Fergie's Tech Blog

NSA Cases Face Secret Tribunal

Ryan Singel writes on Wired News:

A sprawling array of cases challenging the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance of American's domestic and international communications may be moved to an obscure secret court in Washington, if a pending bill to alter the nation's surveillance law is voted on before the upcoming recess.

Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter's National Security Surveillance Act would allow the Attorney General to move surveillance cases involving state secrets to the little-known Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which has only heard one case in its 28-year history.

National security experts and civil liberties advocates assail the idea, saying it would diminish the chance that the government's controversial snooping would face open judicial scrutiny.

posted by Fergie @ 9/25/2006 10:10:00 AM