Reading Room Document

Constitutionality of Amending Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to Change the “Purpose” Standard for Searches

This opinion reviews the constitutionality of amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ("FISA"), so that a FISA search can be approved when the collection of foreign intelligence is "one of the purposes" of the search, rather than the "primary purpose." The opinion concludes that the proposed amendment would not violate the Fourth Amendment, though it notes that some individual searches may raise constitutional questions if the federal prosecutors are too directly invovled and the search appears to only incidentially relate to foreign intelligence. The opinion was partially rescinded in 2009. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at https://justice.gov/olc/docs/memoforeignsurveillanceact09252001.pdf.

September 25, 2001