The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA court) that governs the national surveillance state is also remaking the law. But it’s remaking the law in secret. The public has no opportunity to weigh in, and Congress can’t really make changes, because few know what the court is deciding, and almost no one can discuss the decisions without endangering themselves.
One example: The Wall Street Journal reports that the FISA court quietly reinterpreted the language of the PATRIOT Act so the word “relevant” — which governs the information the government can scoop up — no longer means, well, “relevant.” It means “yeah, sure, whatever you want.”
In the New York Times, Eric Lichtbau reports that this kind of ambition has become common on the FISA court. “The rulings, some nearly 100 pages long, reveal that the court has taken on a much more expansive role by regularly assessing broad constitutional questions and establishing important judicial precedents, with almost no public scrutiny, according to current and former officials familiar with the court's classified decisions.”
He quotes a former intelligence official who puts the situation very bluntly: "We've seen a growing body of law from the court.”
But the FISA court is, in effect, breaking the first link in that chain. The public no longer knows about the law itself, and most of Congress may not know, either. The courts have remade the law, but they’ve done so secretly, without public comment or review.
“The government is operating under rules different from the rules that are made public,” says Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program.
http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/08/wonkbook-the-secret-surveillance-court-is-making-secret-surveillance-laws/
See, what no one knows is that some secret kook court in Washington made it legal for me to sprout wings and fly, as well as to ignore all United States law. I've been accorded various secret licenses that I can't divulge to you.
Ta da.
