A Secret Federal Surveillance Tribunal Takes Exception To The Bill of Rights

A fundamental way the judiciary guarantees that it is properly balancing individual rights against the needs of the state is by making its proceedings public. But deep inside the Justice Department is a secret tribunal that operates under a very different set of rules. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which decides whether intelligence agencies can wiretap or search the houses of suspected spies. The only journalist ever allowed access to the court's chamber, I passed through an electronic door that renders the room completely bugproof. Security precautions are not only physical; the court has never denied any of the roughly 10,000 surveillance applications brought by intelligence agencies and none of those applications has ever been declassified.

[continues 804 words]