Carter signs Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, creating FISC and requiring warrants for domestic spy operations

President Jimmy Carter signed FISA on October 25, 1978, establishing for the first time a statutory framework requiring the government to obtain judicial approval before conducting electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes inside the United States. The act created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — a secret court of 11 federal judges — to review warrant applications. The Senate passed the bill 95-1, a rebuke of the warrantless surveillance exposed by the Church Committee three years earlier.