Reading Room Document

Standards for Searches Under Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

This opinion reviews whether a search under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ("FISA") can be approved when the collection of foreign intelligence is one of the purposes of the search, but not the primary purpose. The opinion finds that while the judiciary would likely adopt the "primary purpose" test for FISA searches, the courts have been exceedingly deferential to the government in criminal cases. The opinion further conludes that so long as the government is behaving in good faith, there is elasticity to the "primary purpose" test. 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/page/file/936201/download.

February 14, 1995