US secretive court to renew NSA phone spying
A secretive federal court in the US plans to reauthorize the controversial phone records collection by the National Security Agency for another six months.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that oversees US government spying requests plans to renew the NSA spying in spite of a new reform law that ended the program.
Section 215 of the Patriot Act enables the NSA to collect any telephone and business records relevant to a counter-terrorism investigation.The section expired without renewal on June 1.
In an order released on Friday, the FISC said a short lapse in some Patriot Act provisions would not ban the court from allowing the NSA’s surveillance.
The court “has the authority to grant the applications and issue the requested orders,” FISC Judge F. Dennis Saylor wrote. Saylor noted that the court does not need approval of an "amicus," or panel, of privacy advocates, which was created under the USA Freedom Act.
"The statute provides some limited guidance, in that it clearly contemplates that there will be circumstances where an amicus curiae is unnecessary (that is, 'not appropriate')," Saylor said.
"At a minimum, it seems likely that those circumstances would include situations where” the court can choose not to use the assistance or advice of amicus curiae as the legal issue is relatively simple or it needs “a single reasonable or rational outcome."
The court has to yet issue an order giving the NSA the go-ahead to continue its massive espionage.
Privacy advocates have criticized the court, objecting to the way it handles the privacy panel.
"Propriety in the spirit of the USA Freedom Act is when the decision at hand were to have an impact on the rights of individuals, not necessarily when the Court conjectures that a decision is self-evident," said Amie Stepanovich, US policy manager with the digital-rights advocacy group Access.
Stepanovich said the amicus is responsible to “raise issues that may not be readily apparent on first blush.”
He called on the court to respect “the presumption of the statute in favor of appointing the amicus."
NSA was first put under the spotlight when its former contractor, Edward Snowden, disclosed the extent of the agency’s spying activities in June 2013 leaking massive collections of phone records of Americans and foreign nationals as well as political leaders around the world.
AT/GJH
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