The Rubber-Stamp Court Continues Operation; NSA Edition

The morons House of Representatives removed a provision in the NSA reform bill that would have appointed a privacy advocate to the FISA Court.

So the FISA court will continue as it always has: Only the government gets to state its case.

Courts are a forum for an adversarial process. If only one side gets to put on a case, then it's more a form of legalistic masturbation. The FISA Court has a long record of being a rubber stamp, approving virtually every surveillance request the government has made since the Court was formed. They've approved something over 30,000 such requests and disapproved maybe a dozen. And no, that's not hyperbole. Over a 12 year period, they've never not approved a pen register request.

Without a "freedom for spying" advocate, then nothing from the FISA Court would ever be reviewed on appeal, because there is nobody to file an appeal. So the FISA Court gets to continue on, thinking they're doing something meaningful. When all they are doing is spreading a judicial fig-leaf over a deeply unconstitutional process.