Court proceedings under new SAFE act

[John Young]

Lucky Green asked about judges of the FISA court, and
Declan named Joyce Green.

The Chief Judge of FISA is Royce Lambert, who gave talk 
on C-SPAN about the operation of the court at an ABA 
conference in D.C. a few months ago.

He made the point that few applications for electronic
surveillance are turned down by the court (of 8,000 
applications 12 were denied) because the judges coach the 
applicants until they get a request right. And that the DoJ 
teams are quite adept at complying with the court's 
requirements, because all pass muster first of a special 
office set up for that purpose.

Judge Lambert said the job is "a lot of fun" because
its deals with supremely critical events of national
urgency, and that all the judges involved really do like it, 
especially the secrecy and prestige of being part of one 
of the most exclusive groups in Washington. This is not 
a joke.

Indeed, the Chief joked that the court's role "may be 
constitutional." And then said that he'll probably get in 
trouble for the statement.

For how the snoop system is supposed to work see the 
Foreign Intelligence Suveillance Act:

   http://jya.com/fis.htm  (107K)