Who Decides Whether the “Reasonable Basis” Test is Met to Conduct Domestic Spying?
NSA shift supervisors. According to U.S. Attorney General Gonzales, the “judgment is made by the operational work force at the National Security Agency using the information available to them at the time, and the standard that they apply — and it’s a two-person standard that must be signed off by a shift supervisor…” Under FISA, the federal FISC judges decide if the standard is met. Only five times out of over 19,000 applications have the FISC judges refused to allow the surveillance under the higher “probable cause” standard required by FISA.
