In the wake of the Department of Justice Inspector General’s recent report criticizing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance ACT (FISA) warrants obtained against former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, NYU Law’s Reiss Center on Law and Security (RCLS) and Just Security co-hosted a panel that sought to identify the nature of the problems with the current system and discussed potential process improvements.
The panelists—Liza Goitein, director of the Liberty and National Security Program at NYU Law’s Brennan Center for Justice; Andrew McCabe, former acting director and deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Julian Sanchez, senior fellow at the Cato Institute; and Andrew Weissmann, former senior special counsel to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, now distinguished senior fellow at RCLS—came at the issue from different vantages, but all agreed that the FISA warrant process would benefit from reform. The conversation, moderated by Atlantic writer Adam Serwer, confronted mistakes made and interrogated the responsibilities of lawyers, agents, members of Congress, and FISA Court judges; examined ways of introducing the perspectives of other parties into what has been a non-adversarial process; and weighed the potential for misapplication and bias, asking how best to protect the rights of those surveilled within the confines of appropriate secrecy.
Follow the full discussion on video:
Posted January 22, 2020