About the Collection
Professor Laura K. Donohue, the Agnes N. Williams Research Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, in collaboration with the Georgetown University Edward Bennett Williams Law Library, has developed a collection of the most important primary and secondary resources pertaining to U.S. foreign intelligence law and national security.
The collection includes foreign intelligence-related statutory and regulatory instruments; the legislative histories for statutory changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA); publicly available and declassified opinions and orders issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR); FISA-related cases in non-specialized Article III courts; statutorily-required reports on the operation of FISA and formal correspondence between FISC and Congress; FISC/FISCR Rules of Procedure; and an annotated bibliography of secondary sources related to FISA, FISC/FISCR, and foreign intelligence law.
This website is meant as a resource for the judiciary, clerks, members of Congress and their staff, lawyers, scholars, journalists, students, companies, members of the public, and anyone with an interest in or need to understand the legal framework for U.S. foreign intelligence collection.
Because many of the dates and filing references in the FISC/FISCR opinions and orders remain redacted, we have assigned each document a Georgetown identification (GID) number, preceded by the Court issuing the opinion or order in the following format: GID.C.0000# for FISC and GID.CA.0000# for FISCR. Each time an opinion or order is released with different material redacted, it is issued a unique identifier. Individual records contain the recommended bibliographic reference for Bluebook and Maroonbook purposes.
We will continue to update this site as new primary and secondary materials become available. If there are any additional materials that you think should be included, please contact Professor Donohue at: lkdonohue@law.georgetown.edu.
Many thanks and attribution also go to the Brennan Center for Justice, which previously compiled many of the declassified orders and opinions published prior to Apr. 28, 2016. See Brennan Ctr. for Justice, FISA Court Opinions Index (2016), https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/FISC%20Opinions%20Index%208.5.16.pdf.