## Facts

- For years, the government operated a bulk telephony metadata collection program approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) under 50 U.S.C. § 1861 (commonly called Section 215).
- The program required telecommunications providers to produce call-detail records on an ongoing basis, including numbers dialed, numbers received, date, time, duration, and certain routing/location identifiers, but not call content.
- The FISC orders imposed minimization and oversight limits, including restricted querying tied to foreign-terrorism identifiers and a general retention limit (commonly five years).
- On June 2, 2015, Congress enacted the USA FREEDOM Act, which ended bulk collection going forward, created a new targeted call-detail-records framework, and included a 180-day transition period permitting continued use of prior Section 215 authority subject to court approval.
- During the transition period, the FBI applied for a new 90-day Section 215 primary order to continue the existing bulk metadata program.
- Privacy and civil-liberties organizations participated in a related miscellaneous proceeding, opposing reauthorization on statutory and constitutional grounds, including reliance on a federal appellate decision that had found the pre-USA-FREEDOM Act program exceeded Section 215 authority.

## Issues

1. Whether the USA FREEDOM Act’s 180-day transition provisions authorized the FISC to issue new Section 215 orders continuing the existing bulk telephony metadata program during the transition period.
2. Whether an appellate decision interpreting the pre-USA-FREEDOM Act version of Section 215 barred the FISC from granting a renewed bulk-collection order during the transition period.
3. Whether continued bulk collection of telephony metadata under the transition provisions violated the Fourth Amendment.
4. How the FISC should proceed when Congress has enacted new statutory text addressing the challenged program while other courts have construed the prior statute differently.

## Decision

- The FISC granted the government’s application and issued a renewed Section 215 order limited to the transition period authorized by the USA FREEDOM Act.
- The court held the transition provisions expressly permitted continued operation of the existing bulk telephony metadata program for a short, defined period, subject to FISC approval.
- The court rejected the argument that the appellate decision construing the prior statute prevented renewal, reasoning that the new transition provisions controlled and allowed continuation for the limited period.
- The court rejected the Fourth Amendment challenge, relying on prevailing third-party doctrine treatment of non-content telephone metadata and the program’s court-ordered access and minimization limits.
- The court denied the objectors’ requested relief in the miscellaneous proceeding and maintained the established minimization, oversight, and retention conditions in the renewed order.

## Legal Principles

- When Congress enacts transitional language that preserves pre-amendment authority for a defined period, courts apply that text to determine whether prior programs may continue during the transition.
- Statutory amendments and transition provisions may supersede disputes about earlier statutory meaning for the limited period addressed by the new enactment.
- Under then-governing Fourth Amendment doctrine, non-content telephone metadata conveyed to service providers generally falls outside reasonable expectations of privacy; reasonableness analysis may also consider binding minimization, access controls, and oversight conditions imposed by court order.
- The FISC’s role is to apply the governing surveillance statute as enacted, issuing orders within the statute’s limits and enforcing associated minimization and compliance requirements.

## Conclusion

The FISC concluded that the USA FREEDOM Act’s transition provisions authorized continued Section 215 bulk telephony metadata collection for a limited time and that, under controlling Fourth Amendment doctrine and the order’s safeguards, the program could lawfully continue only through the statutorily defined transition period.


In re Application of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2015 WL 5637562 (FISA Ct. Sept. 17, 2015)