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from the exempt-from-the-law-of-the-land dept.
TechDirt reports:
[...]the FISA Court has the reputation as a rubberstamp for a reason--it almost never turns down a request.
However, in the rare instances where it does, apparently, the DOJ doesn't really care, knowing that it can just issue [a National Security Letter] instead and get the same information. At least that appears to be what the DOJ quietly admitted to doing in a now declassified Inspector General's report from 2008(PDF). EFF lawyer Nate Cardozo was going through and spotted this troubling bit:
We considered the Section 215 request for [REDACTED] discussed earlier in this report at pages 33 to 34 to be a noteworthy item. In this case, the FISA Court had twice declined to approve a Section 215 application based on First Amendment Concerns. However, the FBI subsequently issued NSLs for information [REDACTED] even though the statute authorizing the NSLs contained the same First Amendment restriction as Section 215 and the ECs authorizing the NSLs relied on the same facts contained in the Section 215 applicants...
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday January 01 2015, @01:44AM
Considering that the first amendment says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
One could assume that the request is part of a move to suppress religion, speech, press, assembly, or redress.