Among other things, it required executive branch officials to make public, “to the greatest extent practicable,” decisions from the intelligence court that included significant legal determinations.
Under separation-of-powers principles, they say, courts rather than the executive branch should decide whether judicial opinions ought to be made public.
And the 2015 law, at least according to the executive branch, does not apply to decisions issued before its enactment.
filed a motion in the FISA court, seeking disclosure of major decisions issued between the Sept. 11 attacks and the 2015 law and arguing that the FISA court itself should decide whether disclosure of its decisions was required by the First Amendment.
“Too much secrecy, in other words,” they wrote, “puts at risk the very intelligence operations that require secrecy to be effective.”
Persons:
Edward J, “, ”, Patrick Toomey, James, John Brennan, —
Organizations:
USA Patriot