emptywheel

Honest questions for my legal eagles: * Where is the FISA court on the subject of competing public memos? * If the allegation is the FBI lied to the court, shouldn’t the proper venue for redress be the FISC? * Do you predict the co-equal judiciary will weigh in on all of this?

1) Silent, as I imagine it will remain. 2) It depends on whether, even if there was a misrepresentation (color me skeptical), it was material under Franks v. Delaware. If not, there’s nothing to remedy. 3) There’s neither a reason nor a mechanism for it to do so.

(1) Unfortunately silent. (2) If "lies" then redress would be with Court, although I do think there is an oversight role for Congress to play given some Committee access to underlying applications. (3) I don't see why FISC could/would not order DOJ/FBI to respond if desired

My question is what role, if any, have one or more of the five amici curiae played in this entire process? Privately (unknown) or publicly (none that I know of). Is this not one of the envisioned independent critical roles?

I've said this before, but I honestly believe this is where Collyer is totally inadequate as a presiding. Walton definitely and Bates probably would have weighed in by now. Collyer cares a lot less abt legitimacy of court.