Originally Posted by spunkmaster

FISA is for "Foreign" communications interception and the supreme court said it requires:

(1) a showing of probable cause that a particular offense has been or is about to be committed;

(2) the applicant must describe with particularity the conversations to be intercepted;

(3) the surveillance must be for a specific, limited period of time in order to minimize the invasion of privacy (the N.Y. law authorized two months of surveillance at a time);

(4) there must be continuing probable cause showings for the surveillance to continue beyond the original termination date;

(5) the surveillance must end once the conversation sought is seized;

(6) notice must be given unless there is an adequate showing of exigency; and

(7) a return on the warrant is required so that the court may oversee and limit the use of the intercepted conversations.



If the target is a "U.S. person," which includes permanent resident aliens and associations and corporations substantially composed of U.S. citizens or permanent resident aliens, 50 U.S.C.A. § 1801(i), there must be probable cause to believe that the U.S. person's activities "may" or "are about to" involve a violation of the criminal statutes of the United States. § 1801(b)(2)(A),(B); see also § 1801(b)(2)(C) (knowingly engages in activities in preparation for sabotage or "international terrorism" on behalf of a foreign power); § 1801(b)(2)(D) (knowingly enters the United States under a false or fraudulent identity for or on behalf of a foreign power or, while in the United States, knowingly assumes a false or fraudulent identity for or on behalf of a foreign power).

A "United States person" may not be determined to be an agent of a foreign power "solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States." 50 U.S.C. § 1805(a)(3)(A).