President Carter signs Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

President Jimmy Carter signed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), creating a specialized secret court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), to review government applications for surveillance warrants targeting foreign powers and their agents inside the United States. FISA established that intelligence surveillance of Americans required judicial approval, a direct response to the Church Committee findings that intelligence agencies had operated without any court oversight. The law created warrant procedures for electronic surveillance but covered only domestic collection; international communications remained largely unregulated.