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The '''United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court''' (or '''FISC''') is a [[United States federal courts|U.S. federal court]] authorized under {{UnitedStatesCode|50|1803}} and established by the [[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]] of [[1978]] (known as FISA for short). Its jurisdiction is to oversee requests for surveillance warrants by federal police agencies (primarily the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|F.B.I.]]) against suspected foreign [[secret agent|intelligence agents]] inside the United States.
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Each application for one of these surveillance warrant (called a FISA warrant) is made before an individual judge of the court. Like a [[grand jury]], FISC is not an [[Adversary system|adversarial court]]: the federal government is the only party to its proceedings. However, the court may allow third parties to submit briefs as ''[[amicus curiae|amici curiae]]''. If an application is denied by one judge of the FISC, the federal government is not allowed to make the same application to a different judge of the FISC. Instead, denials must be appealed to the [[United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review]]. Such appeals are rare: the first appeal from the FISC to the Court of Review was made in [[2002]], 24 years after the founding of the FISC.
A '''missile''' ([[British English]]: "miss"-"isle"; [[U.S. English]]: "missl") is, in general, a [[projectile]]—that is, something thrown or otherwise propelled. Missiles can range from a rock thrown from a [[slingshot]], through a [[crossbow]] or [[ballista]] bolt, to a [[Minuteman missile|Minuteman III]] [[intercontinental ballistic missile]] (ICBM) with multiple [[nuclear weapon|nuclear]] [[warhead]]s. Modern ICBMs, the largest missiles currently deployed, represent the most destructive [[weapon]]s ever made in human history.
Because of the sensitive nature of its business, the FISC is a "secret court": its hearings are closed to the public, and, while records of the proceedings are kept, those records are also not available to the public. (Copies of those records with [[classified]] information redacted out can and have been made public.) Due to the classified nature of its proceedings, only government attorneys are usually permitted to appear before the FISC.
== Introduction ==
When the court was founded, it was composed of seven [[United States district court|federal district]] judges appointed by the [[Chief Justice of the United States]], each serving a seven year term, with one judge being appointed each year. In [[2001]], the [[USA PATRIOT Act]] expanded the court to eleven judges, and required that at least three of the judges of the court be from within twenty miles of the [[District of Columbia]]. No judge may be appointed to this court more than once, and no judge may be appointed to both the Court of Review and the FISC.
[[Rocket engine|Rocket-powered]] missiles are known as ''[[rocket]]s'' if they lack post-launch guidance or ''missiles'' or ''guided missiles'' if they are able to continue tracking a target after launch. ''Cruise missiles'' typically use some form of [[jet engine]] for propulsion.
[[Category:Judicial Branch of the United States Government]]
Missiles are often used in [[warfare]] as a means of delivering destructive force (usually in the form of an [[explosive]] warhead) upon a target. Aside from explosives, other possible types of destructive missile payloads are various forms of [[chemical weapon|chemical]] or [[biological weapon|biological]] agents, [[nuclear weapon|nuclear warheads]], or simple [[kinetic energy]] (where the missile destroys the target by the force of striking it at high speed). Sometimes missiles are used to deliver payloads designed to break infrastructure without harming people. For example, in the [[Gulf War]] [[cruise missile]]s were used to deliver reels of carbon filament to [[electricity]] stations and switches, effectively disabling them by forming [[short circuit]]s.
[[Category: GuidedArticle missilesIII tribunals]] ▼
Missiles which spend most of their trajectory in unpowered flight, and which don't use aerodynamics to alter their course, are known as [[ballistic missile]]s (because their motion is largely governed by the laws of [[ballistics]]). These are in contrast to [[cruise missile]]s, which spend most of their trajectory in powered flight.
== Guided missiles ==
Missiles that have the ability to maneuver through the air can be guided, and are known as [[guided missile]]s. These have three key system components:
* tracking
* [[missile guidance|guidance]]
* flight
A tracking system locates the missile's target. This can be either a human gunner aiming a sight on the target (remotely from the missile) or an automatic tracker. Automatic trackers use [[radiation]] emanating from the target or emitted from the launch platform and reflecting back to it from the target. Passive automatic trackers use the target's inherent radiation, usually heat or light, but missiles designed to attack [[Command and Control|Command & Control]] posts, aircraft or guided missiles may look for radio waves. Active automatic trackers rely on the target being illuminated by radiation. The target can be "painted" with light (sometimes [[infrared]] and/or [[LASER]]) or radio waves ([[radar]]) which can be detected by the missile. The radiation for the painting can originate in the missile itself or may come from a remote station (for example, a hilltop gunner can illuminate a target with a [[LASER]] device and this can be used to direct an air launched guided missile).
A [[guidance system]] takes data from the missile's tracking system and flight system and computes a flight path for the missile designed to intercept the target. It produces commands for the flight system.
The flight system causes the missile to maneuver. There are two main systems: vectored thrust (for missiles that are powered throughout the guidance phase of their flight) and aerodynamic maneuvering (wings, fins, canards, etc).
There are some similarities between guided missiles and [[precision-guided munitions|guided bombs]]. A guided bomb, dropped from an aircraft, is unpowered and uses aerodynamic fins for forward horizontal maneuvering while falling vertically.
== See also ==
* [[List of missiles]]
* [[Timeline of rocket and missile technology]]
* [[V-1 flying bomb]]
* [[V-2 rocket]]
* [[Redstone (rocket)|Redstone missile]]
* [[German missiles of WW2]]
* [[Shoulder-launched missile weapon]]
* [[Fire-and-forget]]
== External links ==
* [http://www.spacewar.com/missilenews.html Missile News] – By SPACEWAR.COM
*[http://www.picture-newsletter.com/missile/index.htm Pictures Anti Aircraft Missiles]
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