Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court FISC

After the Church Committee exposed decades of warrantless domestic spying, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, which required the government to get approval from a special court before conducting electronic surveillance of foreign powers and their agents inside the United States. The court is made up of eleven sitting federal district judges designated by the Chief Justice for seven-year terms, at least three of whom must live near Washington. A three-judge Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review hears appeals.

The court operates in secret, usually hearing only from the government, because its cases involve classified intelligence. It approves individual surveillance orders and, under Section 702, added in 2008, annual certifications that allow the NSA and other agencies to collect the communications of foreigners abroad through U.S. companies, which inevitably sweeps in some Americans' communications. The USA FREEDOM Act of 2015 created a panel of outside lawyers who can be appointed as friends of the court to argue for privacy and civil liberties.

The court has been criticized from different directions: by civil libertarians who say it approves nearly all applications and lacks an adversary, and by others after a 2019 inspector general report found serious errors in FBI applications to surveil a former Trump campaign adviser. Section 702 must be periodically renewed by Congress, and each reauthorization, most recently in April 2024 for two years, has prompted fights over whether to require warrants for searches of Americans' communications. After two short extensions in April 2026, the authority lapsed on June 12, 2026, for the first time, when Congress could not agree on a renewal, though collection continued under certifications the court had approved in March 2026.