“QUIRK.” Legal quirk enabling surveillance state expansion absent Congressional vote.

Consider that the US surveillance state was greatly expanded, and yet not a single member of Congress voted for the Justice Department’s proposal last week.

That’s because of a quirk in US law that allows so-called “procedural rules” of court to be written by unelected advisory committees under the umbrella of the Administrative Office of the US Courts. From there, they are generally rubber stamped by the Supreme Court. The only way these rules don’t become law is if Congress takes action to thwart them.

So what happened here? The Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure was amended to allow judges to sign warrants to allow the authorities to hack into computers outside a judge’s jurisdiction as part of a criminal investigation. What’s more, Rule 41 would allow judges to use one warrant to search multiple computers anywhere instead of having to get warrants for each computer. Without Rule 41, judges could authorize electronic searches only within their own judicial district. Although this is an amendment to courthouse procedure rules, it has a huge impact in practice and on the Fourth Amendment. The Justice Department even said so as early as last week.

Expanded government power without anyone taking responsibility. It’s the American way, in the 21st Century.