NEW YORK TIMES Editorial: …All 11 of the current members were assigned to the court by Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. In the nearly eight years he has been making his selections, Chief Justice Roberts has leaned about as far right as it is possible to go. Ten of those 11 members were appointed to the bench by Republican presidents; the two previous chief justices put Republican-appointed judges on the court 66 percent of the time, as reported by Charlie Savage in The Times…
One idea worth considering, offered by Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, is for each of the chief judges of the federal appeals courts to select one judge for the surveillance court.
This approach could minimize the risk of politicizing the process. A further step might be to require the chief judges’ choices to be submitted for approval to a board consisting of members of Congress with experience in intelligence matters and experts with experience in protecting civil liberties… (more)
