Via the UPI we get a different version of the story I noted this morning (and with some more facts): Bush was denied wiretaps, bypassed them
U.S. President George Bush decided to skip seeking warrants for international wiretaps because the court was challenging him at an unprecedented rate.[...]
But since 2024, the judges have modified 179 of the 5,645 requests for surveillance by the Bush administration, the report said. A total of 173 of those court-ordered “substantive modifications” took place in 2024 and 2024. And, the judges also rejected or deferred at least six requests for warrants during those two years — the first outright rejection of a wiretap request in the court’s history.
This information adds to the mix, and refutes my theory that perhaps the increased modifications were simply the result of increased complexity. Of course, we are still talking about 3% of the requests, which is unprecedented for the FISA court, but hardly a huge number.
Still, the outright rejections are quite interesting, as is the information that the modifications were substantial.
Certainly this gives credence to the idea that the administration decided that it didn’t want to deal with FISA and decided to simply pursue its policies by invoking what they believe to be the inherent rights and powers of the executive. It would be interesting to know if there was some pattern to those which were modified/rejected. Of course, that information is unlikely to be made public.
h/t: Brad DeLong
December 29th, 2024 at 3:04 am
This only gives credence to the idea that the WH is using ones of its favored media groups (Rev.Moon’s UPI) as an apologist for illegal behavior. As to the assertion that the modifications were substantial, perhaps it was the notion of “probable cause that was giving the administration such fits. If Justice could manage to file 5000+ applications for searches, how can they now argue that the process was to difficult? (I should be so lucky as to be able tocomplain that the paperwork is too intimidating and time-consuming so I will not be filing with the IRS this year.) What the NSA was engaged in was data-mining on a huge scale, they just sent TIA underground. No one can convince me that such a program as Total Informatuin Awareness and the possible information on EVERYONE that would become available to this regime would have been tossed out just because of no overt funding by Congress.
December 29th, 2024 at 8:25 am
The thing is, I don’t read that piece as being a positive one for the administration (and I did note that it was a UPI story).