Secret Surveillance Court Moves to New Secure Courtroom
The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is moving from the Justice Department to a new $2 million courtroom in the Washington, D.C., federal courthouse.
Reinforced concrete will encase the courtroom, and biometric hand scanners will be used to gain entrance, the Washington Post reports. Workers spent two years on the secret building project for the court that hears wiretap requests in foreign intelligence cases.
“What workers have finally completed—or perhaps not; few really know, and none would say—is the nation’s most secure courtroom for its most secretive court,” the Post says.
Past judges on the court told the Post that the move from the Justice Department will help battle the perception that the court was a tool of law enforcement. One former judge on the court, Royce Lamberth, acknowledged the upcoming move, without giving a specific date.
“I think a judicial function as significant as this should be in a courtroom in a traditional judicial building,” he told the Post.
