The Supreme Court Declines to Hear the Case for Increased FISA Transparency
On November 1, 2021, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear American Civil Liberties Union v. United States (ACLU v. United States). The appeal followed a November 19, 2020 dismissal from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). The case presented two questions, but the second question is more pertinent to the broader political discourse. According to SCOTUSblog, the second issue is “whether the First Amendment provides a qualified right of public access to the FISC’s significant opinions.”
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the FISC received renewed scrutiny in the aftermath of September 11th and with the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act. Civil libertarians expressed discomfort at the expansion of federal surveillance and rightfully so; FISA originates from the Church Committee’s report that detailed the federal government’s intentional disregard of “legal limitations on its surveillance activities and ‘infringed the constitutional rights of American citizens.’” Congress implemented the FISA framework to provide stricter guardrails on federal surveillance. Below is a brief overview of the case from Law & Crime.
