Declan McCullagh wrote:
On Thu, 11 Sep 1997, Lucky Green wrote:
secret court that has never denied a request for a wiretap) jurisdiction; Is there any way of finding out the names of the judges sitting on the FISA court?
Not that I know of, though I do know that U.S. District Court Judge Joyce Green served on the FISA court for seven years.
Background: The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Survelliance Act established a special, secret court of current Federal district court judges. They approve warrants in secret hearings, with no opposing attorneys present. The judges are required to be available 24 hours a day for emergency hearings. Some happen in the middle of the night in the judge's home.
Also, you are not likely to see a FISA judge's name on a warrant. Instead, you will see warrants by regular judges which are backdated to dates such as, say...March 28 at 9:02 a.m. There are a variety of court systems within which they have the clerks regularly 'skip' certain document numbers, leaving them with hard to trace back-dated paperwork capabilities. This is a 'Democracy', which is why, in addition to secret police, we also have 'secret judges', and 'secret executioners'. (Do we also have 'secret voters'?) Anonymous #23-2b Cypherpunks Chief Spokesperson #328