Secret court seeks briefing on wiretap orders
on Aug 18, 2007 at 7:17 am
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the designated monitor of government wiretapping that reaches globally, has asked the federal government to react to a private group’s plea for access to that Court’s recent secret orders on eavesdropping. The American Civil Liberties Union on Aug. 8 formally moved for public release of orders on the scope of international eavesdropping authority (see this earlier post). On Friday, the ACLU made public the Court’s two-page order asking for further briefing A download link to the briefing order can be found here.
The call for briefing, dated Thursday, called the ACLU motion “an unprecedented request that warrants further briefing.” The government was told by file a response in two weeks, by Aug. 31, and to supply the ACLU with a copy — censored, if necessary, to exclude secret material. The ACLU was given until Sept. 14 to reply.
The order was signed by the FIS Court’s Presiding Judge, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Washington, D.C.
The Court did not release the order itself. Ordinarily, that tribunal operates entirely in secret; usually, its proceedings involve only one side — the government, as it seeks approval for foreign intelligence wiretapping. The ACLU’s news release (found here) describing the briefing order did not indicate whether it had asked for permission to release the briefing order — which obviously contained no secrets.
