Newly Declassified: FISA Court Ruled NSA Domestic Spying Program Unconstitutional

Via FDL's DSWright, from the WaPo:

NSA gathered thousands of Americans’ e-mails before court ordered it to revise its tactics
By Ellen Nakashima, Published: August 21 [Washington Post]

For several years, the National Security Agency unlawfully gathered tens of thousands of e-mails and other electronic communications between Americans as part of a now-revised collection method, according to a 2011 secret court opinion.

The redacted 85-page opinion, which was declassified by U.S. intelligence officials on Wednesday, states that, based on NSA estimates, the spy agency may have been collecting as many as 56,000 “wholly domestic” communications each year.

In a strongly worded opinion, the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court expressed consternation at what he saw as a pattern of misleading statements by the government and hinted that the NSA possibly violated a criminal law against spying on Americans.

“For the first time, the government has now advised the court that the volume and nature of the information it has been collecting is fundamentally different from what the court had been led to believe,” John D. Bates, then the surveillance court’s chief judge, wrote in his Oct. 3, 2011, opinion.

...

[Note: to the best of my knowledge, Judge Bates is not related to me. - SB]

Please look at your calendar and note the difference between today's date and the date of the secret opinion. The FISA court has known about the NSA's surveillance of Americans... and known that it was probably a criminal violation... for nearly two years. Yet the court released no public statement about that probable criminality, and the spying went on. And President Obama, as recently as two days ago, in remarks to comedian Jay Leno, continues to deny that there is, in fact, spying on Americans.

What is wrong with this picture?