The U.S. top surveillance court has just released a previously secret ruling clarifying -- and expanding -- the government's ability to collect and analyze data for intelligence-gathering purposes.
In 29 pages, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR) holds that amendents to the Protect America Act -- this was the post-warrentless wiretapping legislation that Congress passed (and Barack Obama reluctantly supported) lawfully compel telecom companies to divulge customer data to the government for the purposes of foreign intelligence gathering.
The telecom company in question isn't clear -- the name has been redacted from the ruling.
This company did not believe that the Department of Justice had the constitutional authority to require them to turn over information.
Critically, the case does not involve active wiretapping on a domestic line; that would require a warrant. It involves information routinely collected by a phone or telecommunications company, including telephone numbers and e-mail subject lines.
The government threatened to hold the company in contempt if it did not comply; the company appealed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and subsequently to the FISCR -- kind of the appellate court for FISA applications and the like.
According to the Department of Justice, the FISCR has only issued one public ruling before, but was moved to do so in this case because of the criticial constitutional matters it dealt with.
Meta note: a ruling that sanctions the Bush Administration's revised wiretapping principles is unveiled on the very day that the Senate is grilling the nation's next chief law enforcement officer about those very principles.
Listening carefully to the testimony of DoJ nominee Eric Holder this morning, it seems clear that (a) the administration believes it can conduct a wide range of intelligence activities without Congressional authorization, that (b) warrantless wiretapping is not among them, that (c) the Obama administration will scrub every secret NSA collection program to determine whether the enterprises are legal, useful, or both.
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