The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, established in 1978 through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to oversee the process by which the federal government requests secret surveillance warrants, has become a rallying call for the Trump administration and some Republican lawmakers, who say the process is biased and needs to be reformed.

Calls for reform rang louder when a memo released by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee alleged that intelligence officials in the Justice Department and FBI abused the system in how the federal government obtained a warrant to surveil ex-Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.