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Thread: U.S. spy court rejected zero surveillance orders in 2015

  1. #1

    U.S. spy court rejected zero surveillance orders in 2015

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...-idUSKCN0XR009

    Fri Apr 29, 2016

    The secretive U.S. Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Court did not deny a single government request in 2015 for electronic surveillance orders granted for foreign intelligence purposes, continuing a longstanding trend, a Justice Department document showed.

    The court received 1,457 requests last year on behalf of the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for authority to intercept communications, including email and phone calls, according to a Justice Department memo sent to leaders of relevant congressional committees on Friday and seen by Reuters. The court did not reject any of the applications in whole or in part, the memo showed.

    The total represented a slight uptick from 2014, when the court received 1,379 applications and rejected none.

    The court, which acts behind closed doors, was established in 1978 to handle applications for surveillance warrants against foreign suspects by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies and grew more controversial after 2013 leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

    The electronic surveillance often is conducted with the assistance of Internet and telecommunications companies.

    Civil liberties advocates have long derided the court for acting as a "rubber stamp" for government surveillance operations. Government officials have said the Justice Department is careful about its applications and that sometimes orders are modified substantially by the court.

    The court modified 80 applications in 2015, a more than fourfold increase from the 19 modifications made in 2014.

    The memo also stated that 48,642 national security letter (NSL) requests were made in 2015 by the FBI.

    NSLs are a type of subpoena authority used to compel Internet and telecommunications firms to hand over customer data, such as web browsing history, email addresses and subscriber information.

    One NSL often contains multiple requests for information, such as a sequence of emails believed relevant to an investigation.

    The majority of NSL requests, 31,863, made in 2015 sought information on foreigners, regarding a total of 2,053 individuals, the memo stated.

    The FBI made 9,418 requests for national security letters in 2015 for information about U.S. citizens and legal immigrants, regarding a total of 3,746 individuals, it showed.

    The FBI also made 7,361 NSL requests for only "subscriber information," typically names, addresses and billing records, of Americans and foreigners regarding 3,347 different people.

    National security letters have been available as a law enforcement tool since the 1970s, but their frequency and breadth expanded dramatically under the USA Patriot Act enacted shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

    They are almost always accompanied by an open-ended gag order issued by the Justice Department barring companies from disclosing the contents of the demand for customer data.

    The government also made 142 applications to the surveillance court for access to business records, and it did not deny any of those requests, according to the memo.



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  3. #2
    Kinda like drug warrants eh?


  4. #3
    Wow, that is great news. This means that the government didn't overreach at all and all of their requests for a warrant were completely justified! I'm so glad we can trust them to do it right....


























    /sarc
    __________________________________________________ ________________
    "A politician will do almost anything to keep their job, even become a patriot" - Hearst

  5. #4
    How about if the court just commissions a rubber approval stamp be produced and issued? Would that manage to save some significant time and money?

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Ronin Truth View Post
    How about if the court just commissions a rubber approval stamp be produced and issued? Would that manage to save some significant time and money?
    What's wrong with you?

    This procedure require at minimum;

    2-kops (any stripe)

    4-6 bureaucrats to oversee the kops

    2-7 lawyers to review the "case"

    25-100 support staff for the lawyers

    1 judge to rubber stamp the warrant.

    25-100 support staff for the "court" (judge)


    Just think of all the tax revenue that would be lost if those fine government "workers" didn't pay their share out of the lucre (taxes) they draw salary from....

  7. #6
    Good Lord .

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by tod evans View Post
    Kinda like drug warrants eh?

    Yup.

    Nod and a wink.

    Goddam Trump circus.

    Rand was polling so high going into the 2015.

    It was our time.
    "An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government" - Ron Paul.

    "To learn who rules over you simply find out who you arent allowed to criticize."

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by unknown View Post
    Yup.

    Nod and a wink.

    Goddam Trump circus.

    Rand was polling so high going into the 2015.

    It was our time.
    Apparently not.



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  11. #9
    It is obvious that our own govt has no intention of adhering to or defense of either our Constitution or our Rights.

    Step ??? in Communist Manifesto: Conversion of Rights into Privileges.

    Without Privacy, all Rights become Privileges to be rejected and denied by the Status Quo.
    1776 > 1984

    The FAILURE of the United States Government to operate and maintain an
    Honest Money System , which frees the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, is the single largest contributing factor to the World's current Economic Crisis.

    The Elimination of Privacy is the Architecture of Genocide

    Belief, Money, and Violence are the three ways all people are controlled

    Quote Originally Posted by Zippyjuan View Post
    Our central bank is not privately owned.



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