The facts show the FISA Court that Liberals claim is so easy to get permission from has not been that way with requests from the Bush Administration.
Secret court modified wiretap requests
Government records show that the administration was encountering unprecedented second-guessing by the secret federal surveillance court when President Bush decided to bypass the panel and order surveillance of U.S.-based terror suspects without the court’s approval.
A review of Justice Department reports to Congress shows that the 26-year-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court modified more wiretap requests from the Bush administration than from the four previous presidential administrations combined.
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The 11-judge court that authorizes FISA wiretaps has approved at least 18,740 applications for electronic surveillance or physical searches from five presidential administrations since 1979.
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But since 2001, the judges have modified 179 of the 5,645 requests for court-ordered surveillance by the Bush administration. A total of 173 of those court-ordered “substantive modifications” took place in 2003 and 2004 — the most recent years for which public records are available.
The judges also rejected or deferred at least six requests for warrants during those two years — the first outright rejection in the court’s history.
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While the Justice Department was trying to gain valuable intelligence information, the FISA court was playing games of delay, modify and deny! Bush did the right thing to by-pass them.
Hat tip to Drudge.
Related post: Presidents are required to use executive power to protect American lives
