You're right. FISA courts are not sufficient oversight. Even Judge James Robertson resigned from the FISA Courts (FISC) in 2005 because:
>On December 20, 2005, Judge James Robertson resigned his position with the court, apparently in protest of the secret surveillance,[11] and later, in the wake of the Snowden leaks of 2013, criticized the court-sanctioned expansion of the scope of government surveillance and its being allowed to craft a secret body of law.[12] The government's apparent circumvention of the court started prior to the increase in court-ordered modifications to warrant requests. In 2011, the Obama administration secretly won permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency's use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans' communications in its massive databases.
A lot of our current privacy and liberty woes were exacerbated by 9/11. Can you imagine a Church Committee in 2026? Me neither.
Three letter agencies have way too much power and they've shaped our culture+laws for the worse. Osama Bin Laden has done way more damage to American citizens' lives than he could've ever dreamed of.
Just like the KGB and Putin's minions, Bin Laden correctly saw fault lines and weaknesses in the US an exploited them. He did what he did with a long-range context in mind. The "three letter agencies" were neutered in the 90s as part of the peace dividend which is why he was successful. The Russians used "active measures" with intelligence in the US 2016 among other times and Bin Laden chose terrorist violence. The Russian misinformation strategy is tried and true and corporate actors now use it successfully as well.
The whole thing sucks. This Iran adventure lays the vulnerability of the US military machine pretty bare. More, escalated conflict is probably in the world's future for decades to come.
This wasn't by design. Obama had options. He campaigned against mass surveillance but flip-flopped once in office, installing the very surveillance levers he criticized. “No more secrecy,” he said. “That is a commitment that I make to you.”[1] If his only option was to install these surveillance levers, then I guess American democracy is just a lost cause.
Let me get this straight: The FBI was monitoring a protestor’s bank account and spotted a Proton Mail purchase. They contacted the Swiss DOJ, requesting a subpoena based on the specific Order ID, date, and credit card digits of the bank account being monitored. The Swiss DOJ agreed, approached Proton Mail, and the company complied with the official legal request under Swiss law.
The real scandal here isn't Proton Mail's compliance. It is that the FBI is seemingly monitoring the financial transactions of millions of citizens' bank accounts.
This can happen with Mullvad too. If the FBI spots a Mullvad Purchase on anyone's bank account, they can go up to Mullvad with the Order ID, date, and credit card digits, and request Mullvad to redirect VPN traffic of that specific Order ID to the FBI's own monitoring servers.
>On December 20, 2005, Judge James Robertson resigned his position with the court, apparently in protest of the secret surveillance,[11] and later, in the wake of the Snowden leaks of 2013, criticized the court-sanctioned expansion of the scope of government surveillance and its being allowed to craft a secret body of law.[12] The government's apparent circumvention of the court started prior to the increase in court-ordered modifications to warrant requests. In 2011, the Obama administration secretly won permission from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency's use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans' communications in its massive databases.
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