Use of secret spy and terrorism surveillance grows

[leftchick]

http://www.news-leader.com/today/0502-Useofsecre-76729.html

<snip>
Washington — The government's use of secret surveillance warrants to track spies and terrorists surged to a record high in 2003, surpassing for the first time the number of wiretaps sought by law enforcement in traditional criminal cases.
The new figures released Saturday show the extent to which the Justice Department and the FBI have shifted their focus to battling terrorism in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and, in the process, turned to the nation's secret "spy court" for legal permission to do so.

"There's been a fundamental change in the way the government conducts surveillance," said David Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "And the result is a lot more secrecy and lot less accountability."

Federal agents sought 1,727 warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for electronic eavesdropping and physical searches last year, according to a Justice Department filing with Congress. Just four applications were rejected, although two of them were later revised and approved. The number of so-called FISA warrants jumped by 500 from 2002 and has almost doubled since 2001 when 934 applications were approved.

<snip>
"It's alarming," said Timothy Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "We now know that most government surveillance today is supervised by a secret court that does not operate under the parameters of probable cause."

[teryang]

1. "They knocked down a wall"

It was the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. They don't need probable cause??????????????????

I wonder why they bother with the FISA court at all. The federal agent can go to any magistrate with these new phony warrants. There must have been a slip up with secrecy provisions.