On January 15, 2009, the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review published an unclassified version of its opinion in In Re: Directives Pursuant to Section 105B of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 551 F.3d 1004 (Foreign Intel. Surv. Ct. Rev. 2008). The classified version of the opinion was issued on August 22, 2008, following a challenge by Yahoo! Inc. to directives issued under the Protect America Act of 2007.
On September 11, 2014, following a renewed declassification review, the Executive Branch publicly released various documents from this litigation, including legal briefs and additional sections of the 2008 FISC-R opinion, with appropriate redactions to protect national security information.
On November 13, 2014, the FISC-R additionally unsealed the oral argument transcript from the aforementioned litigation. Today we are posting a declassified, redacted copy of that transcript and the errata sheet (added November 21, 2014).
Updated May 24, 2016 – On April 11, 2016, the Government submitted to the Court and to Yahoo! Inc. declassified, redacted versions of additional documents from this litigation, documents that were either not reviewed in their original and unredacted form during the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR) classification review proceeding or that were not a part of the FISCR’s record. The FISC unsealed these additional declassified, redacted documents on April 27, 2016.