[abdullahkhalids]

> less than 1% of requests were denied

The statistics of a rubber-stamp court are identical to a court, where the requirements for an approved request are so clear that no one ever submits requests that are likely to be denied.

To prove what you are claiming, you have to actually show that a large number of accepted requests were "unethical".

[majewsky]

The problem with these surveillance requests is that only rejections need to be argued. When the court says yes, it's mostly just a rubberstamp. When the court says no, they have to write about 4 pages of text. Given the overload of the court system, judges tend to say yes except in the most egregious cases because they need to move on to the next case.

(Disclosure: I'm occasionally involved in public relations for a local chapter of the CCC, a German NGO that deals among other things with surveillance policy.)