When Will Conservatives Start to Balk at Increasing Power Centralization?
With last week’s decision authorizing more government wiretaps and searches of alleged foreign agents, we can see that the point hasn’t been reached yet. That decision, as readers may be aware, was rendered by a special appeals court of conservative judges handpicked by Chief Justice William Rehnquist (Mr. Federalism himself). The opinion’s effect was to uphold the provision of the post-9/11 “Patriot Act” that lets federal prosecutors use information gathered by counter-espionage or counter-terrorism agents under special warrants issued by a secret court – the “FISA court” On the surface, this information sharing between prosecutors and law enforcement might seem innocuous. But it’s not. The Problem with the Recent FISA Court of Review Decision To begin, the very concept of the FISA court search warrants – which have been issued since the Court was founded over thirty years ago – is troubling. Ordinarily, the Constitution requires that the government establish “probable cause” that an
