The Washington officials, they said, believed that the request did not provide enough evidence to suggest a crime to support a warrant under terms of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The purpose of the complaint, then, is to enable the appropriate magistrate, here a Commissioner, to determine whether the 'probable cause' required to support a warrant exists.
The purpose of the complaint, then, is to enable the appropriate magistrate * * * to determine whether the 'probable cause' required to support a warrant exists.
Even though Colaprete was never charged with anything and his records and computers were eventually returned, the court held that the bookkeeper had given the agents enough to support a warrant.
"The recent disclosure that F.B.I. field agents were blocked from pursuing an investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui because officials in Washington did not believe there was sufficient evidence of criminal activity to support a warrant points out how one person's judgment in applying an imprecise test may result in the costly loss of critical intelligence," Mr. Cohen said.
Attorney General Eric Holder has already tentatively agreed to support requiring a warrant to spy on emails, so there's a convenient stew of public press and official support brewing for change.
In these cases we might have drawn a clear, unmistakable line and held that hearsay evidence could not support a search warrant.
The majority acknowledges, however, that its reference to a 'two-pronged test' should not be understood as meaning that an affidavit deficient in these respects is necessarily inadequate to support a search warrant.
Brennan began by stating that "this Court has long insisted that the determination whether probable cause exists to support a search warrant be made by a ' neutral and detached magistrate.' " In McCommon v. Mississippi, he said, the judge who issued the search warrant "indisputably 'rubber stamped' the police request".
In an affidavit to support a search warrant of Mr. Spangler's home, a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent claimed that he also created false statements and failed to disclose that he had an interest in two of the companies in which he invested clients' money.
