The New York Times reports that the government asked for even more secret warrants in 2003.
Federal authorities made a total of 1,727 applications last year before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret panel that oversees the country's most delicate terrorism and espionage investigations, according to the new data.
The total represents an increase of about 500 warrant applications over 2002 and a doubling of the applications since 2001, the Justice Department said in its report, which was submitted to the federal courts and to Vice President Dick Cheney as required by law.
All but three of applications for electronic surveillance and physical searches of suspects were approved in whole or part by the court. . . .
The F.B.I. told the commission that "there is now less hesitancy" in seeking the intelligence warrants, the report said. Nonetheless, it added, "requests for such approvals are overwhelming the ability of the system to process them and to conduct the surveillance."
The article isn't clear about why there's a huge backlog in the system. Hopefully the reason there's a backlog is that certain officials are taking seriously their responsibility of ensuring that these warrants comply with federal law, including the Constitution. The fear, of course, is that soon the desire for expediency will trump the need for legality, and these administrative and procedural protections will be swept aside as law enforcement officials become more impatient.