I 
114TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. R. 66 
To require the Attorney General to disclose each decision, order, or opinion 
of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that includes significant 
legal interpretation of section 501 or 702 of the Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act of 1978 unless such disclosure is not in the national 
security interest of the United States and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JANUARY 6, 2015 
Ms. JACKSON LEE introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Select Committee on 
Intelligence (Permanent Select), for a period to be subsequently deter-
mined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions 
as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 
A BILL 
To require the Attorney General to disclose each decision, 
order, or opinion of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance 
Court that includes significant legal interpretation of sec-
tion 501 or 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance 
Act of 1978 unless such disclosure is not in the national 
security interest of the United States and for other pur-
poses. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
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SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘FISA Court in the 
Sunshine Act of 2015’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) Secret law is inconsistent with democratic 
governance. In order for the rule of law to prevail, 
the requirements of the law must be publicly discov-
erable. 
(2) The United States Court of Appeals for the 
Seventh Circuit stated in 1998 that the ‘‘idea of se-
cret laws is repugnant’’. 
(3) The open publication of laws and directives 
is a defining characteristic of government of the 
United States. The first Congress of the United 
States mandated that every ‘‘law, order, resolution, 
and vote [shall] be published in at least three of the 
public newspapers printed within the United 
States’’. 
(4) The practice of withholding decisions of the 
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is at odds 
with the United States tradition of open publication 
of law. 
(5) The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court 
acknowledges that such Court has issued legally sig-
nificant interpretations of the Foreign Intelligence 
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Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.) 
that are not accessible to the public. 
(6) The exercise of surveillance authorities 
under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 
1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.), as interpreted by se-
cret court opinions, potentially implicates the com-
munications of United States persons who are nec-
essarily unaware of such surveillance. 
(7) Section 501 of the Foreign Intelligence Sur-
veillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1861), as amended 
by section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Public 
Law 107–56; 115 Stat. 287), authorizes the Federal 
Bureau of Investigation to require the production of 
‘‘any tangible things’’ and the extent of such author-
ity, as interpreted by secret court opinions, has been 
concealed from the knowledge and awareness of the 
people of the United States. 
(8) In 2010, the Department of Justice and the 
Office of the Director of National Intelligence estab-
lished a process to review and declassify opinions of 
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, but 
more than two years later no declassifications have 
been made. 
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