AT&T and the NSA (Photo credit: Runs With Scissors)

By Trevor Timm

On Charlie Rose last night, President Obama gave his most detailed defense of the NSA surveillance programs since a FISA court order demanding that Verizon hand over phone records information on all its US customers leaked to the Guardian two weeks ago. In a key portion of the interview, he talked about the secret FISA court that, under the auspices of the PATRIOT Act and FISA Amendments Act, has been approving the NSA’s sweeping surveillance requests. Curiously, President Obama referred to these secret courts as “transparent”:

The FISA court, by its nature, is the opposite of transparent. In fact, it’s hard to imagine how the FISA court could be more secretive.

Let’s start with the court building itself. After the FISA Amendments Act passed in 2008, which greatly expanded the government abilities to make broad surveillance requests, the court was remodeled. The Washington Post reported at the time about secrecy measures in place to make sure the public did not find out what the court was up to:

Read More Despite What the President Said, There’s Nothing “Transparent” About a Secret Court Issuing Secret Rulings | Electronic Frontier Foundation.