Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court

• U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (R-Pa) Holds a Hearing On Wartime Executive Power and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court

U.S. SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE HOLDS A HEARING ON WARTIME EXECUTIVE POWER AND THE FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT COURT MARCH 28, 2...

• Political Transcript Wire
• July 27, 2009

• Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review

In 1978, Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), 50 U.S.C.A. §§ 1800?1829 (West 2003) to prescribe separa...

• West's Encyclopedia of American Law
• Dou–Fre

• Getting an Earful

For the first time in almost three decades, the super-secret signals intelligence agency, National Security Agency (NSA), called to ask NSA's former employee Joseph J. Tomba to come back to headquarters to be interviewed for an in-house training film. Tomba says the 2004 training film shows that NSA was preparing for a collision over its domestic activities even before the current and still not fully understood surveillance program authorized by Pres Bush. The Bush administration has vigorously defended, in practical and legal terms, the existence of an NSA program operating without authorization from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court -- the judicial body that secretly reviews and authorizes physical searches and electronic surveillance in national security investigations. So ...

• Government Executive
• July 27, 2009

• Judge Susan Webber Wright of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas has been selected to join the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Judge Susan Webber Wright of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas has been selected to join the Foreign Intelligence Surveilla...

• Arkansas Business
• May 25, 2009

• Post Haste

[...] it seemed fortuitous that her story appeared in the Post the very week that Congress was slated to debate bills to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act the wiretapping law passed in 1978 to regulate surveillance of suspected spies and terrorists inside the U.S. It was FISA, Hurt wrote, that had caused the delay, because the law applies to cellphone conversations between two foreigners in a foreign country if the communication is routed through the U.S., as many overseas calls apparently are. [...] shortly before Congress's August recess, when the administration was pressing the Democrats to pass a law to strengthen FISA, House minority leader John Boehner told Fox News' Neil Cavuto about a ruling by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court: that FISA procedures mus...

• Village Voice, The
• August 21, 2009

• Statement of Dean Boyd, Justice Department Spokesman, On the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review Opinion Published Today

To: NATIONAL EDITORS Contact: U.S. Department of Justice, +1-202-514-2007, TDD +1-202- 514-1888

• U.S. Newswire
• January 15, 2009

• Spy Court Won't Release Papers On Warrantless Wiretapping

WASHINGTON -- The nation's spy court said Tuesday that it will not release its documents regarding the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, in a rare on-the- record opinion, said the public has no right to view the documents because they deal with the clandestine workings of national security agencies.

• Deseret News (Salt Lake City)
• December 12, 2007

• Judicial Skepticism Warranted?

Judges are apt to be naive and simpleminded and need education in the obvious, said Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Exemplary is the executive branch's notoriety for fabricating national security fears to justify hiding criminality, incompetence or political embarrassment. Despite the notoriety, United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) Judge John D. Bates in In re Motion For Release of Court Records (Dec. 11, 2007) presumed the opposite. The FISC judge refused to make public FISC orders and supporting government pleadings interpreting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) because the executive branch had classified the documents in their entireties.

• The Washington Times
• December 18, 2007

• An Anemic Defense

On Feb. 6, before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales anemically defended President Bush's National Security Agency (NSA) program that targets U.S. persons in the United States for electronic surveillance on his say-so alone in contradiction to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Indeed, the attorney general himself is unconvinced. He has bowed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court's insistence that no information extracted from NSA's warrantless surveillances be used in seeking FISA domestic wiretapping authority because its program is legally tainted.

• The Washington Times
• February 14, 2006

• Punting the Political Football ; Judges Are Forced to Improvise a Game Plan

He is the epitome of the gentleman judge: measured, refined, studied, fair and even-handed. He has no hard edges, treats all litigants who come before him with respect, and is widely regarded as one of the finest judges in the federal judiciary. He is Thomas F. Hogan. The former chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, today he handles most habeas cases for detainees accused of being unlawful combatants or terrorists. Judge Hogan also sits on the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) court.

• The Washington Times
• December 28, 2009