back to article Monica Lewinsky lawyer named as first outsider on secret US spy court

One of Monica Lewinsky's former lawyers will be the first outside advisor to America's secret court that oversees NSA spying. Preston Burton was chosen as the first of five advocates who will provide expert advice to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) when discussing whether to approve spying programs. His …

  1. Graham Marsden
    Holmes

    He will be asked for his advice...

    ... only if a case presents "a novel or significant interpretation of the law,"

    Right, so pretty much never, then if the NSA et al get their way because they *know* they're doing nothing illegal...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: He will be asked for his advice...

      Right, so pretty much never, then if the NSA Obama et al get their way because they *know* they're doing nothing illegal...

      There, fixed it for ya.

      1. Vector

        Re: He will be asked for his advice...

        "There, fixed it for ya."

        Right. Because the NSA never did anything questionable before Obama got into office.

        1. Charles Manning

          Re: He will be asked for his advice...

          "Right. Because the NSA never did anything questionable before Obama got into office."

          The NSA have acted questionably under all presidents. They are all culpable - even Obama.

          In many ways Obama is the most culpable. Rationale:

          Before Obama came to power, the NSA were most heavily constrained by the technology of the day. Even with the HP server kit that Carly boasts about, the NSA were limited by what they could access and the amount of computing grunt they could throw at the problem.

          Since Obama came to power most of those tech constraints have gone. NSA capability has risen by a hundred times. Obama did nothing to constrain them.

          Obama did not cause the technology changes to happen (the industry caused that), but the the impact of the changes are obvious. The impact on NSAs capabilities is also obvious and Obama has done nothing to limit it.

          1. ckm5

            Re: He will be asked for his advice...

            That's pretty funny - "NSA constrained by tech"

            Technology for processing information is strongly correlated to the amount of information generated. As technology improves, so do the methods for dealing with it. The NSA's job is vastly more difficult these days given the multi-modal & encrypted nature of communications. 30 years ago, not only where there a more limited number of targets, but mostly it was either unencrypted voice over sat or sub-sea cable; or perhaps postal mail. Both of which are relatively trivial to deal with, even if humans have to review the recordings.

            Given that it's estimated that each person will generate something like 5Tb of data/year by 2020, I would conjecture that the NSA's data discovery problem is only getting worse, not better. And that doesn't even take into account widespread encryption.

          2. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

            Re: He will be asked for his advice...

            You are not honestly suggesting that any president of the U.S.A has more power than the NSA, CIA or even the FBI are you? If you think so, you are deluded.

  2. Nolveys
    Coat

    Do we really need a secret court? Can't they just use gag orders? This is a lot to swallow.

    1. Mark 85
      Coat

      We should all be wearing a blue dress then? I'm going also...............

  3. ckm5

    Legal representation in FISC

    A friend of mine was a lawyer working for the FBI who was tasked with representing the defendants before the FISC. I don't know if he was representative of the 'public defenders', but he was an extremely passionate, motivate and 'morally righteous' person who did everything he could do defend his 'clients'.

    The major problem was that he was overwhelmed with work. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, he didn't come home for 3 months - it was several weeks before his wife even knew what happened to him (she knew he wasn't dead, but just that he had 'disappeared'). Even years later, I could see the toll the work had on him, made worse by the fact that he just couldn't talk about it.

    No matter how you slice it, this is a really, really tough job. Mostly because you can't discuss anything as a way of venting frustration.

  4. Your alien overlord - fear me

    Why if his clients are big name double agents does *he* get security clearence? Don't the powers that be think he might be a security risk because of his client list?

    1. chivo243 Silver badge

      I can only think of Attorney - Client privileges. He, in theory knows what they know.

    2. tom dial Silver badge

      In addition to matters of sharing client knowledge previously mentioned, the defence attorney is privy to any classified material in evidence that the prosecutors are required to disclose.

  5. RedneckMother

    with apologies to "Animal House"...

    *cough* Blow Job *cough*

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: with apologies to "Animal House"...

      "I did not have sexual relations with that woman"

      Oh yes you did you philandering liar! (Unless you are referring to Hilary Clinton and that was only once.)

      1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: AC Re: with apologies to "Animal House"...

        ".....Unless you are referring to Hilary Clinton....." Well, that is actually the more interesting (and amusing) political bit of this appointment. As I understand it, Preston was not the only legal person with the security qualifications for the job, and there were a raft of others with more reputable professional records. But he is the selection that is guaranteed to cause maximum embarrassment to the Clintons - his name cannot be mentioned without an avalanche of Monica Lewinsky references, as the title of this article demonstrates. It would be interesting to know who made the final selection, whether it was some Republican putting in the knife or some bitter Obama groupie.

  6. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

    She looks ok now that she is an adult.

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