Court approval

Common Dreams points us to an aspect of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court most of us have probably not followed:

A secret federal court last year did not deny a single request to search or electronically spy on people within the United States “for foreign intelligence purposes,” according to a Justice Department report this week.

The report (pdf), which was released Tuesday to Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), states that during 2012, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (the “FISC”) approved every single one of the 1,856 applications made by the government for authority to conduct electronic surveillance and/or physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes.