Secret court that approves surveillance warrants for intelligence and counterterrorism operations
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), commonly known as the FISA Court, is a secret federal court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to oversee requests for surveillance warrants against foreign intelligence agents inside the United States. The court's proceedings are classified, its opinions are largely secret, and only the government's lawyers appear before it — there is no adversarial process.
The FISA Court has approved over 99% of government surveillance requests throughout its history. Between 1979 and 2012, the court approved 33,942 warrant requests and denied only 11. After the Snowden revelations, declassified FISA Court opinions showed that the court had approved the NSA's interpretation of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act to authorize bulk collection of phone records — an interpretation that a federal appeals court later ruled was illegal.
The FISA Court functions as a rubber stamp that provides the appearance of judicial oversight while consistently deferring to government claims of national security necessity. The court hears only one side of the argument, operates in complete secrecy, and lacks the resources or institutional incentive to meaningfully challenge the intelligence community. It represents accountability theater — a system designed to look like a check on power while functioning as a facilitator of it.
