n, was appointed last month. Even the identities of the 11 federal judges who meet in the court's secure chambers in the Department of Justice headquarters were not generally known until government watchdog groups last year released membership rosters obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

The court was created by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which Congress passed to rein in domestic spying by the FBI on civil rights figures, Hollywood celebrities and other prominent citizens that came to light through investigations led by Sen. Frank Church of Idaho in the 1970s. Since its inception, the court has rarely rejected an FBI request for permission to spy on a foreign-born person living in the United States, a near-perfect acceptance rate the agency has pointed to as evidence that its counter-espionage surveillance passes constitutional muster.

With legislation now pending in both houses of Congress to give the court more authority, some lawmakers and civil rights groups also want more accountability, openness and congressional oversight of the surveillance authorizations, considered a basic tool of national security.

But one of the FISA court's most rigid defenders is Benson's old boss, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Benson served as Hatch's Senate chief of staff from 1986 to 1988 before President George H.W. Bush nominated him to the federal bench in 1991.

As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Hatch has kept bottled up for more than a year bipartisan legislation that would shine additional light onto the court's proceedings, arguing the secrecy is vital to protect the country. But the committee's top Democrat, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and Republican Sens. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Charles Grassley of Iowa, say they found rampant inaccuracies in warrant applications, ignorance of the law by top government attorneys, and sloppiness in executing the warrants. They say all this cries out for greater congressional oversight.

"This secrecy is unnecessary, and allows problems in applying the law to fester," the trio told Hatch in a letter last year.

The senators conducted their own probe that found that errors in the FBI's applications for FISA warrants jumped more than threefold from 1999 to 2000, and the repeated inaccuracies in the sworn affidavits of one particular FBI agent were such an irritation to the court that the agent was barred from ever appearing before FISA judges again.

Without providing specifics to several complaints, the senators said FBI agents secretly videotaped a meeting, even though the FISA court didn't authorize video surveillance; continued to intercept a target's e-mail after the FISA warrant expired; and continued to wiretap a cell phone even after the original surveillance target switched to a new wireless phone number. The new subscriber to the old phone number was monitored by the FBI, even though he spoke a different language from the target and was not connected to any investigation.

In addition, a supervisory special agent from FBI headquarters assigned to terrorism admitted he didn't know the legal standard for obtaining a FISA warrant from the secret court.

In another closed hearing, Specter said a top FBI attorney didn't know the legal standard to obtain a FISA wiretap.

Even after the FBI received authorizations from the FISA court to intercept suspects' communications, there was sometimes lackadaisical follow-up in keeping the warrant current. Although FISA eavesdropping warrants last far longer than those issued by criminal courts, suspected terrorists were "allowed to break free of surveillance for no other reason than the FBI and [Department of Justice's] failure to complete and submit the proper paperwork," the senators wrote.

"This failure is inexcusable." Hatch took exception to his colleagues' conclusions of systemic problems with the FISA, charging that not only did their report misrepresent the official involvement of the committee, but that much of the information was "objectionable, stale or incomplete." Hatch said while he has "not refrained from pointing out FBI deficiencies in the past and will do so again, if warranted," he saw no value from restating problems that have since been corrected by the agency.

And, since he is privy to closed-door briefings as a member of the Senate's intelligence committee, Hatch said he is convinced there is no need for additional congressional scrutiny of the court.

"Based on my experience, I can assure you that the Congress exercises appropriate, vigorous, robust and detailed oversight of the FISA process," Hatch said in a reply to Leahy, Grassley and Specter, the latter of whom is expected to succeed Hatch as judiciary chairman next year.

Last year, the FISA court issued 1,724 surveillance warrants -- the most since the law was passed 25 years ago. Meanwhile, state and federal judges issued 1,442 authorizations to conduct wiretaps for criminal investigations, the first time the number of terrorist wiretaps exceeded the number of eavesdropping authorizations in traditional crime cases, such as drug trafficking.

Like the Patriot Act, the post-Sept. 11 federal anti-terrorism law that loosened the criteria required to get an eavesdropping warrant, details on how the FISA law is being used are cloaked in secrecy.

"What the court is meant to ensure is that the FBI does not run amok and say, 'Anyone could be a terrorist therefore we need surveillance on everyone,' " says Georgetown University security studies professor Daniel Byman, a member of the Joint 9-11 Inquiry staff of the House and Senate Intelligence Committee. "From the outside, though, it's very hard to judge whether the court has been effective."

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