>>> Created in 1978 by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is a star chamber that secretly issues warrants for US agencies to electronically surveil or physically search parties thought to be engaged in terrorism. The court operates in complete secrecy. We don't even know the identities of the eleven judges who make up the FISC. The only publicly-available information it releases is the number of warrants it grants per year. To date it has received over 13,000 requests, and it has granted every single one of them.

In a recent, unprecedented action, the Court declared that the "Justice Department's plan to allow prosecutors to become involved in intelligence investigations goes too far" [CNN]. (It also revealed that the FBI has lied to it in 75 cases.) Ashcroft has appealed this stinging rebuke, thereby invoking the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which--as you might guess--reviews the decisions of the FISC. The Review Court has never met before now, since no agency or department has had reason to object to the Court's rubberstamping ways.

Although the judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court are a mystery, the three judges who comprise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review have been revealed. In the San Francisco Chronicle, Bob Egelko lists them:

"--Presiding Judge Ralph Guy. A semi-retired judge on the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, to which he was appointed in 1983, he turned 73 on Friday.

--Judge Edward Leavy. Also 73, he is a semi-retired judge on the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, appointed in 1987.

--Judge Laurence Silberman. At 66, he is a semi-retired judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, appointed in 1985."

Egelko also writes:

"The three judges are all Republicans, named to the bench by President Ronald Reagan and appointed to seven-year terms on the special review court by Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist....

Guy, a former federal prosecutor, and Leavy have reputations as moderate conservatives. The outspoken Silberman is a conservative along the lines of Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, his longtime friends."

Source: "Spy court to review prosecutors' powers," by Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle, 1 Sept 2002.

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