Opening the Surveillance State’s Secret Courts

Are we ready now for that discussion about secrecy? In December, in a holiday-season rush to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the U.S. Senate shot down several amendments intended to limit the powers the act grants to the government and to scale back the near-total secrecy that it authorizes.

Fortunately, the most compelling of the downed FISA amendments was introduced as a new bill yesterday by its original sponsor, Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, and a handful of co-sponsors, including Republican Mike Lee of Utah. The bill would require the U.S. attorney general to declassify some opinions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which considers government requests for surveillance authorization in the U.S. and abroad. All such opinions are now secret, as are the court’s interpretations of the law that guides its decisions.