There's no guilt or innocence being attributed to the defendant, and no legal penalty.
Moreover, warrants and many grand juries--where the "defendant" is absent--are also secret.
However, we've been through all this a decade back. The # of applications has soared since it was last pitched into the public arena as a topic of conversation, but what was true a decade ago is probably true now. If not, then the government has hired really incompetent lawyers.
A decade ago it was pointed out that the FISA court didn't reject applications. In the previous so many years, only a small handful of applications for a warrant were rejected. And the answer, from the judges and the attorneys, was the same. The lawyers knew the process well enough to know that if they don't have the application complete, it'll be rejected. If the application isn't complete, They just don't submit it. There was discussion about the kinds of information needed (at the time) and how long it took to put together an application. And the judges said the same thing. "We know what the law says. There's no discussion about it most of the time. They know what info to look for, and if all the boxes are checked and blanks filled in properly, it's a slam-dunk.
The rules are still known by the judges and by the attorneys filing for warrants. They've been through the process thousands of times. They know what forms to use. They know what information the rules and the judges' interpretation of the rules require. They know what the questions asked in the last decade are and know which ones need to be answered--and how to answer them.
The number is large. It's likely that the rules could be tightened a bit without harm to national security. Not sure that's the judges' job.
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