Judge Walton Named Presiding Judge of FISA Court
Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts has appointed Judge Reggie B. Walton of the D.C. District Court to serve as Presiding Judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, effective February 22, 2013.
Judge Walton, who has been a member of the FIS Court since May 2007, will replace Presiding Judge John D. Bates, whose term expires on February 21. Judge Walton’s own term on the Court extends through May 18, 2014. His appointment as Presiding Judge was confirmed by Sheldon Snook, spokesman for the Court.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court reviews and authorizes applications for electronic surveillance and physical search under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. A roster of the current court membership is here.
The Court’s operation under the recently renewed FISA Amendments Act was discussed in Reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act, Congressional Research Service, January 2, 2013.
In his regular capacity as district court judge, Judge Walton has presided over a number of celebrated cases including U.S. v. Libby, U.S. v. Roger Clemens, and Hatfill v. John Ashcroft. Less famously, he also heard Aftergood v. National Reconnaissance Office, a 2005 Freedom of Information Act case in which he ruled in favor of the plaintiff, myself. That case inaugurated the now-routine public release of unclassified intelligence agency budget justification records.
With targeted policy interventions, we can efficiently and effectively support the U.S. innovation economy through the translation of breakthrough scientific research from the lab to the market.
Crowd forecasting methods offer a systematic approach to quantifying the U.S. intelligence community’s uncertainty about the future and predicting the impact of interventions, allowing decision-makers to strategize effectively and allocate resources by outlining risks and tradeoffs in a legible format.
The energy transition underway in the United States continues to present a unique set of opportunities to put Americans back to work through the deployment of new technologies, infrastructure, energy efficiency, and expansion of the electricity system to meet our carbon goals.
The United States has the only proven and scalable tritium production supply chain, but it is largely reserved for nuclear weapons. Excess tritium production capacity should be leveraged to ensure the success of and U.S. leadership in fusion energy.