How is the FISA court independent? The US government can strong-arm corporate partners to do virtually anything they want, and can not only threaten jail if you ever talk about it, they cloak the whole thing -- even for the most banal thing -- as classified so it's impossible to contest.

This seems like pretending there is nuance that there simply isn't. The system is a charade around the reality that US intelligence has virtually identical inroads to US corporations.