> If you believe that there is never a need for law enforcement decisions to be made that cannot be revealed to the accused party, then that is a separate (and in my opinion, impractical/unreal) point.

Well, uhh, thanks for inviting a "genuine intellectual debate" and then out-of-hand dismissing any disagreements as "impractical/unreal".

We already have the grand jury which is a secret process and can deliver so called "sealed indictments" which prevents the indicted party from knowing they have been indicted. Grand juries have significant oversight and a long history of legal oversight.

FISA "courts", on the other hand, operate in an intentionally ill-defined legal space. To me, FISA courts are just as nonsense as the "unlawful enemy combatant" Bush-era policies. "This system is not _technically_ against the law because we built-in enough loopholes to prevent any actual legal oversight" should not be a valid argument for upholding a corrupt status-quo.

I don't accept the premise that some information is _too dangerous_ to be heard by a grand jury. We already have legal processes to limit exposure, including many trial processes that are done without the jury being present.