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What's a FISA court?
by mvdtnz 2y ago
What's a FISA court?
- hypeatei 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig... > to oversee requests for surveillance warrants against foreign spies inside the United States by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Secret courts that some say are unconstitutional[0]. [0]: https://www.aclu.org/documents/why-fisa-amendments-act-unconstitutional https://www.aclu.org/documents/why-fisa-amendments-act-uncon...
- tptacek 2y agoFISA is a special process set up, partly by the Church Committee, in the last 1970s in order to oversee foreign signals intelligence. It's staffed by federal Article III judges, and its purpose is to handle paperwork applications for surveillance of communications pertaining to foreign nationals where any leg occurs on domestic soil.
- dragonwriter 2y agoOne of exactly two courts—the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that handles initial applications for surveillance warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR) which can handles reviews of denials of applications by FISC. These two courts are not “reserved for espionage and terrorism”, they are dedicated to assuring that limitations on impact on US persons of surveillance justified on foreign intelligence grounds are observed. They handle only warrant applications for foreign intelligence surveillance that has some US nexus, not charges/allegations of any kind, and no one targeted or impacted by such a warrant would ever get notice that proceedings were occurring, much less be represented, in these courts.