How often do motions get denied? Do they ever get denied? How many years go between two denials?
Never denying a surveillance request is a whole lot different than rarely denying. One is a rubber stamp, the other is a general tendency.
Beyond that, the circumstances (all of the judges appointed by one person, no opposing advocate, no eventual public release of information, no witnesses) do not lend themselves to anything other than abuse and injustice. You can argue all you want, but the circumstances surrounding FISA court will should cause suspicion in everyone.
"How often do motions get denied? Do they ever get denied? How many years go between two denials?
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This is, as I (and the article) pointed out, completely and totally irrelevant to whether something is a rubber stamp, because the real question is "how many times do bad surveillance orders get through" not "how many times do things get denied".
No regular court would deny motions either if every judge or staff attorney had time to talk to you about your motions ahead of time.
You have not shown how the denial rate has any relation to anything. As i've argued, what actually matters is "how many illegal orders are getting approved".
> No regular court would deny motions either if every judge or staff attorney had time to talk to you about your motions ahead of time.
Yes, they would, because the interests of the parties, and the law, are often wildly at odds, and even when they know the judge will deny a motion, a party will often want to raise it because raising certain issues are important if you believe the judge is wrong and want to raise issues on appeal.
A court that does not deny motions is ridiculous on the face of it. It's pretty much unheard of outside of banana republic dictatorships.
Your entire argument is basically "current rules require it for preserving on appeal". Sure. If the FRCP/FRAP/etc didn't require that, can you think of another reason?
We aren't talking about opinions, or motions to decide the case of various forms that will produce such opinions, but just every day motions on requests for production or whatever (which is what FISC is dealing with).
I mean, this is in fact, the whole point of things like magistrate judges.
Never denying a surveillance request is a whole lot different than rarely denying. One is a rubber stamp, the other is a general tendency.
Beyond that, the circumstances (all of the judges appointed by one person, no opposing advocate, no eventual public release of information, no witnesses) do not lend themselves to anything other than abuse and injustice. You can argue all you want, but the circumstances surrounding FISA court will should cause suspicion in everyone.