The DOJ announced today it has reached a double super-secret deal with the FISA court which allows it to bring the administration’s NSA surveillance program within the statutory FISA framework governing surveillance warrants. What deal, you ask? The DOJ’s letter to Senators Leahy and Specter provides few details, except to say that it is based on a FISA court order that establishes “innovative” and “complex” warrant procedures that allow the administration to act with “speed and agility.”

Absent further information, its hard to tell whether this is a good development, although as Marty Lederman notes, it is “difficult to imagine that the FISA court would roll over and approve an ‘innovative’ legal theory if it were dubious — especially not in this context, where DOJ has many incentives to get the FISA court on-board and where the congressional and public spotlight is shining so brightly.”

The administration’s about face underscores what I argued in this piece: that the administration’s claims that it was simply too cumbersome to comply with FISA held absolutely no water.

Lederman also notes that the threat of losses in ongoing multi-district litigation involving the state secrets privilege as well as the threat of congressional subpoenas, and possible litigation over executive privilege, may well have prompted the administration to give up its go it alone stance. I’ve previously argued that such threats had the potential to rein in the administration, without involving a winner-takes-all show down with the Supreme Court, here.