The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) is one of the United States’ least publicly understood and most opaque judicial entities.

Established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, the court’s mandate (among other things) is to approve special surveillance warrants (FISA warrants) against suspected foreign agents to be used by American federal agencies, typically the National Security Agency (NSA) or the FBI. One of eleven judges who are tapped from existing federal circuit judge posts nationwide can then grant that warrant’s approval. In the court’s history, warrants (and related orders) are approved more than 99 percent of the time.

Usually, the court’s decisions, orders, and warrants are kept secret for 30 years. But on Wednesday, for the first time ever, FISC granted a motion to not block disclosure of an earlier FISC opinion that declared parts of the NSA’s surveillance under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act to be unconstitutional. (The court’s publicly accessible docket is pretty short—in fact, the website didn't even exist a week ago.)

In response to a motion (PDF) filed last month by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), FISC wrote in its seven-page decision:

The Court concludes that it has jurisdiction to adjudicate the EFF Motion and that the FISC Rules to not prohibit the Government’s disclosure of the Opinion in the event it is ultimately determined by the District Court to be subject to disclosure under [the Freedom of Information Act].

Ready to saddle up to your computer and actually read this opinion? Not so fast. As the EFF’s Mark Rumold wrote:

The victory today was a modest one. The Court didn't order disclosure of its opinion; it just made clear, as EFF had argued, that the FISC's own rules don't serve as an obstacle to disclosure of the opinion. The FISC also clarified that the executive branch cannot rely on the judiciary to hide its surveillance: the only thing obstructing the opinion from the public's review is the executive branch's own claims that it can hide its unconstitutional action behind a veil of classification. The effect of the Court's decision could be more significant. In earlier arguments, the Department of Justice [DOJ] tried to pin the blame for withholding the opinion in its entirety on the FISC. But, with that argument gone, DOJ should have no choice but to release, at the very minimum, parts of the opinion describing the government's unconstitutional practices.

Overall, the goal of this case is to get a FISC opinion made public. It isn't clear what the opinion states. But now the FISC itself will at least hear the case.

This is one of two surveillance-related Freedom of Information Act cases the EFF is handling right now. The other, EFF v. DOJ, is on hold while the government reconsiders its position in light of the recent NSA leaks.