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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 01 2015, @06:28AM
On the other hand, the people that are currently discussing these issues are able to speak freely in the USA. There are plenty of places around the world where this kind of in-depth look at illegal police practices would get you arrested.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 02 2015, @04:53PM
Are you claiming that it's A-OK because you can talk about it as long as you don't DO anything about it?
Vanish from my sight; you are short-sighted