December 1, 2021–Due Process Institute and a bipartisan coalition of civil liberties organizations urged Senate leaders to support Sen. Patrick Leahy and Sen. Mike Lee’s amendment, #4705, to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2022. This amendment would require the declassification of significant decisions, orders and opinions issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR) before the passage of the USA Freedom Act of 2015.
Given their lack of transparency and oversight, these two courts are at best outliers in our constitutional system. These declassification requirements–which the executive branch declined to apply and now compels Congress to act–would help create transparency around their secret legal conclusions that impact million of Americans’ civil liberties. It would also produce a better understanding by the American public of the reasoning of the two FISA courts and the programs they oversee. Furthermore, this amendment would help restore the principle of transparency in government operations without sacrificing national security as these pre-2015 opinions are less likely to contain currently sensitive information.