Despite all its other warts, the FISA court is (A) an actual judicial-branch court (B) created by legislation and (C) the justices cannot be removed on direct Presidential whim.
In contrast, "administrative warrants" are more like an executive-branch manager writing a memo, where an unscrupulous President could get them removed in a day for not writing the "right" memos.
You’re comparing apples and oranges. These administrative warrants are very limited in scope. They are closer to the subpoenas that even ordinary civilian lawyers can send third parties in the course of litigation. They don’t give the government the power to bust into Google’s data center. The target has to respond or else challenge the warrant in court, but ordinary civilian subpoenas function the same way.
That's not at all what I've been hearing from reports of people getting these. They find that they're not at all targeted. They frequently don't even know who the target is. The officers get asked for a warrant and they might produce a bullshit piece of paper which is really just a memo.
Anyway, it's not "me" comparing these alleged apples and oranges, I am replying deep in a thread of other people making these comparisons.
That’s the same as the subpoena I could send you if you had information relevant to a litigation. And you have to give it to me or else go to court to quash the subpoena. But the key difference with judicial warrants is that judicial warrants can be enforced immediately while subpoenas and administrative warrants require the cooperation of the target or else going to court to enforce the subpoena.
Sorry, it's pretty clear that you like what ICE does and you're working backwards with what you think is a legal argument that justifies it. What ICE is reportedly doing has absolutely nothing in common with a lawful subpoena.
I do like ICE, but this point about administrative warrants is a rant I’ve been doing since the Obama administration. The only thing new is that these tactics are now being used for immigration enforcement.
