A failure to protect our rights (FISA)

But it became clear that the agency was interfering when documents began disappearing from the database in 2010. The CIA apologized and promised not to remove documents again. Then when Senate staffers got their hands on a truly explosive document, a review ordered by then–CIA chief Leon Panetta that supported the Senate committee’s conclusion of “significant CIA wrongdoing,” the agency moved to protect itself, breaching, once again, the supposedly secure computers and removing documents. Yet again, Feinstein didn’t call out the agency for its illegal actions. She went public only upon learning that the CIA had not just broken into the computers again — this time to search the work and internal communications of its overseers — but also had asked the Justice Department to launch a criminal probe into Senate staff.

Last year the FISA court was revealed, thanks to leaks from Edward Snowden, to have signed off on a program that collects records of practically all telephone calls made in the United States, as well as one that scoops up e-mail records. According to the latest story, in 2001 the court issued a ruling, known as the Raw Take order, setting aside rules meant to prevent the NSA from sharing irrelevant personal information about innocent Americans.

President Barack Obama hasn’t seen fit to chastise the CIA for its actions, and it has been reported that the White House blocked Senate access to some 9,000 documents. He has vigorously defended the NSA, often relying on the supposedly rigorous check that Congress and the FISA court provide. In his first remarks about Snowden, Obama said Americans didn’t need to just trust that he was “doing the right thing ... because we’ve got congressional oversight and judicial oversight.” If people can’t trust the president or Congress or federal judges to uphold the law, Obama said, “we’re going to have some problems here.” Unfortunately, these stories show there are definitely some problems here.

The secret court in which the intelligence agencies are almost always the only advocates doesn’t work to hold the spies in check. The court almost always sides with the government; in the last 33 years, it turned down surveillance requests just 0.03 percent of the time. The congressional intelligence committees seem forever behind the curve and intimidated. Yet the American people are told that these two institutions will protect their rights. It’s pretty obvious they won’t.


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