Actual good news - FISA (secret spying on Americans court) may not be reauthorized

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
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Here's hoping it dies outright but even if not hopefully it gets almost completely neutered. One of the worst abuses of government in the past half century or so. Hopefully a stake gets driven through its heart and its head cut off so it never rises again.


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fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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Here's hoping it dies outright but even if not hopefully it gets almost completely neutered. One of the worst abuses of government in the past half century or so. Hopefully a stake gets driven through its heart and its head cut off so it never rises again.


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The FISA court is not going away and the opposite of being neutered it should be massively strengthened. The problem now is the FISA court grants warrants too easily, not that it's too powerful.

If you did have your wish though and it was abolished tomorrow, what would your alternative be?
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
25,383
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The FISA court is not going away and the opposite of being neutered it should be massively strengthened. The problem now is the FISA court grants warrants too easily, not that it's too powerful.

If you did have your wish though and it was abolished tomorrow, what would your alternative be?

That we don't spy on American citizens?
 
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IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
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The FISA court is not going away and the opposite of being neutered it should be massively strengthened. The problem now is the FISA court grants warrants too easily, not that it's too powerful.

If you did have your wish though and it was abolished tomorrow, what would your alternative be?
Secret courts with secret warrants, secret evidence, and secret verdicts are un-American fascist bullshit and need to go away.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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Secret courts with secret warrants, secret evidence, and secret verdicts are un-American fascist bullshit and need to go away.

How exactly would we conduct counterintelligence operations if we informed our targets of what we were doing ahead of time? This is a serious question, what would our new counterintelligence procedures be?
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
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So you think monitoring of American citizens should be abolished? The 4th amendment seems to be pretty clear that it authorizes this.

You and I quite obviously have such different understandings of what "unreasonable search and seizure" means in the context of NSA intercepting communications metadata if not content of every single American citizen that it's probably unbridgeable. l weep for the country that you think it's OK.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
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You and I quite obviously have such different understandings of what "unreasonable search and seizure" means in the context of NSA intercepting communications metadata if not content of every single American citizen that it's probably unbridgeable. l weep for the country that you think it's OK.

Oh for fuck's sake you moron you know I oppose mass NSA surveillance like that, probably far more than you do. It is unclear to me though how abolishing the FISA court would stop that, if anything it would remove the last check on that sort of thing and make the situation worse.

So again, what's your post-FISA court plan? Do we just no longer monitor anything? If not, you just created a free for all where the NSA will be truly unleashed.
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
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Oh for fuck's sake you moron you know I oppose mass NSA surveillance like that, probably far more than you do. It is unclear to me though how abolishing the FISA court would stop that, if anything it would remove the last check on that sort of thing and make the situation worse.

So again, what's your post-FISA court plan? Do we just no longer monitor anything? If not, you just created a free for all where the NSA will be truly unleashed.

First that 99.999% of spying on citizens should be automatically denied. Secondly in the extremely rare instances when it's granted it gets cleared by regular Article 3 courts with an adversarial "defense" counsel there to protect the rights of the person who would be spied upon. Third the facts of the spying be immediately made public upon the expiration of the warrant. Fourth, monetary compensation for abuse victims and removal/prosecution of those who abuse the system. Fifth, every single approval gets reviewed by the appropriate committees of both houses of Congress before it takes effect.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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Glenn: ‘Man, the NSA is spying on Americans in ways I don’t like!’

Me: let’s change the law so they can’t do that.

Glenn: No, lets abolish the only body that checks to see if they are following the law now.
 

IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
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Oh for fuck's sake you moron you know I oppose mass NSA surveillance like that, probably far more than you do. It is unclear to me though how abolishing the FISA court would stop that, if anything it would remove the last check on that sort of thing and make the situation worse.

So again, what's your post-FISA court plan? Do we just no longer monitor anything? If not, you just created a free for all where the NSA will be truly unleashed.
So your position is that the patently unconstitutional FISA courts somehow check the patently unconstitutional activities of the intelligence agencies? My position is that they provide the lipstick to the pig.
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
25,383
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Glenn: ‘Man, the NSA is spying on Americans in ways I don’t like!’

Me: let’s change the law so they can’t do that.

Glenn: No, lets abolish the only body that checks to see if they are following the law now.

Yeah because our "normal" courts obviously can't handle it. We can't trust those district court and appellate court judges, or Congress for that matter.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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First that 99.999% of spying on citizens should be automatically denied. Secondly in the extremely rare instances when it's granted it gets cleared by regular Article 3 courts with an adversarial "defense" counsel there to protect the rights of the person who would be spied upon. Third the facts of the spying be immediately made public upon the expiration of the warrant. Fourth, monetary compensation for abuse victims and removal/prosecution of those who abuse the system. Fifth, every single approval gets reviewed by the appropriate committees of both houses of Congress before it takes effect.

1) Okay so as there were about 1,300 warrants applied for in the most recent year I see that means .0001% means one approved warrant every century or so. That’s dumb.

2) the FISA court is an article 3 court, so you got your wish.

3) there is no adversarial defense counsel for any warrant application anywhere, nor does that even make any sense.

4) that doesn’t happen for any other warrant either and I’m struggling to see what that would do other than harm people found not to be doing anything wrong. What a horrible idea.

5) I agree those subject to government abuse should be compensated and those who commit abuse punished.

6) congress has no time to do this and they are not equipped with the relevant understanding of the law nor the time and staff to do this. Dumb idea.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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So your position is that the patently unconstitutional FISA courts somehow check the patently unconstitutional activities of the intelligence agencies? My position is that they provide the lipstick to the pig.

The FISA court is unconstitutional? How?

I’m just unclear how removing a check on government abuse is supposed to solve government abuse.
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
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1) Okay so as there were about 1,300 warrants applied for in the most recent year I see that means .0001% means one approved warrant every century or so. That’s dumb.

2) the FISA court is an article 3 court, so you got your wish.

3) there is no adversarial defense counsel for any warrant application anywhere, nor does that even make any sense.

4) that doesn’t happen for any other warrant either and I’m struggling to see what that would do other than harm people found not to be doing anything wrong. What a horrible idea.

5) I agree those subject to government abuse should be compensated and those who commit abuse punished.

6) congress has no time to do this and they are not equipped with the relevant understanding of the law nor the time and staff to do this. Dumb idea.

Ah yes, I can see from your positions how you "oppose mass NSA surveillance like that, probably far more than you do."

The FISA court is unconstitutional? How?

I’m just unclear how removing a check on government abuse is supposed to solve government abuse.

The spying IS THE GOVERNMENT ABUSE.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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Ah yes, I can see from your positions how you "oppose mass NSA surveillance like that, probably far more than you do."

Excellent rebuttal to how your position makes no sense.

The spying IS THE GOVERNMENT ABUSE.

Exactly! So how does removing the only body that limits that make it better? Did you think this through?
 

glenn1

Lifer
Sep 6, 2000
25,383
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Excellent rebuttal to how your position makes no sense.

Exactly! So how does removing the only body that limits that make it better? Did you think this through?

What makes it better is not doing it anymore. You're effectively arguing for raping people more kindly when not raping to begin with should be the only reasonable position to take.
 

IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
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Excellent rebuttal to how your position makes no sense.



Exactly! So how does removing the only body that limits that make it better? Did you think this through?
What evidence do you have that the FISA courts in any way limit abuses? What evidence could you conceivably have when the courts operate in secret?
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
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What evidence do you have that the FISA courts in any way limit abuses? What evidence could you conceivably have when the courts operate in secret?
It’s activities are monitored by congress and such. Same as any other classified entity.

Again though, if your argument is that there aren’t enough checks on intelligence monitoring I agree with you! I’m trying to figure out how removing the FISA court makes this better.
 

Hayabusa Rider

Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
Jan 26, 2000
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What evidence do you have that the FISA courts in any way limit abuses? What evidence could you conceivably have when the courts operate in secret?

What will stop eavesdropping when there's absolutely no check on it in real life? I don't like a lot of what is done but the process needs reform and accountability by some mechanism. Getting rid of it? We could get rid of all border protection as well because there are sure as hell abuses as well. I would not like that either.

The only reason at all, the single objection that Republicans have is that they were caught in heinous acts by such means and the only "solution" is to make themselves impervious to investigation in this way. We can all go eff ourselves. Authoritarians, OK but let's eliminate FISA entirely? No thanks.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,717
47,404
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What makes it better is not doing it anymore. You're effectively arguing for raping people more kindly when not raping to begin with should be the only reasonable position to take.
And your answer is because rape is bad we should get rid of the cops.

If you think that sort of surveillance is bad then the answer is to pass laws to abolish it, not get rid of the body that checks compliance with the law.
 

brycejones

Lifer
Oct 18, 2005
25,991
23,788
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Reauthorize the court but specifically forbid any kind of mass surveillance or data mining of information without specific congressional authorization. Take those programs out of the black and force them to be discussed publicly.
 
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