Claire Veronica Eagan (born October 9, 1950) is a

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district. Each district covers one U.S. state or a portion of a state. There is at least one feder ...

of the

United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma The United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma (in case citations, N.D. Okla.) is a federal court in the Tenth Circuit (except for patent claims and claims against the U.S. government under the Tucker Act, which are appe ...

and a former Judge of the

United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), also called the FISA Court, is a United States federal courts, U.S. federal court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) to oversee requests ...

. Effective February 12, 2020, Chief Justice John G. Roberts appointed Judge Eagan as the chair of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference.

Early life and education

Born in

The Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, Eagan graduated from

Trinity Washington University Trinity Washington University is a private Catholic university in Washington, D.C., United States. It was founded as Trinity College by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in 1897 as the nation's first Catholic liberal arts college for women. T ...

with a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree in 1972, and later from

Fordham University School of Law Fordham University School of Law is the law school of Fordham University. The school is located in Manhattan in New York City, and is one of eight ABA-approved law schools in that city. According to Fordham University School of Law's ABA- ...

with a

Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...

in 1976. At Fordham, Eagan was a commentary editor of the ''

Fordham Law Review The ''Fordham Law Review'' is a student-run law review, law journal associated with the Fordham University School of Law that covers a wide range of legal scholarship. Overview In 2017, the ''Fordham Law Review'' was the seventh-most cited law ...

''. "Eagan, Claire." FJC Bio
Accessed May 16, 2018.

Career

Eagan began her legal career working as a

law clerk A law clerk, judicial clerk, or judicial assistant is a person, often a lawyer, who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by Legal research, researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial ...

to Judge

Allen E. Barrow Allen Edward Barrow (January 22, 1914 – February 26, 1979) was a United States federal judge, United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma. Education and career Born in Okemah, Oklahoma, ...

of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma from 1976 to 1978. She went into private practice attorney at the Hall Estill law firm in

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa ( ) is the List of municipalities in Oklahoma, second-most-populous city in the U.S. state, state of Oklahoma, after Oklahoma City, and the List of United States cities by population, 48th-most-populous city in the United States. The po ...

from 1978 to 1998. She wrote an affidavit in support of April Rose Wilkens, whom she knew during her time as an attorney.

Federal judicial service

Eagan served as a

United States magistrate judge In United States federal courts, magistrate judges are judges appointed to assist U.S. district court judges in the performance of their duties. Magistrate judges generally oversee first appearances of criminal defendants, set bail, and conduct ...

for the Northern District of Oklahoma from 1998 until 2001. On the recommendation of Senators James Inhofe and

Don Nickles Donald Lee Nickles (born December 6, 1948) is an American politician and lobbyist who was a Republican United States Senator from Oklahoma from 1981 to 2005. He was considered both a fiscal and social conservative. After retiring from the Sen ...

, Eagan was nominated to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma by President George W. Bush on September 4, 2001, to a seat vacated by Thomas Rutherford Brett. Eagan was confirmed by the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

on October 23, 2001, on a Senate vote and received her commission the next day. Eagan served as the chief judge of the court from 2005 to 2012. Eagen assumed senior status on October 1, 2022. She worked with Larry Morris of the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board in 2011, before he was appointed to the board, to support at-risk youth.

Assignment to FISC

In February 2013, she was appointed to the

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), also called the FISA Court, is a U.S. federal court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) to oversee requests for surveillance warrants ag ...

(FISC), established in 1978 per the

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA, , ) is a Law of the United States, United States federal law that establishes procedures for the surveillance and collection of foreign intelligence on domestic soil.metadata Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive ...

collection program was

constitutional A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...

, and thus "any decision about whether to keep it was a political question, not a legal one". The first FISC opinion written since the Snowden leaks (judges must reauthorize the program every 90 days and generally they are "brief reiterations of the court’s legal analysis"), the lengthy 29-page opinion is thought to have been written "for the purpose of public release". Eagan wrote "metadata that includes phone numbers, time and duration of calls is not protected by the Fourth Amendment, since the content of the calls is not accessed". In the opinion, Eagan said "data collection is authorized under Section 215 of the Patriot Act that allows the FBI to issue orders to produce tangible things if there are reasonable grounds to believe the records are relevant to a terrorism investigation." The opinion authorized the FBI to "collect the information for probes of 'unknown' as well as known terrorists". She also noted that no U.S. telecommunications company had legally refused to turn over customer metadata, "despite the mechanism for doing so".

Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference

Effective February 12, 2020, Chief Justice John G. Roberts appointed Judge Eagan as the chair of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference. The press notice, released by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, noted that Eagan had served on that committee since December, 2008, when she had been appointed to succeed Judge Merrick B. Garland on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma. Press Release. February 21, 2020.
Accessed March 20, 2020.

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Eagan, Claire 1950 births Living people 21st-century American women judges Fordham University School of Law alumni Judges of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma Judges of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Lawyers from the Bronx Lawyers from Tulsa, Oklahoma Trinity Washington University alumni United States district court judges appointed by George W. Bush United States magistrate judges