With support from President Trump, Congress passed a bill to extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) through April 30. The president seems to have forgotten FISA’s power to harm innocents, override the judiciary, and even threaten the executive branch. That invites a look back at how it all started.

Sen. Edward Kennedy introduced FISA in 1977, and in 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed the measure into law. FISA established a secret court at which only the government’s side was represented, a body with no parallel in American history. The act was intended to protect the nation, but it didn’t exactly work out that way.

FISA failed to prevent the massive bombing of the World Trade Center on Feb. 26, 1993, with six people dead, more than 1,000 injured, and billions in damages. FISA also failed to prevent terrorists from crashing hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center........

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