‘Relevant’ Standard Allows Massive Domestic Surveillance by NSA

Secret court rulings have allowed the NSA to gather phone data on millions of Americans, all hinging on the definition of the word “relevant.”  This change in the law came from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a secret body of judges who evaluate government surveillance in the name of national security.

In classified orders starting in the mid-2000s, the court accepted that “relevant” could be broadened to permit an entire database of records on millions of people, in contrast to a more conservative interpretation widely applied in criminal cases, in which only some of those records would likely be allowed, according to people familiar with the ruling.

Mark Eckenwiler, senior counsel at Perkins Coie LLP and the Justice Department’s authority on criminal surveillance law explained that ” ‘relevant’ has long been a broad standard, but the way the court is interpreting it, to mean, in effect, ‘everything,’ is new. I think it’s a stretch” of previous federal legal interpretations, says Mr. Eckenwiler, who hasn’t seen the secret ruling. If a federal attorney “served a grand-jury subpoena for such a broad class of records in a criminal investigation, he or she would be laughed out of court.”

According to the Patriot Act, the FBI can require business turn over “tangible things” like records as long as those things are believed to be “relevant to an authorized investigation.” This is a pretty broad standard.

The Supreme Court has held that things are “relevant” if there is a “reasonable” possibility they will provide information relating to an investigation. In the past, large sets of data did not meet the relevance standard because substantial portions would involve innocent people’s information.

On the other hand, the FISA court has developed its own standards on the issue “centered on the idea that investigations to prevent national-security threats are different from ordinary criminal cases.” These rulings are classified and cannot be challenged.

 

The Conservatives at Breitbart have the full article

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