An oversight that rubber stamps 99% of surveillance requests from the NSA and allows it to use information sharing agreements with its allies to skirt around rules preventing surveillance of its own citizens.
That is a false talking point. The approval rate of FISA warrants does not reflect the strength of oversight. Be careful. There is a lot of disinformation out there designed to discredit democracies.
The win rate is misleading for a simple reason: The requests the FISC receives are not a random or representative sample of all cases in which the executive branch believes it would benefit from a warrant. The number and type of government requests are responsive to the level of oversight the court exercises—just as a plaintiff’s decision to litigate is responsive to changes in the law. Because it is costly to make an ex parte application (in time, resources, and reputation) and because the executive has long-running knowledge of how the FISC treats applications, there is little reason to expect agencies to submit losing requests. And while the rarity of ex parte proceedings might make this outcome seem unprecedented or extraordinary, other ex parte proceedings—like those for Title III wiretaps and delayed-notice warrants—display equally lopsided results: the government “wins” almost 100% of the time.
