Jordan and Nadler Knocking on the Doors of the Secret FISA Courts

​When President Biden signed the “Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act,” he couldn’t help but sign into law a measure that enhances oversight of the intelligence community.
 
An amendment to that bill, sponsored by Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy, tasks the FBI with enhanced reporting requirements of its use of Americans’ communications caught up in FISA Section 702. Rep. Roy’s addition to the law also stipulates that the chairs and ranking Members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, as well as the leaders of the House and Senate, are able to attend the hearings of FISA’s secret courts – the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review.
 
It is in these secret chambers that the FBI petitions for approval to secretly surveil Americans suspected of being national security threats. It is before the FISC that the FBI won approval four times to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page as a possible Russian agent, misleading the court about the validity of its evidence and submitting a forged document.
 
Now Jim Jordan, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Jerry Nadler, former Chairman and Ranking Member of that same committee, have fired off a letter to Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence, giving her until close of business on June 11 to brief their offices on procedures for attending the proceedings of these two courts.
 
Rep. Roy, who offered this measure as an amendment and helped it become law, tweets that “committees are more empowered to keep tabs on how the federal gov is conducting surveillance. This is a tremendous step forward for Americans’ 4th Amendment rights!”
 
He’s right. The leaders of the primary House oversight committee of the intelligence community are knocking on the doors of the secret courts to hear for themselves how Americans’ rights are handled in these secret hearings.
 
Oversight doesn’t get more direct than that.