United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court

The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as the FISC or the FISA Court, is a federal court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to oversee requests by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies for surveillance warrants against foreign spies inside the United States. Congress created the statute on the recommendations of the Senate Church Committee, convened in 1975 to investigate abuses by the federal intelligence community. The court reviews requests to conduct physical and electronic surveillance concerning foreign intelligence information between foreign powers and agents of foreign powers suspected of espionage or terrorism, most often made by the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Each application is heard by an individual judge, and the government may appeal a denial to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review. From its opening in 1978 until 2009 the court sat on the sixth floor of the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building; since 2009 it has been at the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in Washington, D.C.