Zimmerman: Not Guilty. But . . .

The Verdict

The jury correctly found George Zimmerman not guilty of murder in the second degree.  Another way to put it: not proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  We can take satisfaction in that.  It is how the criminal justice system, rooted in English common law, is supposed to work.  Every indicted person walks into the court room at the start of every day of his trial an innocent man.  Only at the end does the court room drama reach its climax with the jury's verdict: Guilty, Not Guilty or Not Decided. Sir William Blackstone, the great Anglo jurist said it this way: "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer." 

Trayvon Martin was innocent too; we do not try the dead.  Neither man was guilty but both were complicit.  Both contributed to an encounter that proved nothing and ended in tragedy.  Martin can claim that ancient school boy excuse, "He started it."  Zimmerman, playing a role of neighborhood watchman, followed a young man wearing a hoodie with the  hood up, calling police as he did so.  He told them he was following Martin.  "We don't need you to do that," the dispatcher said, but Zimmerman did so anyway, first in his car and then on foot.  Martin spotted him.

"What Are You Following Me For?"  "What Are You Doing Around Here?"

It was slightly later than 7:09 pm, February 26, 2012,  in the non descript town of Sanford, Florida, when that exchange of questions went down. The mean temperature that day was 61 Fahrenheit, cool for Florida and excuse enough to wear a cool hoodie.  Martin was on his cell phone to his friend Rachel Jeantel, who told investigators that she over heard the exchange of questions in the heading above.  Minutes later a single shot was fired into Martin's heart and he died almost immediately.  In between a number of witnesses testified that they saw and heard a patchwork of conflicting sights and sounds.  A brief summary of what we know: they fought; Zimmerman was losing (and had the injuries to show for it); he shot and killed Martin, probably in self defense.

George Zimmerman

He was accused of being a "wannabe cop."  That may be true but it is also probably unfair.  A recent rash of burglaries and other bad behavior had prompted his neighbors to elect Zimmerman head of their new Neighborhood Watch program, which they made known to the police.

 But his actions that night were not an advertisement for what Neighborhood Watch members do.  Their job is to be alert and aware and to report suspicious behavior to the police.  Nothing more.  They do not patrol.  They do not follow (stalk) suspicious characters.  They do not carry a concealed weapon (pack heat).  They are not, as in Florida and elsewhere, emboldened by the right to pack heat, follow anyone and stand your ground if you feel endangered.

 Zimmerman may have been off the Neighborhood Watch reservation, but he was a member in good standing of a numerous Florida tribe not nearly as civilized as the Seminoles. It may have been just after 7 pm that night, but in Florida, and places like it, it is always High Noon.  George Zimmerman bought into  that culture and his life will never be the same old normal again.

Trayvon Martin

At 17 he was only technically the child his supporters like to conger up.  As in "How can we keep our children safe?"  To compare his death to the Clan crushing the life out of Emmet Till demeans a memory we dare not forget.  Martin was a normal kid who had been into no more mischief than is typical of his age.  In fact he was a danger to himself, full of the physical strength of a young man, the culturally induced thin skin of a young black and the immature  judgement of the child his supporters made him out to be.

It was not late to be out.  He was not doing anything more suspicious than walking with cell phone.  He had ties to the neighborhood and was in fact staying with his father's fiance. His hood was up because it looked cool and the weather was cool enough for it.  He had every right and excuse to be where he was.  When he questioned Zimmerman about following him and Zimmerman replied with a variant on The Question every black child and man hears all too often, he lost it.  Trayvon Martin had not yet learned what Martin Luther King had learned from Mahatma Gandhi and it cost him his life.

The Rest of Us

 

It is not rational what happened that night. The consequences  are at once tragic and commonplace. It could have just as easily been you and me toe to toe on that lawn, feeling and not thinking, hot and not cool, deciding in split seconds what to do, and deciding wrongly.  But the consequences did not have to exceed a broken nose, bruised head and maybe a split lip or two.  Instead a cowboy culture that condones stalking, packing heat and high stakes at High Noon, and is coupled with an ancestral bent to think in stereotypes, especially when danger lurks, and to view those who fit a stereotype stored in our more ancient brain parts as the "other," can expect many more such nights.

It would be interesting, if impractical now, to trace each man's origins through their DNA.  Trayvon self-identified as black; George as Hispanic. DNA testing can show to a remarkable degree the geographical origins and racial makeup of your ancestors.  I would suspect that the two antagonists were more alike than different, and like most of us brothers under the skin. 

 

I just hope the next such story to gain national attention doesn't occur 20 miles from my home.  There hasn't been much else in the local newspapers lately. 

Civil Rights: An End to a Frontier

Last Updated on 27  November 2013.

Until Death Do US Part

No change in a public perception confirms the good sense of the American people at their best like the sudden, startling, shift in opinion that now accepts same sex marriage. Sex between couples of the same gender has gone in a generation from a source of titter and disdain to acceptance as a valid part of the continuum of human sexual conduct and union. 

This phenomenon has more to do with social changes than candor about our lusts.  When life was short and men dominant, marriage came early and often by arrangement..  The changes in social mores that led to today's open mart, in which couples find each other and set their own rules for intimacy and degree of commitment, took a couple of centuries even in the most individualistic societies.  Even now it is still proper etiquette for the young man to sweat out a request to the father for his daughter's hand in marriage -- no matter how long they have been living together.

Marriage in America has always been both a contract and a sacrament. The sacramental blessing validated the pact in the eyes of whatever religion the society or the individuals professed.  But in the United States you are not married unless the civil authorities say so; religious figures may bless the union in the name of their reigning deities but they act as designated agents of the state to perform and record the union. Thus marriage is usually a mix of the sacred and the civil --  but it can be just the civil. 

Gay and lesbian unions have usually hovered outside this social web.  They were felt to be of no obvious benefit to society, and homosexuality was condemned as an abomination in the sight of their gods by most religions.  They were confined to households quietly sharing more than expenses.  They were acknowledged in whispers, and practiced in secret. Most straights, when they thought about such relationships at all, thought them brief, usually casual, totally carnal and rarely committed.

The Young, The  Sexy and The Gay

If this sounds vaguely familiar it is because relationships today among college students, and the young in general, are just that casual.  "Hooking up" is their name for their culture of serial relationships, made practical by contraceptives and antibiotics, and made possible by the 1971 constitutional amendment that gave 18-year-olds the right to vote. This was done so young soldiers could vote as well as die for their country, but there were unintended consequences. Eighteen became the de facto point of adulthood.  Colleges stopped pretending to  restrict students as if they were charges in loco parentis and began treating them as adults.  (Dorm life today is a fantasy come true to this octogenarian.)  The new sexual freedom has seeped down via the tales of older brothers and sisters to the high and middle schools.

So it is not surprising that it is the young who are the most accepting of gays.   But this only one of the developments that led to a change of heart among Americans.  Another was an outgrowth of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  In the early days of  its spread, when mostly gay men were dying, the stereotype of the lone predator did not fit the scenes of grieving survivors; nor did their anger over isolation from their partners during the days of hospitalized illness and death fit the story line of only casual couplings. Society belatedly noted that "these people" can care for each other just like everybody else.  Who helps you grieve when you must grieve in secret?

AIDS also spawned a new militancy born of desperation.  One result was the pivotal 1969 Stonewall Riot in New York City. Then in 1973 American psychiatrists officially stopped listing homosexuality as a mental disorder.  Their psychological brethren followed suit two years later..The World Health Organization lagged behind, but finally joined the consensus in 1990.   Other catalysts include the books of the late Randy Shilts, a San Francisco writer (who greatly influenced this writer) and the homophobic murder of Harvey Milk, San Francisco's gay city council member in 1979. Gradually closeted shame gave way to being openly, even proudly out for many if not most.

The Courts Weigh In

Perhaps the most telling early event was a decisive verdict of the U. S. Supreme Court.  One enduring truism of American life-- one that is not true at all -- is that you cannot change hearts by passing  a law.  The country has often done so, notably with discrimination bans such as the Voting and Public Accomodations Rights acts.  The Supreme Court also changes behavior by striking down laws deemed unconstitutional. Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 was just such a milestone.  It overturned a previous decision of an earlier Supreme Court (Bower v. Hardwick) and invalidated the antique sodomy laws of 13 states on the way to legalizing the private sexual acts of consenting adults by finding them deserving of the equal protection of the laws and the protection of privacy as well.

Same sex marriage began in Massachusetts on May 17, 2004, when the state's highest tribunal ruled that it was contrary to the state constitution to allow only straight couples to marry.  Suddenly homosexuals were no longer queers.  They were not sick or illegal or depraved and, increasingly, no where near the closet. In Massachusetts at least.

Dumb, Dumber and DOMA

There was of course another law at the federal level.. Its name was DOMA. The Defense of Marriage Act had been around since 1996 after Hawaii's and other state's flirtations with legalizing same sex marriage scared the bejesus out of the Congress.  Of dubious constitutionality from the beginning, DOMA lets states refuse to recognize such unions granted under the laws of other states.  This part of the statute would seem to run roughshod over the "full faith and credit" states are supposed to grant each other's laws as clearly required by the U.S. Constitution.  This clause cuts both ways in this case, though, so a consitutional amendment may be needed to fully equalize marriages (see below for a proposal).

DOMA also placed all married gay couples outside the equal protection of the laws granting federal rights, benefits and privileges to heterosexual marriages, no matter where they lived.  They were unable to collect social security survivors benefits, couldn't file for bankruptcy as a couple, file joint tax returns, inherit with a spouse's tax deduction, to name the most salient of what DOMA denied them.
 
More details from the Wikipedia on line encyclopedia as of June 9, 2013:

"Initially introduced in May 1996, DOMA passed both houses of Congress by large majorities and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in September 1996. By defining "spouse" and its related terms to signify a heterosexual couple in a recognized marriage, Section 3 codified non-recognition of same-sex marriages for all federal purposes, including insurance benefits for government employees, social security survivors' benefits, immigration, bankruptcy, and the filing of joint tax returns, as well as excluding same-sex spouses from the scope of laws protecting families of federal officers (18 U. S. C. §115), laws evaluating financial aid eligibility, and federal ethics laws applicable to opposite-sex spouses.^[1]:23–24

"Clinton – along with key legislators – later advocated for DOMA's repeal. The Obama administration announced in 2011 that it had concluded Section 3 was unconstitutional and, though it would continue to enforce the law while it existed, it would no longer defend it in court. In United States v. Windsor (2013), the U.S. Supreme Court declared Section 3 of DOMA unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment."

The March of the States

On the same historic day the Supreme Court struck down part of DOMA, it also found that California advocates had no "standing" under the Constitution to complain that a Federal district court had invalidated a referendum passed by the state's voters which defined marriage as -- in what has become the classic phrase in many a state's statute -- "between one man and one woman."  California, which had permitted gay marriages for a while in 2008, then stopped as opponents managed to narrowly pass the referendum, had refused to defend the law in federal court.  This opened the way for the Supreme Court to send the case back to the Federal district court, which promptly sent to back to the California high court, where it finally died -- probably of exhaustion from all the travel and travail.  

The US Supreme Court took refuge behind the dictum that marriage was not a Federal matter, but one that each state could settle for itself.  In effect this allowed California to join Massachusetts and nine other states and DC that haved legalized same sex marriage.  It also left for another day knotty questions about the over eleven hundred federal laws and regulations that apply to married couples when same sex married travel or relocate to states that do not recognize their marriage.  Do federal benefits follow them, or vanish at the border?

Discrimination and DADT  

Another barrier to social acceptance  was DADT (Don't ask, don't tell) the foolish policy enshrined in federal law that let gay and lesbian members of the military stay in the ranks if they lied about their basic nature, and didn't overtly "practice" their homosexuality.  The law came about because gays in the military became an issue too early in Bill Clinton's presidency. It banned overt homosexuals from serving on grounds that their presence would risk "the high standards of morale, good order and discipline and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability."  Sure.  In fact the law was no more than modestly successful in preventing zealous unit commanders from ferreting out and discharging every queer they could.  Men deemed feminine and women acting butch didn't stand a chance as stereotype and prejudice continued to rule.

Clinton who signed DADT into law to quiet the furor over his premature indications that homosexuals ought to be as accepted in the U.S. military as they were in other NATO nations, finally personally repudiated the law.  Washington slowly moved that way, taking 18 years and three presidential elections before repeal and its ever so gradual implementation was consummated (there is no better word) on 20 Sept 2011.  After that nothing much happened except that gays ccould be gay. It was, after all, a non event in the young enlisted ranks.  A few high ranking troglodytes probably retired and the process of generational change was helped along thereby.

On To The Future

In another -- this time valid -- example of leading from the rear, the United States will -- eventually and belatedly join -- other nations of our mutual western culture in the full acceptance of homosexuals into the communitas of civil society.  We have to sort out a constitutional way to get there.  The conservative Supreme Court has charted a path to consensus that walks the walk state by state.  An ensuing and shifting tangle of contradictions will be born thanks to a conflict between evolving rights and privileges and the geography inherent in their decision.  

People move about.  When they do they expect to take their rights with them.  For perhaps a very long time this will not be possible for the unisex married if their journey takes them from, say, Massachusetts to Alabama, even if just for business or pleasure.  Businesses will be inconvenienced to such a point that even the U. S. Chamber of Commerce might come to urge the country to get real.  Governments will be inconvenienced in ways large and small.  Perhaps even this Supreme Court bench will note that a consequence of their California ruling is a chaotic spread of unequal protection of the laws.  A more liberal Court is a cinch to get it. But we are not a cinch to get a more liberal Court.

The most permanent way to settle these dilemmas is a Constitutional amendment.  I suggest:

Equality of rights and privileges under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex or sexual identity.

The reader will please note the sly way justice for homosexuals has been appended to the old, once rejected equal rights amendment for women.  It is an unbeatable combination directly affecting the status of a majority of the country. We should go for it.  And toast with something stronger than tea when it pases.

The End of The Frontier In Sight

Should we so amend the Constitution, there will be a certain sadness along with the joy and satisfaction of that moment.  It will be akin to one like it in 1890 when The Census Bureau announced the closing of the territorial frontier.  For we will have completed the march of civil rights for all.  From sea to shining sea no group of citizens will be without equal protection -- or secured privileges --  under the law.  The law is of course only words on paper unless enforced and finally taken to heart by the citizenry, but at least the state will no longer have to enforce discriminatory laws.

A few mopping up operations and a certain amount of eternal vigilance will be necessary.  Barriers to voting have gotten more ingeneous of late.  And the franchise accorded the District of Columbia citizens remains in unsatisfactory legal limbo.  Some southern states, with no other way left to refight the Civil War, will drag their feet on gay married rights for a generation perhaps.  Our enfranchisement of Indian tribes leaves much to be desired.  And then there is the 11 million "undocumented," mostly Latinos on the outside looking in and tapping more or less gently on the glass. Still, all us babies have come a long way.    


 



     

FISCA: A Court or a Fig Leaf

Last Updated 18 July 2013.

FISCA spelled out is the [United States] Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Act.  It's an act of Congress signed into law by President Jimmie Carter in 1978.  It sets up the FISCA Court to pass on requests for surveillance, mostly by the FBI and the NSA (National Security Agency). 

The impetus for doing all this came from a committee headed by then Utah Senator Frank Church, a democrat not known for his trust in the surveillance industry.  In fact the committee was born to delve into charges of illegal spying on American citizens by FBI and CIA units.  The charges were true.  Among the committee's recommendations was FISCA.

Is FISCA a court at all?  Opinions differ:

Yes:  Members are sitting federal circuit court judges selected by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  Its sole function is to review requests for warrants from agencies permitted by law to request them. Only a court can issue warrants under our constitution.  Since the judges are drawn from the ranks of sitting Federal Judges who  have life time tenure for good behavior at a salary that cannot be reduced while they are in office, they are immune from the cruder forms of pressure. Their adverse decisions can be appealed to a 3-man review court.

No:   This court conducts no trials, hears no witnesses, renders no verdicts of guilt or innocence.   No defendant comes before the court, innocent until proven guilty, to confront his accusers.  No claimant gets his day in court to press for redress of grievance.  The session is not a trial, speedy or not, nor is is public.  The usual attendees are government lawyers. It is unclear whether or not the court can compel witnesses to appear, or hold the uncooperative in contempt of court.  It is unstated - -so far as I could determine -- whether or not judges are compensated.

If it is a court it is highly specialized.  So too are Federal bankruptcy courts and the courts that specialize in drug cases or handle family disputes. It is also highly secretive.  Virtually none of the details of specific cases are known to the public, and these are highly redacted (edited).  Members of Congressional intelligence committees are briefed.  All members of Congress may read surveillance requests and subpoenas in a secure room, but given their recent fury over the leak of some wholesale surveillance warrants for domestic phone call meta data few of them took the time.

From the Wikapedia entry:  "During the 25 years from 1979–2004, 18,742 warrants were granted, while just four were rejected. Fewer than 200 requests had to be modified before being accepted, almost all of them in 2003 and 2004."

The flurry of modifications mid way through the Bush first term was probably caused by the court's discovery that the Justice Department was making liberal use of an emergency procedure to approve warrants and tell the court about it later.  In some cases the implication was that it was much later -- if ever.  Of course those were the days when Al Kaida went from being a bunch of rag heads in the eyes of the Bushies to master terrorists capable of anything.  We will probably never know all the sins against the Constitution committed in our name,  in the interest of our safety but at a cost to our liberty, in the years following 9/11.

So is FISCA a court or not?  In the beginning, yes.  Now?  It is more fig leaf and rubber stamp.  It is unclear whether or not the Church committee envisioned the court approving the wholesale data collections that have come to light (See my blog entry, "Speaking Meta data.").  The data handling technology required was not commonplace 35 years ago.  At that time this writer was buying data storage for the Department of the Navy at a price for a mere 100,000 bytes that would buy a nice suburban Florida home today, while the physical size of the storage units would fill the spare bedroom and double the cost of air conditioning.

The close scrutiny the FISCA is now getting is thus, on technical grounds alone, well overdue. In its present incarnation it has morphed into just another slightly more benign item in a long list of Bush/Obama era abuses of power in the name of security such as Guantanamo and the bribes that filled it, disregard of treaty obligations, unlawfully torturous interrogations, secret renditions. 
 and assassinations of American citizens.                  

 Somehow we need to get a challenge to FISCA in front of a real court. Even if you concede -- and I do -- that NSA's data has saved lives, the potential cost to our civil liberties from  this precedent is too great. Not only soldiers die in defense of our constitutional rights.  Perhaps you, maybe me. 

A Wikipedia Entry Exerpt

Since 2009, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has been located in the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in Washington, D.C.^[2][3] For roughly thirty years of its history, it was housed on the sixth floor of the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building.^[2][3]
In 2013, a top secret warrant issued by this Court was leaked to the media. That warrant, which ordered Verizon to provide a daily feed of all call detail records – including those for domestic calls – to the National Security Agency, sparked a public outcry of criticism and controversy.

Closed hearings and classified proceedings[edit]

Because of the sensitive nature of its business, the court is a "secret court" – its hearings are closed to the public. While records of the proceedings are kept, they also are unavailable to the public, although copies of some records with classified information redacted have been made public. Due to the classified nature of its proceedings, usually only government attorneys are permitted to appear before the court. Because of the nature of the matters heard before it, court hearings may need to take place at any time of day or night, weekdays or weekends; thus, at least one judge must be "on call" at all times to hear evidence and decide whether or not to issue a warrant.
A heavily redacted version of an 2008 appeal by Yahoo of an order issued with respect to NSA's PRISM program had been published for the edification of other potential appellants. The identity of the appellant was declassified in June 2013.^[4]

FISA warrants[edit]

Each application for one of these surveillance warrants (called a FISA warrant) is made before an individual judge of the court. The court may allow third parties to submit briefs as amici curiae. When the Attorney General determines that an emergency exists he may authorize the emergency employment of electronic surveillance before obtaining the necessary authorization from the FISC, after which the Attorney General or his designee must notify a judge of the court not more than 72 hours after the Attorney General authorizes such surveillance, as required by 50 U.S.C. § 1805.
If an application is denied by one judge of the court, the federal government is not allowed to make the same application to a different judge of the court, but may appeal to the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review. Such appeals are rare: the first appeal from the FISC to the Court of Review was made in 2002 (In re Sealed Case No. 02-001), 24 years after the founding of the court.

It is also rare for FISA warrant requests to be turned down by the court. During the 25 years from 1979–2004, 18,742 warrants were granted, while just four were rejected. Fewer than 200 requests had to be modified before being accepted, almost all of them in 2003 and 2004. The four rejected requests were all from 2003, and all four were partially granted after being submitted for reconsideration by the government. Of the requests that had to be modified, few if any were before the year 2000. During the next eight years, from 2004–2012, there were over 15,100 additional warrants granted, with an additional seven being rejected. In all, over the entire 33 year period, the FISA court has granted 33,942 warrants, with only 11 denials – a rejection rate of 0.03% of the total requests.^[5]

On May 17, 2002, the court rebuffed then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, releasing an opinion that alleged that FBI and Justice Department officials had "supplied erroneous information to the court in more than 75 applications for search warrants and wiretaps, including one signed by then-FBI Director Louis J. Freeh".^[7] Whether this rebuke is related to the court starting to require modification of significantly more requests in 2003 is unknown.
On December 16, 2005, the New York Times reported that the Bush administration had been conducting surveillance against U.S. citizens without the knowledge of the court since 2002.^[8] On December 20, 2005, Judge James Robertson resigned his position with the court, apparently in protest of the secret surveillance.^[9] The government's apparent circumvention of the court started prior to the increase in court-ordered modifications to warrant requests.

Criticism[edit]

There has been growing criticism of the court since 9-11. The minimal number of requests that are modified by the court has led experts to characterize it as a rubber stamp. For example, Russell Tice, a former National Security Agency analyst said "It is a kangaroo court with a rubber stamp."^[10] The very small percentage of requests that are modified by the court, combined with the statistically-negligible percentage of denied requests (0.03%), has been sharply criticized.^{[10][11][12][13]}

2013 NSA controversy[edit]

In June 2013 a copy of a top secret warrant, issued by the FISA court on April 25, 2013, was leaked to British media. That warrant orders Verizon's Business Network Services to provide a daily feed to the National Security Agency containing "telephony metadata" – comprehensive call detail records, including location data – about all calls in its system, including those that occur "wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls":^[14]

"This Court having found that the Application of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)... satisfies the requirements of 50 U.S.C. § 1861, "IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that, the Custodian of Records shall produce to the National Security Agency (NSA) upon service of this Order, and continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this Order, unless ordered by the Court, an electronic copy of the following tangible things: all call detail records or "telephony metadata" created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls....
"Telephony metadata includes comprehensive communications routing information, including but not limited to session identifying information (e.g., originating and terminating telephone number, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) number, International Mobile station Equipment Identity (IMEI) number, etc.), trunk identifier, telephone calling card numbers, and time and duration of call. Telephony metadata does not include the substantive content of any communication, as defined by 18 U.S.C. § 2510(8), or the name, address, or financial information of a subscriber or customer." (emphasis added)

—Judge Roger Vinson, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court^[14]

This document acted as a "smoking gun" and sparked a public outcry of criticism and complaints^[15][16] that the Court exceeded its authority and violated the Fourth Amendment by issuing general warrants.^[17] The Washington Post then reported that it knew of other orders, and that the court had been issuing such orders, to all telcos, every three months since May 24, 2006. ^[18] Subsequent to the media disclosures, the Obama Administration revealed that the records of all phone companies had been collected by the NSA since 2006, with oversight from Congress and the FISA court.^{[citation needed]}
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, challenged the Administration's "oversight" claims, saying that:

"The FISA system is broken. At the point that a FISA judge can compel the disclosure of millions of phone records of U.S. citizens engaged in only domestic communications, unrelated to the collection of foreign intelligence... there is no longer meaningful judicial review."^[5]

Former Vice President Al Gore was also sharply critical, both of the practice and of the Obama Administration's stance on the topic:

"I quite understand the viewpoint that many have expressed that they are fine with it and they just want to be safe, but that is not really the American way. Benjamin Franklin famously wrote that 'those who would give up essential liberty to try to gain some temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.'... This in my view violates the Constitution, the Fourth Amendment and the First Amendment – and the Fourth Amendment language is crystal clear.... It is not acceptable to have a secret interpretation of a law that goes far beyond any reasonable reading of either the law or the Constitution, and then classify as top secret what the actual law is.... This is not right.... I think that the Congress and the Administration need to make some changes in the law and in their behavior so as to honor and obey the Constitution of the United States. It is that simple."^[17]

Composition[edit]

When the court was founded, it was composed of seven federal district judges appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States, each serving a seven-year term, with one judge being appointed each year. In 2001, the USA PATRIOT Act expanded the court from seven to eleven judges, and required that at least three of the Court's judges live within twenty miles (32 km) of the District of Columbia. No judge may be appointed to this court more than once, and no judge may be appointed to both the Court of Review and the FISA court.

Current membership[edit]

Judge[19]	Judicial district	Date appointed	Term expiry
Reggie Walton (presiding)	District of Columbia	02007-05-19May 19, 2007	May 18, 2014
Rosemary M. Collyer	District of Columbia	March 8, 2013	March 7, 2020
Raymond J. Dearie	Eastern District of New York	July 2, 2012	July 1, 2019
Claire Eagan	Northern District of Oklahoma	February 13, 2013	May 18, 2019
Martin L.C. Feldman	Eastern District of Louisiana	May 19, 2010	May 18, 2017
Thomas Hogan	District of Columbia	May 18, 2009	May 18, 2016
Mary A. McLaughlin	Eastern District of Pennsylvania	May 18, 2008	May 18, 2015
Michael W. Mosman	District of Oregon	May 4, 2013	May 3, 2020
F. Dennis Saylor IV	District of Massachusetts	May 19, 2011	May 18, 2018
Susan Webber Wright	Eastern District of Arkansas	May 18, 2009	May 18, 2016
James Zagel	Northern District of Illinois	May 18, 2008	May 18, 2015

Former membership[edit]

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

[hide]Judge	Judicial District	Date Appointed	Term Expiry
Roger Vinson	Northern District of Florida	May 4, 2006	May 18, 2013
Jennifer B. Coffman	Eastern District of Kentucky	May 19, 2011	May 18, 2018 (retired Jan 8, 2013)
John D. Bates	District of Columbia	February 22, 2006	February 21, 2013
George P. Kazen	Southern District of Texas	July 15, 2003	May 18, 2010
Robert C. Broomfield	District of Arizona	October 1, 2002	May 18, 2009
Colleen Kollar-Kotelly	District of Columbia	May 18, 2002	May 18, 2009
James Robertson	District of Columbia	May 19, 2002	May 18, 2006 (resigned December 20, 2005)
Nathaniel M. Gorton	District of Massachusetts	May 18, 2001	May 18, 2008
James G. Carr	Northern District of Ohio	May 19, 2002	May 18, 2008
Claude M. Hilton	Eastern District of Virginia	May 2000	May 2007
John Edwards Conway	District of New Mexico	2000	May 2006
Harold A. Baker	Central District of Illinois		2005
Stanley S. Brotman	District of New Jersey		2004
William Henry Stafford Jr.	Northern District of Florida	1996	2003
Royce C. Lamberth	District of Columbia	1995	2002
John F. Keenan	Southern District of New York	May 1994	May 2001
James C. Cacheris	Eastern District of Virginia	1993	2000
Earl H. Carroll	District of Arizona	1992	1999
Charles Schwartz Jr.	Eastern District of Louisiana	1991	1998
Ralph G. Thompson	Western District of Oklahoma	1990	1997
Frank Freedman	District of Massachusetts	1990	1997
Wendell Alverson Miles	Western District of Michigan	1989	1996
Robert W. Warren	Eastern District of Wisconsin	1989	1996
Joyce H. Green	District of Columbia	1988	1995
James E. Noland	Southern District of Indiana	1987	1994
Conrad K. Cyr	District of Maine	1987	1994
Frederick B. Lacey	District of New Jersey	1979	1985

See also[edit]

• Operation CHAOS
• PRISM (surveillance program)
• National Security Agency
• NSA call database
• NSA warrantless surveillance (2001–07)
• In re Sealed Case No. 02-001
• Commission nationale de contrôle des interceptions de sécurité

Notes[edit]

1. ^ Cohen, David; John Wells (April 17, 2004). American National Security and Civil Liberties in an Era of Terrorism. Palgrave. ISBN 1-4039-6199-9.  p. 34
2. ^ ^{a b} Wilber, Del Quentin (March 2, 2009). "Surveillance Court Quietly Moving". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 24, 2013. 
3. ^ ^{a b} Leonnig, Carol; Ellen Nakashima, Barton Gellman (June 29, 2013). "Secret-court judges upset at portrayal of ‘collaboration’ with government". The Washington Post. p. 2. Retrieved June 30, 2013.  "For about 30 years, the court was located on the sixth floor of the Justice Department’s headquarters, down the hall from the officials who would argue in front of it. (The court moved to the District’s federal courthouse in 2009.)"
4. ^ Claire Cain Miller; Nicole Perlroth (June 28, 2013). "Secret Court Declassifies Yahoo’s Role in Disclosure Fight". The New York Times. Retrieved June 29, 2013. 
5. ^ ^{a b} Evan, Perez (9 June 2013). "Secret Court's Oversight Gets Scrutiny". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 20 June 2013. 
6. ^ "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court Orders 1979-2012". Electronic Privacy Information Center. Retrieved 20 June 2013. 
7. ^ Shenon, Philip (August 23, 2002). "Secret court says F.B.I. aides misled judges in 75 cases". The New York Times. Retrieved November 20, 2011. 
8. ^ Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts, New York Times, December 16, 2005 – mirror
9. ^ Spy Court Judge Quits In Protest: Jurist Concerned Bush Order Tainted Work of Secret Panel, Washington Post, December 21, 2005
10. ^ ^{a b} "Fisa chief judge defends integrity of court over Verizon records collection". June 6, 2013. Retrieved June 7, 2013. 
11. ^ "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court Orders 1979–2011". Retrieved June 7, 2013. 
12. ^ "The bad joke called 'the FISA court' shows how a 'drone court' would work". May 3, 2013. Retrieved June 7, 2013. 
13. ^ "Toobin: Bush on 'questionable legal footing'". December 19, 2005. Retrieved June 7, 2013. 
14. ^ ^{a b} Vinson, Judge Roger (April 25, 2013). "In re Application of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for an Order Requiring the production of tangible things from Verizon Business Network Services, Inc. on behalf of MCI Communication Services, Inc. d/b/a Verizon Business Services" (PDF). Top Secret order of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Electronic Privacy Information Center. Retrieved 20 June 2013. 
15. ^ Greenwald, Glenn (June 5, 2013). "NSA collecting phone records of millions of Americans daily". The Guardian. Retrieved June 6, 2013. 
16. ^ Savage, Charlie; Wyatt, Edward (5 June 2013). "U.S. Is Secretly Collecting Records of Verizon Calls". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 June 2013. 
17. ^ ^{a b} Goldenberg, Suzanne (June 14, 2013). "Al Gore: NSA's secret surveillance program 'not really the American way'". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 June 2013. 
18. ^ "U.S. surveillance architecture includes collection of revealing Internet, phone metadata". 
19. ^ "2013 Membership". Federation of American Scientists. Retrieved 20 June 2013. 

References[edit]

• "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court 2007 Membership". from the Federation of American Scientists. Retrieved May 24, 2007. 
• "Judge Walton Named to Foreign Intel Surveillance Court". from Secrecy News. Retrieved May 24, 2007. 
• "Chief Justice Rehnquist's Appointments to the FISA Court: an Empirical Perspective". Retrieved February 13, 2011. 
• "Judge John D. Bates Appointed to the FISA Court". from Secrecy News. Retrieved March 24, 2006. 
• "New FISA Court Judge Appointed". from Secrecy News. Retrieved May 24, 2006. 
• Lichtblau, Eric (March 29, 2006). "Judges on Secretive Panel Speak Out on Spy Program". New York Times. Retrieved March 29, 2006. 
• "Big Brother is Listening" by James Bamford, Atlantic Monthly, April 2006.
• Diamond, John (December 18, 2005). "NSA's surveillance of citizens echoes 1970s controversy". USA Today. Retrieved December 18, 2005. 
• Ashcroft, John (2001). "(Untitled DOJ memo summarizing FISA applications for calendar year 2000)". Retrieved December 17, 2005.