From: nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 10:41:27 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Court proceedings under new SAFE act
Message-ID: <199709170217.EAA17187@basement.replay.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Declan McCullagh wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Sep 1997, Lucky Green wrote:
 > > >secret court that has never denied a request for a wiretap)
jurisdiction;
> > Is there any way of finding out the names of the judges sitting on the FISA
> > court?
 
> Not that I know of, though I do know that U.S. District Court Judge Joyce
> Green served on the FISA court for seven years.
> 
> Background: The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Survelliance Act established a
> special, secret court of current Federal district court judges. They
> approve warrants in secret hearings, with no opposing attorneys present.
> The judges are required to be available 24 hours a day for emergency
> hearings. Some happen in the middle of the night in the judge's home.

  Also, you are not likely to see a FISA judge's name on a warrant.
Instead, you will see warrants by regular judges which are backdated
to dates such as, say...March 28 at 9:02 a.m.
  There are a variety of court systems within which they have the clerks
regularly 'skip' certain document numbers, leaving them with hard to
trace back-dated paperwork capabilities.

  This is a 'Democracy', which is why, in addition to secret police,
we also have 'secret judges', and 'secret executioners'. (Do we also
have 'secret voters'?)

Anonymous #23-2b
Cypherpunks Chief Spokesperson #328