Re: How Prosecutors Wiretap Wall Street

[Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu]

On Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:42:45 CST, Paul Schmehl said:
> communications as well.  Under existing law (if you believe that FISA 
> applies) they would have 72 hours maximum to submit the necessary 
> paperwork and obtain the necessary approvals to go before the FISA court 
> and obtain a warrant.  Otherwise they would have to cease all 
> surveillance.  Meanwhile the terrorists aren't going to sit around waiting 
> for the warrant to be issued to continue their plans.

Actually Paul, you have that bass-ackwards, and it's important.

They are allowed to start wiretapping immediately, and then have 72 hours
*after they already started listening* to find a FISA court judge and
do the paperwork.  So yes, the terrorists don't wait for a warrant, and
the NSA doesn't need to wait either.

So let's see.. You're the NSA. You develop a person of interest.  You start
wiretapping the crap out of this guy.  You now have 72 hours to call the FISA
judge you almost certainly have on speed-dial. The request will almost
certainly be granted (one source list 18,761 FISA warrants requested from 1978
up to the end of 2004, of which *4* were rejected - but then granted after
modification).

But even *that* is apparently too onerous.  The only reasonable conclusion is
that you wanted to wiretap people that even the fairly lenient FISA rules
wouldn't get you a warrant. And that's important, because the entire reason the
FISA court was created in 1978 in the *first* place was because Nixon got
caught using government agencies to illegally spy on political enemies and
activists.

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