Sen. Dick Durbin
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has a
bright idea for addressing one problem with the out-of-control surveillance state: reform the secret FISA court by putting an adversary in the process. As of now, the court hears only the government's case, in secret, and acts on the government's wishes. Schiff wants to have someone in court to question the government.
He's got a pretty important ally on the Senate side of Capitol Hill.
The Obama Administration says the FISA court adequately safeguards Americans' civil liberties. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, who holds the second-highest Democratic leadership position in the Senate, disagrees.
"These FISA courts—there should be a real court proceeding," he said on Sunday. "In this case, it's fixed in a way. It's loaded. There's only one case coming before the FISA court: the government's case. Let's have an advocate, or someone, standing up for civil liberties, to speak up for the privacy of Americans when they make each of these decisions, and let's release some of the transcripts, redacted, carefully redacted, so that people understand the debate that's going on in these FISA courts." When you've got a senior lawmaker calling a secret court "fixed in a way," implying that it doesn't conduct "real" proceedings, and affirming that its judges aren't hearing information that would be relevant to their decisions, that's alarming.
Unless, of course, what you want is a rubber stamp for the surveillance state.
Yeah, that's alarming. The alarming part is that a close ally of President Obama, a member of Senate leadership, and someone in the position to know says that the FISA court is that fucked up. From the perspective of bringing some transparency, some accountability to the surveillance state, it's fantastic. Such blunt words from a leadership figure in the Senate could also mean that momentum is building for reform.
The close NSA defunding vote in the House last week has galvanized reform-minded lawmakers. Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), who was a primary author of the Patriot Act, and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) are working together on legislation to "restrict phone surveillance to only those named as targets of a federal terrorism investigation," and to reform the FISA court. The Senate Intelligence committee members have begun discussions about how to proceed with potential reforms, meetings which a key reform, Sen. Mark Udall, calls "serious." House Intelligence chair Mike Rogers (R-MI) promises a new bill with privacy protections, probably "focusing on more transparency for the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."
At the very least, it looks there's real momentum in Congress to seriously consider FISA court reforms. That's a start, and has potential for reigning in programs in the future, but doesn't address the current problem of the NSA's dragnet surveillance, which has already been rubber-stamped by the secret court and put into practice. Tackling that problem will be the measure of how serious Congress is about doing it's job of oversight by challenging the surveillance state.
Here's a place to start. Sign our petition urging Congress to declassify the FISA Court’s rulings.