Time to review court's powers

The news media has given a great deal of coverage to the collection of data on millions of Americans by the National Security Agency (NSA). I believe that the role the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) plays in this situation calls for a great deal of additional attention.

This court was established in 1978 to oversee requests for surveillance warrants against suspected foreign intelligence agents inside the United States by federal law enforcement agencies. The court is unique in that its hearings are closed to the public, its records are closed to the public, and only government attorneys are permitted to appear before the court. In other words, only one side of a case is fully presented to the court. Therefore, it is not surprising that during the years of 1979 through 2012 the court approved 33,942 out of 33,949 requests for surveillance.

Additionally, in terrorism cases the judges have expanded the use of a legal principle known as the special needs doctrine and carved out an exception to the Fourth Amendment's requirement of a warrant for searches and seizures. The court's interpretation is significant because it uses a relatively narrow area of the law, generally used to justify airport screenings or drunken-driving checkpoints, and applies it more broadly, in secret, to the wholesale collection of communications in pursuit of terrorism suspects.

If we value our freedom and our privacy, a review of this court's powers and the manner in which it operates is absolutely necessary.

JOHN PIEPHO, Cape Girardeau