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With the recent news about a secret court granting the government broad wiretap permission, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) was placed squarely in the spotlight. How is a secret court supposed to be secret if everyone's talking about it? To start our quest into this shadowy world of justice, we searched on "foreign intelligence surveillance court." Our first result was a paper titled "Inside America's Secret Court" by Patrick S. Poole. It provided a welcome introduction into the machinations and origins of this mysterious courtroom. We learned
the court was born out of Cold War spy fears and was signed into law by then-President Jimmy Carter under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. Over the years, its powers have expanded from approving the surveillance and wiretapping of suspected spies to greenlighting physical evidence searches. In his paper, Poole argues against the FISC and its "erosion of numerous Constitutional rights." Next we visited the Electronic Frontier Foundation for a FAQ on FISA. It validates many of Poole's points -- the court meets twice a month in Washington, D.C., and is composed of seven rotating judges who review the Attorney General's requests
for surveillance. All records and cases are sealed and are not available to individuals under prosecution or their lawyers. If you are sleuthing for more information, we recommend reading Courts.net's background on the FISC. It states the existence of the court isn't a secret, but claims: What makes the court "secret" is the fact that the records of its proceedings are not public records, as with other courts, including all Article III courts, but are rather to be kept confidential under procedures that are developed by the Chief Justice, the Attorney General, and the Director of Central Intelligence. We also learned that the 2001 U.S. Patriot
Act broadened the powers of this hush-hush legal chamber. So while the existence of the court is widely known, what goes on behind its doors is unlikely to be made public any time soon.
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