this past winter, i wrote a paper for my composition class about national security and civil liberties (Make Strange Bedfellows.) during my research, i learned about surveillance, what’s required to gain surveillance warrants, and how they’re different from warrants obtained for prosecution. there were other things, but warrants were most interesting to me.
either way, it came down to this: if law enforcement agencies want to poke around, they need a warrant. someone else needs to know about it, and it’s usually a (FISA) court. you can make the warrant request three days after the surveillence has started, but you still need a warrant. Over 18,000 surveillance requests have been made over the 28 year life of the FISA bill thus far, however only four were denied. the point is that another branch of government (albeit a secret court) was aware of it.
a federal judge ruled the wiretapping program was unconstitutional. why? no warrants were seeked. (see above)