Sure, the FISA Court has been reduced by the Protect America Act to a rubber stamp for the Justice Department and the Director of National Intelligence. But don’t weep for the court. As a kind of consolation prize, it’s getting new office space!
The nation’s spy court is moving from its longtime home at the Justice Department to a nearby federal courthouse, a move that some hope will assert the court’s independence even as Congress shifts some of its authority to the Bush administration.Since its inception in 1978, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has been located in a secure area at Justice Department headquarters, where government attorneys armed with secret evidence seek permission to conduct surveillance.
“It’s always been an anomaly and it suggested to critics that the court was subordinate to its Justice Department hosts,” said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists.
Now that’s a new vista in cynicism: moving the FISA Court out of Justice right when it really does become an adjunct of executive power.
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