The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 is a U.S. federal law prescribing procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign powers" and "agents of foreign powers" (which may include American citizens and permanent residents suspected of being engaged in espionage and violating U.S. law: §1801(b)(2)(B)) on territory under United States control.[1]
FISA is codified in 50 U.S.C. ch.36.[1] The subchapters of FISA provide for:
Electronic Surveillance
Physical Searches
Pen Registers and Trap & Trace Devices for Foreign Intelligence Purposes
Access to certain Business Records for Foreign Intelligence Purposes
The act created a court which meets in secret, and approves or denies requests for search warrants. Only the number of warrants applied for, issued and denied, is reported. In 1980 (the first full year after its inception), it approved 322 warrants.[2] This number has steadily grown to 2224 warrants[3] in 2006. In the period 1979-2006 a total of 22,990 applications for warrants were made to the Court of which 22,985 were approved (sometimes with modifications; or with the splitting up, or combining together, of warrants for legal purposes), and only 5 were definitively rejected.[4]
The Act was amended by the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, primarily to include terrorism on behalf of groups that are not specifically backed by a foreign government.
An overhaul of the bill, the Protect America Act of 2007 was signed into law on August 5, 2007[5]. It expired on February 17, 2008.
The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 passed by the United States Congress on July 9, 2008.[6]
