The secret court of appeals that hears review of lower FISA court decisions granting or denying wiretap and surveillance orders met for the first time ever yesterday .

The court met to review the lower court's decision "rejecting Attorney General John Ashcroft's request for expanded wiretap powers in espionage and terrorism cases."

The Attorney General says he has the new powers as a result of changes in the Patriot Act, which changes he interprets as providing that applications for surveillance warrants can have criminal investigative rather than intelligence gathering purposes as their principal goal.

This interpretation is contrary to the intent of Congress in passing the Patriot Act as we have previously argued in-depth here.

The three-judge secret appeals court has a name -- the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review--

As expected, it met in secret. No one knows if its findings also will be kept secret.

Thanks to Howard Bashman for providing the link to the Government's brief (it's redacted of course.)

Update: Here is the ACLU's Sept. 9 press release and Sept. 4 <a href="http://www.aclu.org/court/FISA_appeal_ltr.pdf" letter of protest, which was also signed by the Center for National Security Studies, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Open Society Institute.