Recent leaks of classified documents have pointed to the role of a special court in enabling the government's secret surveillance programs, but members of the court are chafing at the suggestion that they were collaborating with the executive branch.
A classified 2009 draft report by the National Security Agency's inspector general relayed some details about the interaction between the court's judges and the NSA, which sought approval for the Bush administration's top-secret domestic surveillance programs.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the former chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, took the highly unusual step Friday of voicing open frustration at the account in the report and the court's inability to explain its decisions. "That draft report contains major omissions, and some inaccuracies, regarding the actions I took as presiding judge of the FISC and my interactions with executive branch officials," Kollar-Kotelly said in her first public comment describing her work on the intelligence court.