FISA Fuckup

Secret Court's Judges Were Warned About NSA Spy Data

Twice in the past four years, a top Justice Department lawyer warned the presiding judge of a secret surveillance court that information overheard in President Bush's eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to obtain wiretap warrants in the court, according to two sources with knowledge of those events.

The revelations infuriated U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly -- who, like her predecessor, Royce C. Lamberth, had expressed serious doubts about whether the warrantless monitoring of phone calls and e-mails ordered by Bush was legal. Both judges had insisted that no information obtained this way be used to gain warrants from their court, according to government sources, and both had been assured by administration officials it would never happen.

Let's see...

Bushco swears they only listened in on calls with al Qaeda on one end...but the FISC bent over backwards to allow this, so why did they try to skirt the court? The obvious answer: they're lying.

Moreover, the FISC judges warned the Administration that warrant requests based on unauthorized wiretaps would essentially be a violation of the Constitution, and the Admin assured them that requests would be "filtered" to ensure everything was legit. In other words, the illegal wiretaps could not be used as the basis for legitimate investigations. So why Bush bother with them at all?

Both judges expressed concern to senior officials that the president's
program, if ever made public and challenged in court, ran a significant
risk of being declared unconstitutional, according to sources familiar
with their actions. Yet the judges believed they did not have the
authority to rule on the president's power to order the eavesdropping,
government sources said, and focused instead on protecting the
integrity of the FISA process.

These scumbags lie as easily as they draw breath.

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