How is the FISA court independent? The US government can strong-arm corporate partners to do virtually anything they want, and can not only threaten jail if you ever talk about it, they cloak the whole thing -- even for the most banal thing -- as classified so it's impossible to contest.
This seems like pretending there is nuance that there simply isn't. The system is a charade around the reality that US intelligence has virtually identical inroads to US corporations.
Sure, the FISC isn't amazing from a rule-of-law and transparency point of view. But it's still a court made up of judges whose day jobs are serving in the regular courts, and if you compare the amount of public literature, legal analysis and news reporting on the operation of FISA and the US natsec apparatus in general to China...
While FISA courts are technically under the judicial branch, I agree they’re an affront to the rule of law. Most cases don’t go through the FISA courts, however. In China, everything goes through the equivalent of a FISA court. (Arguable worse, since China’s courts report to the party.)
Of course there is nuance, many times the Chinese government owns parts of these companies, they have zero choice. In the US corporations have much more power to resist the government. At the very least corporations can lobby Congress to get beneficial reform passed, in China it is all entirely opaque.
This seems like pretending there is nuance that there simply isn't. The system is a charade around the reality that US intelligence has virtually identical inroads to US corporations.