The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 permits electronic and physical monitoring to assess threats and maintain US safety. FISA created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which grants surveillance warrants.

Concerned with authorization of wiretaps against Americans, a Federal judge resigned in December 2005. In February 2006, House Republicans expressed interest in updating FISA to reflect contemporary technology. In July 2006, the legal community debated the merits of warrantless eavesdropping given terrorist threats.

The Bush Administration called for strengthening FISA. The CIA Director claimed, in July 2006, that court orders were not helpful against terrorists. In January 2007, the Attorney General agreed to submit all domestic surveillance requests to FISC for approval, but later refused to release documents to the public. The Attorney General later relented after pushback from the US Senate Judiciary Committee.

The US Director of National Intelligence, in April 2007, proposed several suggested amendments to FISA, including immunity for telecommunications firms that cooperated with government surveillance requests. The Bush Administration endorsed those amendments later that month.

In August 2007, the US Senate and the US House of Representatives passed the Protect America Act of 2007, which granted expanded surveillance powers to the President while Congress discussed FISA amendments.
The US Director of National Intelligence and the Bush Administration sought to make the expanded changes permanent in September 2008. When Congress and the President failed to to agree on permanent FISA expansions, President Bush signed a 15-day extension to the act in January 2008.

At the request of President Bush, the Senate passed FISA amendments, including telecom immunity, in February 2008 and the House followed in June 2008.

However, the Senate and House failed to reach a compromise bill by July 2008. President Bush announced that he would veto any FISA amendments that did not contain telecom immunity. FISA amendments that met the administration’s approval passed later that month.

In an August 2008 ruling, FISC held that the Federal government acted within Constitutional boundaries when it required telecommunications companies to comply with warrantless surveillance requests. The FISA amendments granting telecom immunity were upheld by a federal court in December 2011.

The House passed the Reauthorization Act of 2012 in September 2012, extending the FISA amendments, and the Senate followed in December 2012.