Except that, you know, this effectively removes any citizen oversight, which is core to democratic societies.
The point you want to be making is about transparency, and about general citizen oversight. The distinction is extremely important; for instance, random citizens of the US have no direct oversight over military operations, never have, and never will. If you make the argument about civilian oversight, you've already lost, because the intelligence system does in fact have civilian oversight; it's just not the oversight you want.
Similarly, if word never filters back, they can't exercise indirect oversight through elected officials, because they're incapable of even knowing that they should be electing officials based on how they will resolve those issues.
Again the problem isn't oversight, but rather (in this instance) that you realize that most of the population doesn't agree with you, and won't vote a representative out of office solely because of their position on FISA.
Mostly conservative republicans, appointed by a conservative supreme Justice. But civilians, sure.
>the DNI is a civilian position,
Every DNI there has ever been has either been a spook or a former high-ranking military officer; except Negroponte, who was, weak sauce.
>There is no truth to the idea that NSA lacks civilian oversight.
There is no truth to the fact that the NSA lacks civilian oversight.
As to the idea that the NSA/FISC lacks civilian oversight? There's no reason to believe that any meaningful oversight exists at all. For one example, consider these recent comments by U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner
"As a former Article III judge, I can tell you that your faith in the FISA Court is dramatically misplaced."
I'm glad we have some common ground there.
It was congress who created FISC and FISA, and congress who can end it.