Well, this seems relevant. Here's CNET:
The National Security Agency has acknowledged in a new classified briefing that it does not need court authorization to listen to domestic phone calls.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, disclosed this week that during a secret briefing to members of Congress, he was told that the contents of a phone call could be accessed "simply based on an analyst deciding that."
If the NSA wants "to listen to the phone," an analyst's decision is sufficient, without any other legal authorization required, Nadler said he learned. "I was rather startled," said Nadler, an attorney and congressman who serves on the House Judiciary committee.
Not only does this disclosure shed more light on how the NSA's formidable eavesdropping apparatus works domestically it also suggests the Justice Department has secretly interpreted federal surveillance law to permit thousands of low-ranking analysts to eavesdrop on phone calls.
Because the same legal standards that apply to phone calls also apply to e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages, Nadler's disclosure indicates the NSA analysts could also access the contents of Internet communications without going before a court and seeking approval.
This is exactly what skeptics have been denying that the NSA has the ability to do. Now I recognize that CNET's piece itself has to be vetted and confirmed, and that the exchange mentioned could be interpreted differently. But, again, we've had a guy come forward at great personal risk to directly report on what he had the ability to do in his job. He's been confirmed by both the private contractor he worked for and the NSA to have been employed in the kind of work he said he was. And he felt moved to give up a high paying job and comfortable life in Hawaii by his sense of injustice towards what he saw there. He provided evidence in the form of PowerPoint slides that go a long way towards supporting his stories. No source is perfectly credible. But he has been subject to a frankly incredible degree of skepticism that simply would not exist without a desperate desire among Americans to view their government positively.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the equation we have people saying that a government that we know for a fact has recently engaged in warantless wiretapping, "rendered" people to remote locations without review or due process, tortured, killed people (including American citizens) without trial, drummed up support for wars on faulty or fabricated intelligence, and in every sense betrayed the spirit of the laws and ideals of this country. I cannot understand how rational people who claim to be motivated by facts can look at the crimes of this government that no one meaningfully disputes and still trust it. The habit is just bizarre.
What's perhaps even worse is the common assertion that, if this information is obtained through a FISA court, somehow, the story becomes a "yawn." The notion that a secret court without any transparency or review is somehow an adequate check on this program is bizarre. But don't take my word for it. Let's ask a retired federal judge who has more information and access than you or me:
As a former Article III judge, I can tell you that your faith in the FISA Court is dramatically misplaced.
Two reasons: One … The Fourth Amendment frameworks have been substantially diluted in the ordinary police case. One can only imagine what the dilution is in a national security setting. Two, the people who make it on the FISA court, who are appointed to the FISA court, are not judges like me. Enough said....
It’s an anointment process. It’s not a selection process. But you know, it’s not boat rockers. So you have a [federal] bench which is way more conservative than before. This is a subset of that. And it’s a subset of that who are operating under privacy, confidentiality, and national security. To suggest that there is meaningful review it seems to me is an illusion.
Do we have corroboration for this judge's criticism? We do: the 99.97% rate at which the FISA court grants these requests. That kind of number, of course, is what you'd expect from a kangaroo court, one specifically designed to act as a turnstile for our surveillance state. Even if Snowden is lying (for reasons that utterly escape me), and this exchange that CNET reports is somehow a complete misinterpretation, then we're left with a vast system of surveillance that is gobbling up our information and destroying our privacy without anything resembling adequate review. In the face of all of this, the skeptics seem to me to be in fact guilty of a profound lack of skepticism, a lack of skepticism towards a government that has demonstrated again and again that it cannot be trusted. They do so in an intellectual environment filled with serial Obama apologists and those who are bent on expanding the security state. It's time to reorient in the face of the best evidence.
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