Judge Andrew Napolitano, an RPI Advisory Board member, explains the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court scam in his latest masterful column. Napolitano reviews the evidence and concludes that the FISA court, which is routinely referenced to legitimate the US government mass spying program, “is unconstitutional at best and not even a court at worst.”
Writes Napolitano:
The judges of the FISA court are sworn to secrecy. They can’t even possess the records of what they have done. There is no case or controversy before them. There is no one before them to oppose what the NSA seeks. They don’t listen to challenged testimony. All of this violates the Constitution because it requires a real case or controversy before the jurisdiction of federal courts may be invoked. So when a FISA court judge issues an opinion declaring that NSA agents may spy to their hearts’ content, such an opinion is meaningless because it did not emanate out of a case or controversy. It is merely self-serving rhetoric, unchallenged and untested by the adversarial process. Think about it: Without an adversary, who will challenge the NSA when it exceeds the “permission” given by the FISA court or when it spies in defiance of “permission” denied? Who will know?
Read Napolitano’s column here.
