPR report this week, the government submitted 1,856 applications to the court last year. The court approved every one.

But people familiar with the FISC told NPR that the story is not as simple as the top line numbers make it seem.

“I can tell you that that court has taken a wire brush to certain applications that have come before it,” Joel Brenner, a former inspector general of the National Security Agency, told NPR.”The idea that somehow they put their stamp on everything the government puts before them couldn’t be farther from the truth.”

If the FISA court find a problem with a warrant application, they kick it back for modification.