Constitution Project, The

A bipartisan group of national security and foreign intelligence experts, including a former judge who served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, is urging the creation of a special advocate to protect the public's rights before the secretive terrorism review panel when the Senate takes up surveillance reform legislation.

A report released by The Constitution Project's Liberty and Security Committee calls on Congress to create "meaningful adversarial participation" before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISC, including a security-cleared special advocate with a specific mandate to represent the public's privacy and civil liberties interests whenever the government seeks broad surveillance authority.

The new report suggests any effort by Congress to provide for more meaningful adversarial participation before the FISC should give the special advocate an unconditional right to participate in any case in which the FISC is asked to approve non-individual surveillance authorizations, including any production orders under section 215 of the USA Patriot Act or directives under section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. The special advocate should also be empowered to represent all US persons who are subject to the broad surveillance orders, and should have the authority to litigate on their behalf.