Latest in FISA
The House passed a bipartisan FISA reform bill. What are the substantive changes the bill proposes?
On Monday, Feb. 24, the House Judiciary Committee introduced legislation that would amend and reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives will mark up legislation to reauthorize and reform key provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which will otherwise expire on March 15.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has declassified an order about the Department of Justice's handling of 2016 and 2016 applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant for Trump campaign associate Carter Page. The Dec. 2019 Office of Inspector General (OIG) Report about the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election devoted considerable discussion to the Page warrants.
David Kris, whom the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court appointed as amicus curiae to review the FBI's filing before the court regarding FBI and Justice Department practices in filing FISA warrants, has filed a letter brief with the court in response to the FBI's submission. The brief is available here and below.
The inspector general’s findings on the Carter Page FISA applications are actually worse than the president’s defenders understand—precisely because Michael Horowitz did not find any kind of political conspiracy.
The FBI has filed a response to the order of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) requesting further information on FBI and Justice Department practices in filing FISA warrants before the court in the wake of the Justice Department inspector general's report identifying failures in the Carter Page FISA application. The document is available here.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that incidental collection of U.S. persons’ communications under Section 702 does not violate the Fourth Amendment, but raised constitutional questions related to querying databases containing these communications.
The investigation may have taken steps that the inspector general thinks unwise, thinks should have been forbidden by policy, and thinks should have required more Justice Department consultation. But it was, in fact, about Russia. It was always about Russia. Full stop.
The Horowitz report poses a deep challenge to those of us who have broadly defended expansive surveillance authorities over the past several years. That challenge is not the one President Trump and his supporters have lodged against the FBI and its integrity.