Court order, not Congress, extends FISA’s warrantless searches to March 17th
Judge Carl J. Nichols (above)
https://www.fisc.uscourts.gov/current-membership-foreign-intelligence-surveillance-court
A court order by Federal District Judge Carl J. Nichols on March 17th extended warrantless searches through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) for one year.
The House of Representatives voted down a FISA extension on April 17th.
The court objected to the way the FBI, CIA, and NSA were using warrantless searches in violation of the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.
Before Tulsi Gabbard quit as Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on June 30th, she had the National Security Division of the Justice Department file objections to Judge Nichols’ March 17th court order.
It modified current law.
A link to the court filing and reasons for the objections are imaged below:
If the court had closed, it could never have made this filing.
On behalf of the President, the Attorney General, Todd Blanche, and the Director of National Intelligence, Jay Clayton, are responsible for declassifying FISC opinions, orders, and pleadings.
They refuse to declassify Judge Nichols’ March 17 order.
Five public information requests to declassify Nichols’ court order remain unanswered.
They were emailed to:
Courts are not subject to public information requests, according to Chief Justice John Roberts.
Roberts claims immunity from FOIA to cover up his plot to remove Alito, Thomas
Charlie Savage of the New York Times broke the story on the court extending FISA instead of Congress.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/us/politics/section-702-surveillance-fisa.html
Alma Adams (D-NC) was the only person in Congress to break the story.
It is as if Congress wanted the FISA extension covered up.
Her press release dated June 15th is linked here:
https://adams.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-adams-statement-expiration-fisa
According to INTEL.gov, the record database of 18 federal spy agencies, like the CIA, NSA, and FBI, FISA has resulted in NINE CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS and no criminal convictions or plea deals.
https://www.intel.gov/ic-on-the-record-database/results/fact-sheet
Congress created FISC in 1978.
https://www.fisc.uscourts.gov/about-foreign-intelligence-surveillance-court
The data in the report is from July 27th, 2023.
https://www.intel.gov/ic-on-the-record-database/results/fact-sheet
NSA (National Security Agency) generated 434 million Call Detail Records from 14 FISA warrants.
All were American citizens.
Details are in this story:
434 million call detail records were produced from 14 FISA warrants
On June 2nd, 2015, Congress passed the USA Freedom Act.
According to a 106-page federal report dated Feb. 26th:
$100 million was spent on FISA warrants
resulted in two reports
no charges filed
no convictions
The FISA Court ruled on April 26th, 2017, that illegal surveillance was done on 30,055 American citizens during the 2016 Presidential Election Cycle.
The co-conspirators were the:
FBI
Justice Department
NSA
70 yet-to-be-identified contractors
CIA
It resulted in:
no indictments
no convictions
https://www.pclob.gov/library/CDR%20Fact%20sheet%20FINAL.pdf
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