Thanks to Just Security for letting me blog today about a new resource. Obviously there have been load of disclosures about FISA matters over the past year—between the Snowden documents, the FOIA-driven ODNI declassifications, the FISA Court’s nifty new on-line docket, and papers filed in district court cases around the country, there’s now lots and lots of information out there about FISA implementation. The Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, a website I run, is a web-based repository for documents and information relating to civil rights cases. I’m really pleased to announce that the Clearinghouse is making public, today, what I think is at least close to a comprehensive presentation of FISA litigation. All the FISA Court cases, and (I think) all the cases dealing with FISA in U.S. District Courts are included. Each case has a summary, metadata information, and the relevant documents. They cover not only the recent disclosures but the few FISA Court opinions declassified years ago, as well. (This one, from 1981, is particularly interesting.) All of these can be retrieved via a search page, here. It includes lots of methods for searching, including full-text searches. And they are grouped in collections with permalinks:
- FISA – All Matters
- FISA Court
- FISA – Telephony Metadata (Section 215)
- FISA – Internet Metadata (PR/TT)
- FISA – Foreign Targeting (Section 702, 703, 704)
My students and I will try to keep this up to date. If you have suggestions about anything that’s missing—cases, issues, documents, search functionality, I’d love to hear them. You can provide feedback most easily from this page.
The goal of including these cases in the Clearinghouse is to make them easier to access and search, and also to put them together with other cases that deal with civil rights and civil liberties issue. You may find that you are interested in other case categories at the Clearinghouse, too; please have a look around!