FAS

Wyden Seeks Declassification of FISA Court Opinions

07.28.08 | 2 min read | Text by Steven Aftergood

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) wrote to the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) last week to request that it review the classified opinions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FIS) Court from the last ten years and make recommendations regarding their classification or declassification.

The FIS Court not only grants (or, rarely, denies) authorization for domestic intelligence surveillance. It also from time to time reinterprets the requirements of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, producing a secret body of common law.

In response to a motion filed by the ACLU last year, Judge John D. Bates of the FIS Court acknowledged (pdf) that the Court had issued several “legally significant decisions that remain classified.” The anomaly of secret law, including classified FISA court rulings, was explored in an April 30, 2008 hearing before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee chaired by Sen. Russ Feingold.

“It is impossible for Congress to evaluate the effectiveness of the nation’s surveillance laws without a thorough understanding of how the court is interpreting those laws,” wrote Sen. Wyden. “This is exactly the kind of issue that the Public Interest Declassification Board was created to tackle.”

The PIDB is a congressionally-chartered presidential advisory board that is supposed to provide recommendations on classification policy and to review the classification status of contested documents. It is composed of private sector personnel appointed by the President and the Congress. The current chairman is Martin Faga, a former director of the National Reconnaissance Office.

Although the PIDB statute authorizes the Board to act on congressional requests, such requests are supposed to be “made by the committee of jurisdiction,” not by individual members. Consequently, it is uncertain whether the PIDB will act upon Senator Wyden’s letter. PIDB officials were not immediately available for comment.

publications
See all publications
Nuclear Weapons
Blog
New Voices on Nuclear Weapons Fellowship: Creative Perspectives on Rethinking Nuclear Deterrence 

To empower new voices to start their career in nuclear weapons studies, the Federation of American Scientists launched the New Voices on Nuclear Weapons Fellowship. Here’s what our inaugural cohort accomplished.

11.28.23 | 3 min read
read more
Science Policy
Article
Expected Utility Forecasting for Science Funding

Common frameworks for evaluating proposals leave this utility function implicit, often evaluating aspects of risk, uncertainty, and potential value independently and qualitatively.

11.20.23 | 11 min read
read more
Nuclear Weapons
Report
Nuclear Notebook: Nuclear Weapons Sharing, 2023

The FAS Nuclear Notebook is one of the most widely sourced reference materials worldwide for reliable information about the status of nuclear weapons and has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: Director Hans […]

11.17.23 | 1 min read
read more
Social Innovation
Blog
Community School Approach Reaches High of 60%, Reports Latest Pulse Panel

According to the National Center for Education Statistics’ August 2023 pulse panel, 60% of public schools were utilizing a “community school” or “wraparound services model” at the start of this school year—up from 45% last year.

11.17.23 | 4 min read
read more