Jonathan Rigby and United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court: Difference between pages

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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.

Jonathan Rigby (born [[23 February]] [[1963]] in [[Salford]], Lancs) is a respected film critic who has held a regular page, 'The Fright of Your Life', in ''[[Shivers]]'' magazine for several years. He wrote the highly regarded ''English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema'' (first published 2000, third edition 2004) and an exhaustive [[Christopher Lee]] career biography (published 2001, revised 2003). In his parallel career as an actor, he originated the role of the late great [[Kenneth Horne]] in the London stage show ''[[Round the Horne ... Revisited]]'' to much acclaim; the production ran in London for some 18 months and spawned a [[BBC4]] film. He has also published ''Roxy Music: Both Ends Burning'' (2005) and is working on a follow-up to ''English Gothic'' called ''American Gothic''.

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.

[[Category:1963 births]]

[[Category:English writers]]

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.

[[Category:English actors]]

[[Category:English journalists]]

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.

[[Category:Salfordians]]

[[Category:Judicial Branch of the United States Government]]

[[Category:1963Article birthsIII tribunals]]