Citing Snowden, the FISA court orders the government to declassify more of its secret opinions [View all]
The FISA court will release more opinions because of Snowden
By Brian Fung, Published: September 13 at 2:49 pm
Call it the Edward Snowden effect: Citing the former NSA contractor, a federal judge has ordered the government to declassify more reports from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
In an opinion from the FISC itself, Judge F. Dennis Saylor on Friday told the White House to declassify all the legal opinions relating to Section 215 of the Patriot Act written after May 2011 that aren't already the subject of FOIA litigation.
The court ruled that the White House must identify the opinions in question by Oct. 4.
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The ruling comes in response to a petition by the American Civil Liberties Union seeking greater government transparency. But because the ACLU already has a similar FOIA case pending in another court, Saylor wrote that the new FISC order can only cover documents that don't relate to that case. Depending on how the other case turns out, the ACLU could come back to the FISA court later and ask again.
Senior intelligence officials have voluntarily published some of its surveillance-related documents in recent weeks and vow to release more, but this marks the first time the FISA court has given a direct order to the administration on declassification.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/09/13/the-fisa-court-will-release-more-opinions-because-of-snowden/
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