I'D LIKE TO THANK THE ELECTRONIC FREEDOM FOUNDATION

Without its lawsuit to find out what the Security State has been and is doing, who can say America wouldn't have turned into a dystopia?

FISA Judge ‘Lost Confidence,’ Almost Shut Down NSA Surveillance In 2009
PAUL ELIAS September 10, 2013, 5:38 PM

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge who oversaw a secret U.S. spy court almost shut down the government’s domestic surveillance program designed to fight terrorism after he “lost confidence” in officials’ ability to operate it, documents released Tuesday show.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton issued a blistering opinion in March 2009 after discovering government officials had been accessing domestic phone records for nearly three years without “reasonable, articulate suspicion” that they were connected to terrorism.

Walton said the government’s excuse that the program was complicated “strained credulity,” and he ordered the National Security Agency to conduct an “end-to-end” review of its processes and policies while also ordering closer monitoring of its activities.

The documents released Tuesday came in response to a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They relate to a time in 2009 when U.S. spies went too far in collecting domestic phone data and then mislead the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court about their activities.