FISA Overview
Background and Issues for Debate
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, P.L. 95_511, was enacted in response both to the Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (otherwise known as the Church Committee) revelations regarding past abuses of electronic surveillance for national security purposes and to the somewhat uncertain state of the law on the subject. While FISA now provides a statutory framework for gathering foreign intelligence information through the use of electronic surveillance, physical searches, pen registers or trap and trace devices, and access to business records and other tangible things, the 1978 Act dealt only with electronic surveillance….
