Spies Spent 50,000 Days in 2006 Writing Warrants, Chief Spy Says:
The Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell told an El Paso reporter that the nation's spy laws needed to be loosened because it takes 200 hours to prepare a FISA warrant for the special spy court.

In 2006, the government filed 2,181 such applications with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court. The court approved 2,176. 2006 FISA Warrant Applications.

That means government employees spent 436,200 hours writing out foreign intelligence wiretaps in 2006. That's 53,275 workdays.

Let's assume dedicated government employees work 40 hours a week with two weeks off a year. That means there were 218 government employees with top secret clearances sitting in rooms, writing only FISA warrants.

That's a lot of warrant-writing cube monkeys.

Not that THREAT LEVEL suspects McConnell is exaggerating at all.' We're just saying that's a lot of monkeys.

See Also:

• Spy Chief Torpedos Government's Lawyering in Spy Cases
• Debating Spy Laws Kills Americans and Telcos Did Spy on Americans ...
• Spy Chief's Vague Op-Ed Keeps Citizens In the Dark
• Spy Chief Seeks to Expand Power

(Read Original Article - Via Threat Level.)