The court was created during the cold war. It has basically been repurposed for the war on terror. The original foe had sophisticated intelligence agencies and keeping the rulings secret was at least a plausible argument in the spy-vs-spy mindset of the era.
But the war on terror involves a handful of college kids and peasants. They don't have anything more than the ability to do google searches. Joe Paranoid doesn't need confirmation from guys like Snowden, he just assumes the worst and goes from there.
The massive secrecy around the war on terror (there are now over 4 million active clearances, nearly 1.5 top-secret clearances, that's twice the population of DC) is an artifact of the cold-war regulations that provides little to no tactical advantage but practically eliminate oversight.
> there are now over 4 million active clearances, nearly 1.5 top-secret clearances, that's twice the population of DC
Clearances simply represent that someone was screened for access to national security information within the past 5/10/15 years. They are not all actively in use, and due to compartmentalization even the active ones do not mean that they are actually doing work that involves national security.
For instance, the cook on a submarine? He has a SECRET clearance since he may come across information of that classification in the course of his duties, but frying eggs and standing "sump" watch does not mean he is personally oppressing the populace. :P
Likewise, merely having a clearance doesn't eliminate oversight. That depends entirely on the job being done, and in any event has a simple answer: Just give whoever is providing oversight equivalent clearances.
Now, you might be thinking that means the whole public can't provide oversight that way, and you'd be right. But remember the division of responsibility rule: If everyone is responsible for providing oversight on something, then no one is responsible for oversight. It's easy for evil to lurk in plain sight when everyone thinks that someone else is responsible for spotting it.
Yes, that is correct, there are a small number of people who have clearances purely for mechanical reasons, like janitors and such. However, it is useful to recognize that the total number of clearances is at roughly the same level as at the peak of the cold war. When the enemy was entire countries, not a few thousand guys living in caves.
RE: secrecy
I was referring to the FISA court's secrecy being an artifact of the cold war, not the secrecy every single classified program. There is no reason beyond inertia and the ease that comes with lack of accountability for the FISA court to be so secretive. However, I am stunned by the leap of logic it requires to say that public knowledge results in no oversight.
Please don't be the guy who hides behind literalist excuses.
The intent is clear - to reference the "division of responsibility rule" in this context and then deny the obvious intent is disingenuous. "I didn't say public knowledge results in no oversight, I was just randomly pointing out that if everyone is responsible than no one is responsible. Just throwing that out there, your conclusions are your own."
The "obvious intent" is to reinforce the idea that oversight is a function like any other business process and there should be organizations whose actual responsibility is to handle that function.
That doesn't have to mean another government office, it can mean something like the EFF, ACLU, or some other non-profit dedicated to performing that function on behalf of the people.
Simply making the glass transparent has no value if no one looks through it. If we as people don't setup some form of oversight or advocacy (and just wait for someone else to do it) then it doesn't matter how transparent the government is.
But the war on terror involves a handful of college kids and peasants. They don't have anything more than the ability to do google searches. Joe Paranoid doesn't need confirmation from guys like Snowden, he just assumes the worst and goes from there.
The massive secrecy around the war on terror (there are now over 4 million active clearances, nearly 1.5 top-secret clearances, that's twice the population of DC) is an artifact of the cold-war regulations that provides little to no tactical advantage but practically eliminate oversight.