[The Federalist] Shortly after Inspector General Michael Horowitz released his report detailing the government’s egregious abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Rosemary M. Collyer, the presiding judge of the FISA court, issued a rare public order demanding answers.Today is the deadline Collyer set for the government to "inform the Court in a sworn written submission of what it has done, and plans to do, to ensure that the statement of facts in each FBI application accurately and completely reflects information possessed by the FBI that is material to any issue presented by the application."
The Department of Justice’s response will surely promise amends, as it should; the FISA abuse was inexcusable. Collyer was rightfully outrageous at the government’s misconduct because, as her order stressed, the FISA court assesses whether probable cause exists to justify a surveillance order based solely on the information provided by the government. But that the DOJ swore out four fraudulent FISA applications does not excuse the FISA court for its own culpability‐and from the IG report’s analysis, it appears that the secret court is far from blameless.
THE FISA COURT IS COMPLICIT IN THE ABUSE
While the IG’s 478-page report includes many damning details, the following passage indicates that the FISA court abdicated its responsibility of providing "an external check on executive branch decisions to conduct surveillance" in order "’to protect the fourth amendment rights of U.S. persons." This paragraph describes how the government described their sources to the FISA court: