Bloomberg View: How to Bring FISA Into the Open
The public has a right to know more about the secret court’s interpretation of the law
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Are we ready now for that discussion about secrecy? In December, in a holiday-season rush to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the U.S. Senate shot down several amendments intended to limit the powers the act grants to the government and to scale back the near-total secrecy of the FISA process.
A new bill introduced by Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon and a handful of co-sponsors, including Republican Mike Lee of Utah, would require the U.S. attorney general to declassify some opinions of the FISA Court, which considers government requests for surveillance authorization in the U.S. and abroad. All such opinions are now secret, as are the court’s interpretations of the law that guides its decisions.