BAD NEWS FOR THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT:

The secretive federal court that approves spying on terror suspects in the United States has refused to give the Justice Department broad new powers, saying the government had misused the law and misled the court dozens of times, according to an extraordinary legal ruling released yesterday.

A May 17 opinion by the court that oversees the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) alleges that Justice Department and FBI officials supplied erroneous information to the court in more than 75 applications for search warrants and wiretaps, including one signed by then-FBI Director Louis J. Freeh.

This shouldn’t be a big surprise to regular InstaPundit readers, but it’s certainly an embarrassment for DoJ. But maybe it’ll be a wakeup call.

Probably not.