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ODNI Releases the Intelligence Community's 11th Annual Statistical Transparency Report

April 30, 2024

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) today released the Annual Statistical Transparency Report Regarding the Intelligence Community’s (IC) Use of National Security Surveillance Authorities for Calendar Year 2023 (ASTR). The ASTR provides the public both statistics and contextual information regarding the scope of the government’s use of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authorities, National Security Letters, and other national security authorities. The report also provides insights into the rigorous, multi-layered oversight framework that governs the IC and which is designed to protect the civil liberties and privacy of persons whose information is acquired pursuant to these national security authorities. The release of this report is consistent with the requirement in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as amended (codified in 50 U.S.C. § 1873(b)), and the IC’s commitment to the Principles of Intelligence Transparency .

This report, along with prior year ASTRs and additional public information on national security authorities are available on www.dni.gov and www.intel.gov.

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Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is a critical tool for protecting our national security. It enables the U.S. Intelligence Community to collect, analyze, and share foreign intelligence information on individual terrorists, weapons proliferators, hackers, and other foreign intelligence targets. Take a deeper look at how FISA Section 702 has been used to protect national security while protecting privacy and civil liberties.

Resources:

The Basics of Section 702

Civil Liberties & Privacy Protections in 702

Process for Section 702 Collection

The Value of Section 702

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ODNI Releases 25th and 26th Joint Assessments of FISA Section 702 Compliance

  September 29, 2023

In accordance with the Principles of Intelligence Transparency for the Intelligence Community, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), in consultation with the Department of Justice (DOJ), is making publicly available, with redactions, the 25th and 26th Semiannual Assessments of Compliance with Procedures and Guidelines Issued Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“Joint Assessments”) submitted by the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). These Joint Assessments cover the periods of 1 June 2020 through 31 May 2021.

About the Joint Assessments

Section 702(m) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as amended, requires the Attorney General and the DNI to assess the Government’s compliance with the Section 702 targeting, minimization, and querying procedures, as well as the Attorney General’s Section 702 Acquisition Guidelines, at least once every six months. A joint team of experts from the DOJ National Security Division and ODNI conduct regular assessments to review compliance and evaluate how agencies that receive unminimized Section 702 collection implement the authority. DOJ and ODNI submit their assessments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), relevant congressional committees, and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board semi-annually through the Joint Assessments. The Joint Assessments describe how those agencies that receive unminimized information acquired under Section 702—the National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC)—implement their authority under Section 702, including agencies’ internal compliance efforts, training efforts, and responsive actions to prevent recurrence of compliance issues. The Joint Assessments also include metrics and narratives describing the Government’s compliance with Attorney General Guidelines and with FISC-approved targeting, minimization, and querying procedures.

Key Findings of the 25th and 26th Joint Assessments

DOJ and ODNI assessed that NSA, FBI, CIA, and NCTC continued to implement the Section 702 procedures and follow the relevant guidelines in a manner that generally reflects a focused and concerted effort by agency personnel to comply with the requirements of Section 702.

Due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, DOJ and ODNI note that caution is warranted when drawing conclusions regarding some of the compliance trends from the 25th and 26th Joint Assessments. While the total number of reported compliance incidents decreased significantly, the joint oversight team was not able to determine to what extent the decrease reflects changes in the number of compliance incidents that occurred—whether as a result of the coronavirus pandemic or other factors—as opposed to difficulties in discovering and reporting compliance incidents as a result of the pandemic. For example, while the number of NSA targeting compliance incidents fell sharply, most of the NSA targeting decisions covered by the 25th and 26th Joint Assessments occurred during the pandemic. If a Section 702 target travels to the United States, NSA must detask—or stop collection on—that target while the target is in the United States. Reduced travel during the pandemic likely resulted in fewer Section 702 targets traveling to the United States, thus reducing the likelihood that detasking delays would occur as a result of such travel.

Similarly, while the number of FBI querying incidents reported in the 25th and 26th Joint Assessments was significantly lower than pre-pandemic, the decline may be attributable to difficulties in discovering and reporting querying compliance incidents. FBI field office reviews have been responsible for discovering a significant portion of FBI querying incidents. DOJ suspended its reviews at FBI field offices for eight of the 12 months covered by the 25th and 26th Joint Assessments and was able to conduct only four query audits of FBI field offices during this time. By contrast, DOJ conducted query audits of 27 FBI field offices in 2019 and 29 FBI field offices in 2018. Additionally, the FBI querying compliance incidents discussed in these Joint Assessments occurred prior to the corrective measures FBI implemented in mid-2021 and 2022. Thus, these Joint Assessments do not reflect the effects of FBI’s corrective measures.

Additional Information

The 25th and 26th Joint Assessments are posted in full-text searchable format on Intel.gov.

25th Joint Assessment (dated April 2022): Reporting Period 01 June 2020 - 30 November 2020

26th Joint Assessment (dated August 2022): Reporting Period 01 December 2020 - 31 May 2021

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Release of 2022 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Opinion and Order and Related 2023 Opinion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review

August 23, 2023

Pursuant to 50 U.S.C. § 1872, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in consultation with the Department of Justice, is today making publicly available to the greatest extent practicable a 2022 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) Opinion and Order and related 2023 Opinion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISC-R) regarding whether a provider of certain services is an “electronic communication service provider” (ECSP) as defined in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) such that the provider must comply with a written directive issued by the Government requiring its assistance under the relevant statutory provision.

In its 2022 Opinion and Order, the FISC determined that as to these services, the provider in question did not satisfy the definition of an ECSP for purposes of the relevant statutory provision. The Government appealed and in 2023, the FISC-R issued an Opinion affirming the Order of the FISC. Both opinions, in redacted form, are available in full-text searchable format on intel.gov.

The 2022 FISC Opinion and Order is available here.

The 2023 FISC-R Opinion is available here.

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Release of 2021 FISA Section 702 FISC Order

July 21, 2023

Consistent with the Principles of Intelligence Transparency for the Intelligence Community, ODNI, in consultation with DOJ, is also today making publicly available, with redactions, a 2021 FISC Order that examined certain FBI compliance errors involving the querying of U.S. person information. The errors discussed in the 2021 FISC Order preceded the FBI remedial reforms discussed in the 2023 FISC Opinion, which were initially deployed during the summer of 2021, and the 2021 FISC Order thus does not reflect the current status of FBI compliance. Moreover, the compliance issues discussed in the 2021 FISC Order are some of the same compliance issues discussed in the FISC’s April 2022 Section 702 Opinion, which the ODNI released on May 19, 2023. See 2022 Mem. Op. at 26–28. Nonetheless, the Government has chosen to make the 2021 FISC Order publicly available to provide the public with additional information about Section 702.

Additional Information

The documents are posted in full-text searchable format on intel.gov.

2021 FISA Section 702 FISC Order

  Background on Section 702

Section 702 was enacted as part of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA) and most recently reauthorized by the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017. Section 702 permits the Attorney General and the DNI to jointly authorize, through certifications, the targeting of (i) non-U.S. persons (ii) who are reasonably believed to be located outside the United States (iii) to acquire foreign intelligence information. These certifications are accompanied by targeting procedures, minimization procedures, and querying procedures that are each designed to ensure that the Government’s collection is appropriately targeted against non-United States persons located overseas who may possess or are likely to communicate foreign intelligence information and that any such collection is appropriately handled in a manner that protects privacy and civil liberties.

Under Section 702, the FISC reviews the certifications and accompanying documents to ensure that they meet all the requirements of Section 702 and are consistent with the Fourth Amendment. The Court’s review is not limited to the procedures as written, but also includes an examination of how the procedures have been and will be implemented. Accordingly, as part of its review, the FISC considers the compliance incidents reported to it by the Government through notices and reports.

Additional Information about FISA Section 702 and how the Intelligence Community uses its surveillance authorities may be found in the FISA Resource Library.

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Release of Documents Related to the 2023 FISA Section 702 Certifications

July 21, 2023

Today, the Office of the Director National Intelligence (ODNI), in consultation with the Department of Justice (DOJ), is publicly releasing a 2023 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) opinion, with redactions, which approves the annual certifications made by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the Attorney General (AG) pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the associated targeting, minimization, and querying procedures. The 2023 FISC Opinion states that the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) recent implementation of remedial measures has improved the FBI’s compliance with the query standard.

Under FISA Section 702, the Government may annually submit one or more certifications to the FISC which specify the categories of foreign intelligence that the Intelligence Community (IC) can collect using FISA Section 702. With any submitted certifications, the Government must also submit targeting, minimization, and querying procedures, which ensure that FISA Section 702 is used only to acquire foreign intelligence information from foreign persons located outside the United States; safeguard any U.S. person information incidentally acquired; and govern the querying of unminimized information that is lawfully collected, respectively. The Government submitted those documents, as well as supporting affidavits from the Directors of the National Security Agency (NSA), FBI, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), in March 2023. The FISC approved the certifications in the above-referenced Memorandum Opinion and Order, issued on April 11, 2023.

To provide the public with additional information about the Government’s use of Section 702, and pursuant to public interest declassification under section 3.1(d) of Executive Order 13526, the DNI has declassified that there are three Certifications under Section 702, covering the following categories of foreign intelligence: (1) foreign governments and related entities, (2) counterterrorism, and (3) combatting proliferation. The DNI also declassified the fact that NSA uses FISA Section 702 to support the federal government’s vetting, for counterterrorism purposes, of non-U.S. persons who are being processed for travel to the United States or a benefit under U.S. immigration laws.

 The 2023 FISC Opinion addresses several other issues.

FBI Compliance: The 2023 FISC Opinion compares compliance incidents during the most recent certification period with preceding periods, assessing the strength of the recent remedial measures FBI implemented to bolster compliance with its querying procedures. While the FISC notes that there were reported errors during the recent certification period, the 2023 FISC Opinion and Order highlights the remedial measures made within FBI systems and updated training, guidance, and clarifications to FBI’s querying procedures the FBI implemented to address its query compliance issues before ultimately concluding that “there is reason to believe that the FBI has been doing a better job in applying the querying standard.” See id. at 87. Overall, the FISC calculates FBI’s rate of noncompliance with the FISA querying standard during this period at approximately 1.8%, see id. at 85, and the Court ultimately approves FBI’s querying procedures, “[g]iven recent indications that FBI is improving its implementation of Section 702 querying requirements.” See id. at 93.

Modification to NSA’s procedures: The 2023 FISC opinion also addresses NSA’s querying and minimization procedures, which include a modification concerning travel or immigration vetting in order to determine if non-U.S. person individuals have connections to international terrorism. The FISC concluded that the proposed modifications to NSA’s procedures were consistent with both the statutory requirements and the Fourth Amendment. See Op. at 43–67 (consistent with FISA), 76–81 (consistent with the Fourth Amendment).

Processing: The FISC also approved separate modifications to NSA’s minimization and querying procedures that clarified “processing” and further distinguish processing from “querying.” See id. at 29-43 (consistent with the statute), 75–76 (consistent with the Fourth Amendment). “Processing” of data is an action that converts information into an intelligible form or organizes information by, for example, labeling or indexing data, prior to an analyst conducting a query. In many cases, processing is a necessary step before an analyst can even run a query against collected data.

Additional Information

The documents are posted in full-text searchable format on intel.gov.

FISC 2023 FISA § 702 Certifications Opinion, April 11, 2023

2023 Targeting Procedures

(released pursuant to the IC’s Principles of Transparency)

FBI’s 2023 FISA § 702 Targeting Procedures

NSA’s 2023 FISA § 702 Targeting Procedures

2023 Minimization Procedures

(released pursuant to 50 U.S.C. § 1881a(e))

CIA’s 2023 FISA § 702 Minimization Procedures

FBI’s 2023 FISA § 702 Minimization Procedures

NCTC’s 2023 FISA § 702 Minimization Procedures

NSA’s 2023 FISA § 702 Minimization Procedures

NSA’s 2023 FISA § 702 Amended Minimization Procedures

2023 Querying Procedures

(released pursuant to the IC’s Principles of Transparency)

CIA’s 2023 FISA § 702 Querying Procedures

FBI’s 2023 FISA § 702 Querying Procedures

NCTC’s 2023 FISA § 702 Querying Procedures

NSA’s 2023 FISA § 702 Querying Procedures

  Background on Section 702

Section 702 was enacted as part of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA) and most recently reauthorized by the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017. Section 702 permits the Attorney General and the DNI to jointly authorize, through certifications, the targeting of (i) non-U.S. persons (ii) who are reasonably believed to be located outside the United States (iii) to acquire foreign intelligence information. These certifications are accompanied by targeting procedures, minimization procedures, and querying procedures that are each designed to ensure that the Government’s collection is appropriately targeted against non-United States persons located overseas who may possess or are likely to communicate foreign intelligence information and that any such collection is appropriately handled in a manner that protects privacy and civil liberties.

Under Section 702, the FISC reviews the certifications and accompanying documents to ensure that they meet all the requirements of Section 702 and are consistent with the Fourth Amendment. The Court’s review is not limited to the procedures as written, but also includes an examination of how the procedures have been and will be implemented. Accordingly, as part of its review, the FISC considers the compliance incidents reported to it by the Government through notices and reports.

Additional Information about FISA Section 702 and how the Intelligence Community uses its surveillance authorities may be found in the FISA Resource Library.

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ODNI Releases Intelligence Community Procedures Implementing New Safeguards in Executive Order 14086

  July 3, 2023 - The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), in coordination with elements of the Intelligence Community (IC), today releases the IC elements’ policies and procedures to implement the privacy and civil liberties safeguards specified in Executive Order 14086 “Enhancing Safeguards for United States Signals Intelligence Activities” (October 7, 2022).

When the President signed Executive Order (EO) 14086, the White House released a statement that the EO “direct[s] the steps that the United States will take to implement the U.S. commitments under the European Union-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (EU-U.S. DPF).” The statement continued that the EO “bolsters an already rigorous array of privacy and civil liberties safeguards for U.S. signals intelligence activities.” EO 14086 added further safeguards for U.S. signals intelligence activities, including that such activities: “take into consideration the privacy and civil liberties of all persons, regardless of nationality or country of residence” and “be conducted only when necessary to advance a validated intelligence priority and only to the extent and in a manner proportionate to that priority.” The Order mandates handling requirements and extends compliance and oversight responsibilities.

The IC elements’ procedures released today further implement the EO’s requirements, and thereby the United States’ commitments under the EU-U.S. DPF. As required by the EO, each IC element developed its procedures in consultation with the Attorney General, the ODNI Civil Liberties Protection Officer (CLPO), and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board. In implementing the EO’s safeguards, each set of procedures is tailored to the authorities, missions, and responsibilities of the IC elements.

IC Elements’ EO 14086 Procedures

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Procedures

Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Office of National Security Intelligence (ONSI) Procedures

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Procedures

National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) Procedures

National Security Agency (NSA) Procedures

Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) Procedures

Department of Energy Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (IN) Procedures

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Intelligence and Analysis (IA) Procedures

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) United States Coast Guard (USCG) Procedures

Department of State Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) Procedures

Department of Treasury Office of Intelligence and Analysis (OIA) Procedures

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ODNI Releases 10th Annual Intelligence Community Transparency Report 

  April 28, 2023

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) today released the Annual Statistical Transparency Report Regarding the Intelligence Community’s (IC) Use of National Security Surveillance Authorities for Calendar Year 2022 (ASTR). The ASTR provides the public both statistics and contextual information regarding the scope of the government’s use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authorities, National Security Letters, and other national security authorities. The report also provides insights into the rigorous, multi-layered oversight framework that governs the IC and which is designed to protect the civil liberties and privacy of persons whose information is acquired pursuant to these national security authorities. The release of this report is consistent with the requirement in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as amended (codified in 50 U.S.C. § 1873(b)), and the IC’s commitment to the Principles of Intelligence Transparency.

This 10th anniversary edition of the ASTR includes a redesigned Executive Summary and has been updated to enhance readability and public understanding. For example, in response to feedback received on last year’s report regarding the first-time publication of FBI’s Section 702 U.S. person query statistics, these statistics are shown in this year’s ASTR using a new methodology that more closely aligns with how other agencies count such queries. Further, to enable meaningful comparison across years, FBI’s data is presented in a side-by-side format, showing statistics calculated under both the prior and new methodologies. Discussion of how the IC safeguards U.S. and other person information has also been added or updated.

This report, along with prior year ASTRs and additional public information on national security authorities are available on www.dni.gov, www.intel.gov, and IContheRecord.

Download: 2023 IC Annual Statistical Transparency Report

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ODNI Releases 24th Joint Assessment of Section 702 Compliance

  December 21, 2022

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), in consultation with the Department of Justice (DOJ), today released, in redacted form, the 24th Semiannual Assessment of Compliance with Procedures and Guidelines Issued Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“Joint Assessment”), submitted by the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).  This Joint Assessment covers the timeframe of 01 December 2019 through 31 May 2020.  The DNI released this semiannual assessment proactively, in keeping with the Principles of Intelligence Transparency for the Intelligence Community. 

About the Joint Assessments

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act of 2008 requires the Attorney General and the DNI to assess compliance with Section 702 procedures over each six-month period and to submit their assessments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) and relevant congressional committees, which they do in the Joint Assessments.  A joint team of experts from DOJ and ODNI (the “joint oversight team") conduct these assessments, evaluating how the agencies responsible for implementing Section 702 (National Security Agency [NSA], Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], Central Intelligence Agency [CIA], and National Counterterrorism Center [NCTC]) implement their authority under Section 702.

The Joint Assessments describe the extensive measures the U.S. Government undertakes to:

Ensure compliance with FISC-approved targeting, minimization, and query procedures for Section 702;

Accurately identify, record, and correct errors;

Take responsive actions to remove any erroneously obtained data; and

Mitigate the chances that mistakes will recur.

The Joint Assessments provide an overall compliance incident rate that includes all categories of incidents from all of the agencies responsible for implementing Section 702.  However, the overall compliance incident rate is an imperfect proxy insofar as the rate compares the total number of compliance incidents (regardless of their cause) to the average number of tasked facilities (which may be unrelated to the number of certain types of compliance incidents, such as the number of times the acquired data was disseminated or queried improperly).  The assessment, therefore, also provides additional metrics and detailed narratives to assess compliance.

Key Findings of the 24th Joint Assessment 

As detailed in the 24th Joint Assessment, the joint oversight team found that the agencies continued to implement the procedures in a manner that reflected a focused and concerted effort by Intelligence Community (IC) personnel to comply with the requirements of Section 702. Nevertheless, a continued focus is needed to address the underlying causes of the incidents that did occur, especially those incidents relating to improper queries. The joint oversight team assessed compliance trends, including compliance incident rates; evaluated the impact of the types of incidents that occurred; and considered the agencies' preventive and remedial compliance actions.

The overall compliance incident rate considers all identified errors (for targeting, minimization, and querying) of all the agencies implementing Section 702. For this reporting period, the overall compliance incident rate was 0.46 percent, a significant decrease from the immediately preceding period (20.28 percent). However, almost half of this reporting period occurred during the initial phase of the coronavirus pandemic. While many reviews were conducted remotely, in the March to May period covered by this report, some onsite reviews at NSA, CIA, NCTC, and FBI were postponed or suspended. During this reporting period, the query error rate for FBI was 0.82 percent, a significant decrease from the prior reporting period (36.59 percent). NSA’s compliance incident rate for targeting decisions was 0.10 percent for this reporting period compared to 0.14 percent for the prior period. The team is not able to determine the extent to which a decrease in the total number of identified compliance incidents reflects a decrease of incidents that occurred during the part of the reporting period that was impacted by the coronavirus pandemic or whether it was due to difficulties discovering and reporting compliance incidents as a result of the team’s inability to consistently conduct onsite reviews during that portion of the reporting period.

Additional Information

ODNI previously released several joint assessments, which are available on IC on the Record and Intel.gov.

24th Joint Assessment (dated December 2021): reporting period 01 December 2019 through 31 May 2020

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  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ODNI News Release No. 21-22

December 14, 2022

  Issuance of Intelligence Community Directive 126: Implementation Procedures for the Signals Intelligence Redress Mechanism under Executive Order 14086

  Today, ODNI released to the public Intelligence Community Directive 126: Implementation Procedures for the Signals Intelligence Redress Mechanism under Executive Order 14086. This Directive governs the handling of redress complaints regarding certain signals intelligence activities, as required by Sections 3(b) and 3(c)(i) of Executive Order 14086. It specifies the process by which qualifying complaints may be transmitted by an appropriate public authority in a qualifying state pursuant to Executive Order 14086. Additionally, and pursuant to the same Executive Order, this Directive authorizes and sets forth the process through which the ODNI Civil Liberties Protection Officer shall investigate, review, and, as necessary, order appropriate remediation for a covered violation regarding qualifying complaints; communicate the conclusion of such investigation to the complainant through the appropriate public authority in a qualifying state and in a manner that protects classified or otherwise privileged or protected information; and provide necessary support to the U.S. Data Protection Review Court. Additional information may be found at www.dni.gov/clpt.

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ODNI Releases All Remaining FISA Decisions Determined to Contain Significant Construction of Law

  August 12, 2022

Today, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), in consultation with the Department of Justice (DOJ), is releasing appropriately redacted versions of all remaining historical opinions and orders of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISC-R) that have been previously determined to contain significant constructions of law.

Over the last nine years, the Intelligence Community and DOJ have worked together to release to the public significant opinions of the FISC and FISC-R. These efforts resulted in the public release of dozens of court opinions and orders and thousands of pages of released materials, all of which are available on Intel.gov and IContheRecord. In 2015, Congress enacted the USA FREEDOM Act, which requires the Director of National Intelligence to continue to conduct a declassification review of new opinions or orders of the FISC and FISC-R that contain “a significant construction or interpretation of any provision of law,” and “make publicly available to the greatest extent practicable” such opinions or orders (50 U.S.C. § 1872(a)).

In addition to fully complying with this law, ODNI has responded to Freedom of Information Act requests and conducted additional proactive disclosures with respect to FISC and FISC-R opinions that predate the 2015 USA FREEDOM Act. These efforts focused on opinions and orders issued since 2003 that DOJ identified as containing a significant interpretation of law and had also already been provided in classified form to Congress, pursuant to 50 U.S.C. § 1871. As a result, by January 2018, ODNI had released to the public redacted versions of all but seven of these significant opinions or orders. See, for example, releases here and here.

Following an interagency review, and consistent with the Principles of Intelligence Transparency, ODNI determined that redacted versions of all seven remaining opinions and orders could be released. The seven opinions or orders are as follows:

Document 1—FISC Title I Primary Order This FISC order approved a new, classified foreign intelligence surveillance technique targeting a foreign power.

Document 2—FISA Title I FISC Supplemental Order In this order, the FISC required the DOJ to provide a supplemental briefing clarifying the Government’s interpretation of which portion of the multi-part definition of “electronic surveillance” the Government assessed applied to a classified surveillance technique.

Document 3—FISA Title I FISC Memorandum Opinion and Order In this opinion and order, the FISC approved a modification to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) standard minimization procedures to permit the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) to access an FBI system that contained FISA information in a manner consistent with NCTC’s own minimization procedures. Unlike the other documents in this release which had been previously withheld due to national security concerns, this opinion was not previously released due to an administrative error.

Document—4 FISA Title I FISC Primary Order and Document 5—FISA Title I FISC Amendment to Primary Order These are two orders associated with a FISC opinion previously released on 22 August 2018. Although previously provided to Congress with that opinion, the FISC’s significant construction of law was made in the previously released opinion, not these orders.

Document 6—FISA Title V FISC Supplemental Opinion In this supplemental opinion, the FISC determined that International Mobile Equipment Identifier numbers and International Mobile Subscriber Identifier numbers could be utilized to initiate contact chaining in a previous intelligence program involving the collection of call detail records. This collection program was terminated after the passage of the USA FREEDOM Act.

Document 7—FISA Title V FISC Order This FISC order approved the ongoing collection of certain business records to protect against international terrorism.

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ODNI Releases 23rd Joint Assessment of Section 702 Compliance

 July 18, 2022

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), in consultation with the Department of Justice (DoJ), today released, in redacted form, the 23rd Semiannual Assessment of Compliance with Procedures and Guidelines Issued Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“Joint Assessment”), submitted by the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).  This Joint Assessment covers the timeframe of 01 June 2019 through 30 November 2019.  The DNI released this semiannual assessment proactively, in keeping with the Principles of Intelligence Transparency for the Intelligence Community. 

About the Joint Assessments

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act of 2008 requires the Attorney General and the DNI to assess compliance with Section 702 procedures over each six-month period and to submit their assessments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) and relevant congressional committees, which they do in the Joint Assessments.  A joint team of experts from DoJ and ODNI (the “joint oversight team") conduct these assessments, evaluating how the agencies responsible for implementing Section 702 (National Security Agency [NSA], Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], Central Intelligence Agency, and National Counterterrorism Center) implement their authority under Section 702.

The Joint Assessments describe the extensive measures the U.S. Government undertakes to:

Ensure compliance with FISC-approved targeting, minimization, and query procedures for Section 702;

Accurately identify, record, and correct errors;

Take responsive actions to remove any erroneously obtained data; and

Mitigate the chances that mistakes will recur.

The Joint Assessments provide an overall compliance incident rate that includes all categories of incidents from all of the agencies responsible for implementing Section 702.  However, the overall compliance incident rate is an imperfect proxy insofar as the rate compares the total number of compliance incidents (regardless of their cause) to the average number of tasked facilities (which may be unrelated to the number of certain types of compliance incidents, such as the number of times the acquired data was disseminated or queried improperly).  The assessment, therefore, also provides additional metrics and detailed narratives to assess compliance.

Key Findings of the 23rd Joint Assessment

As detailed in the 23rd Joint Assessment, the joint oversight team found that the agencies continued to implement the procedures in a manner that reflected a focused and concerted effort by Intelligence Community (IC) personnel to comply with the requirements of Section 702.  The team assessed compliance trends, including compliance incident rates; evaluated the impact of the types of incidents that occurred; and considered the agencies’ preventive and remedial compliance actions.

For this reporting period, the overall compliance incident rate was 20.28 percent, a significant increase from the immediately preceding period (6.91 percent) while still remaining below a 2018 high of 33.54 percent.  While the overall compliance incident rate considers all identified errors (for targeting, minimization, and querying) of all the agencies implementing Section 702, the vast majority of compliance incidents during this period continued to be related to a single type of FBI query error.  The number of these FBI query errors increased significantly from the previous reporting period, accounting for a substantial number of compliance incidents.  Specifically, for this reporting period, the FBI query error rate was 36.59 percent, an increase from the prior two reporting periods (13.71 in the 22nd Joint Assessment and 23.94 percent in the 21st Joint Assessment).  These incidents, as well as FBI’s subsequent remedial measures, are discussed in greater detail later in this assessment.  To provide insight on targeting compliance, the assessment also included NSA’s compliance incident rate for targeting decisions, which was 0.14 percent for this reporting period (compared to 0.15 percent for the prior period).

The FISC discussed certain instances of the FBI’s noncompliant queries in its 2018, 2019, and 2020 Section 702 opinions.  In the 2018 opinion, the FISC found that the FBI’s querying procedures were not consistent with Section 702 or the Fourth Amendment in part because they did not require adequate documentation of justifications for U.S. person queries.  In response to the Court’s opinions, the FBI made system modifications necessary to meet query recordkeeping and documentation requirements and provided training on these new modifications.  The previously released December 2019 and November 2020 FISC opinions discussed those measures.  While the 23rd Joint Assessment also discussed those measures, as well as additional remedial measures that the FBI implemented in 2021, the reporting period covered (and thus the incidents discussed) in the 23rd Joint Assessment occurred before the FBI implemented those measures.

Additional Information

ODNI previously released several joint assessments, which are available on IC on the Record and Intel.gov.

23rd Joint Assessment- Dated September 2021: Reporting Period 01 June 2019 – 30 November 2019

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ODNI Releases Annual Intelligence Community Transparency Report

April 29, 2022

Today, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released the Annual Statistical Transparency Report (ASTR) regarding the Intelligence Community’s (IC) use of National Security Surveillance Authorities for 2021. The release of the report is consistent with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA), as amended (codified in 50 U.S.C. 1876(b)), and the IC’s Principles of Intelligence Transparency.

Published every year since 2014, the report provides statistics and context regarding the government’s use of FISA authorities, National Security Letters, and other national security authorities. The report also offers insight into the rigorous oversight framework that spans all three branches of government and safeguards the privacy and civil liberties of individuals whose information is acquired in accordance with national security authorities.

“We’re committed to proactively informing the public, who entrusts us to protect our nation and our civil liberties, on the Intelligence Community’s use of key national security authorities,” said Ben Huebner, Chief, ODNI Office of Civil Liberties, Privacy, and Transparency. “In fact, this report exceeds statutory requirements and provides additional facts and context to enhance public understanding of our mission and how we accomplish it.”

For additional information on national security authorities, visit www.dni.gov , www.intel.gov, and IContheRecord.tumblr.com .

Download: 2022 IC Annual Statistical Transparency Report

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ODNI Releases 22nd Joint Assessment of Section 702 Compliance

March 14, 2022

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), in consultation with the Department of Justice (DoJ), today released, in redacted form, the 22nd Semiannual Assessment of Compliance with Procedures and Guidelines Issued Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, submitted by the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) (“Joint Assessment”). This Joint Assessment covers the timeframe of 01 December 2018 through 31 May 2019. The DNI released this semiannual assessment proactively, in keeping with the Principles of Intelligence Transparency for the Intelligence Community.

About the Assessments

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments of 2008 requires the Attorney General and the DNI to assess compliance with Section 702 procedures over each six-month period and to submit their assessments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) and relevant congressional committees, which they do in the Joint Assessments. A joint team of experts (the joint oversight team) from DoJ and ODNI conduct these assessments evaluating how the agencies responsible for implementing Section 702 (National Security Agency [NSA], Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], Central Intelligence Agency, and National Counterterrorism Center) implement their authority under Section 702.

The Joint Assessments describe the extensive measures the U.S. Government undertakes to:

Ensure compliance with FISC-approved targeting, minimization, and query procedures for Section 702;

Accurately identify, record, and correct errors;

Take responsive actions to remove any erroneously obtained data; and

Mitigate the chances that mistakes will recur.

The Joint Assessments provide an overall compliance incident rate that includes all categories of incidents from all of the agencies responsible for implementing Section 702. However, the overall compliance incident rate is an imperfect proxy insofar as the rate compares the total number of compliance incidents (regardless of their cause) to the average number of tasked facilities (which may be unrelated to the number of certain types of compliance incidents, such as the number of times the acquired data was disseminated or queried improperly). The assessment, therefore, also provides additional metrics and detailed narratives to assess compliance.

Key Findings of the 22nd Joint Assessment

As detailed in the 22nd Joint Assessment, the joint oversight team found that the agencies continued to implement the procedures in a manner that reflected a focused and concerted effort by Intelligence Community (IC) personnel to comply with the requirements of Section 702. The team assessed compliance trends, including compliance incident rates; evaluated the impact of the types of incidents that occurred; and considered the agencies’ preventative and remedial compliance actions.

For this reporting period, the overall compliance incident rate was 6.91 percent, a significant decrease from the prior period (33.54 percent). While the overall compliance incident rate considers all identified errors (for targeting, minimization, and querying) of all the agencies implementing Section 702, the vast majority of compliance incidents were related to a single type of FBI query error. Although the number of these FBI query errors decreased significantly from the previous reporting period, they continued to account for a substantial number of compliance incidents. Specifically, for this reporting period, the FBI query error rate was 13.71 percent, a decrease from the prior period (23.94 percent). To provide insight on targeting compliance, the assessment also included NSA’s compliance incident rate for targeting decisions which was 0.15 percent for this reporting period (compared to 0.20 percent for the prior period).

The FISC discussed certain instances of the FBI’s noncompliant queries in its 2018, 2019, and 2020 Section 702 opinions. In the 2018 opinion, the FISC found that the FBI’s querying procedures were not consistent with Section 702 or the Fourth Amendment in part because they did not require adequate documentation of justifications for U.S. person queries. In response to the Court’s opinions, the FBI made system modifications necessary to meet query recordkeeping and documentation requirements and provided training on these new modifications. The previously released December 2019 and November 2020 FISC opinions discussed those measures. While the 22nd Joint Assessment also discussed those measures, as well as additional remedial measures that the FBI implemented in 2021, the reporting period covered (and hence the incidents discussed) in the 22nd Joint Assessment occurred before the FBI implemented those measures.

Additional Information

The ODNI has previously released a number of prior joint assessments, which may be found on IC on the Record and Intel.gov.

Below is today’s release, in redacted form:

22nd Joint Assessment (dated August 2021): reporting period December 1, 2018 - May 31, 2019

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Release of the 21st Joint Assessment of Section 702 Compliance

August 10, 2021

Today, the DNI, in consultation with the Department of Justice, is releasing in redacted form the 21st Semiannual Assessment of Compliance with Procedures and Guidelines Issued Pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Submitted by the then Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence (“Joint Assessment”). This Joint Assessment covers the timeframe of June 1, 2018, through November 30, 2018. The DNI is releasing this semiannual assessment proactively, in keeping with the Principles of Intelligence Transparency for the Intelligence Community.

The FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which was in effect during the reporting period for this 21st Joint Assessment, required the Attorney General and the DNI to assess compliance with Section 702 procedures over each six-month period and to submit such assessments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) and relevant congressional committees. A joint team of experts (the Joint Oversight Team) from DOJ and ODNI conduct these assessments.

The Joint Assessments describe the measures the Government undertakes to ensure compliance with FISC-approved targeting, minimization, and querying procedures for Section 702; to accurately identify, record and correct errors; to take responsive actions to remove any erroneously obtained data; and to minimize the chances that mistakes will recur. As was the case in past Joint Assessments, the Joint Oversight Team found in the 21st Joint Assessment that the agencies continued to implement the procedures in a manner that reflected a focused and concerted effort by Intelligence Community (IC) personnel to comply with the requirements of Section 702.

As with prior semiannual assessments, this assessment provides an overall compliance incident rate that includes all categories of incidents from all of the agencies responsible for implementing Section 702. However, as previously explained, the overall compliance incident rate remains an imperfect proxy insofar as the rate compares the total number of compliance incidents (regardless of their cause) to the average number of tasked facilities (which may be unrelated to the number of certain types of compliance incidents, such as the number of times the acquired data was disseminated or queried improperly).

The imperfections of this rate are particularly evident in this reporting period’s rate of 33.54%, which was significantly impacted by a single type of incident (batch queries), and in particular one incident conducted by a single individual. When these improper queries are excluded from the compliance incident rate, the overall rate is generally consistent with the rates reported in previous periods.  To better promote oversight and inform the public’s understanding of compliance trends and their potential to affect privacy and civil liberties, this assessment therefore also includes narrative descriptions of the types of compliance incidents that occurred and provides an additional metric that is specific to the compliance incident rate for NSA targeting decisions, which was 0.20% [1] for this reporting period.

For this joint assessment, FBI’s query compliance incident rate was largely the consequence of a single batch query that did not meet the appropriate standard and included more than 100,000 queries, each of which constituted a separate incident. That batch query resulted in about 97% of the total IC-wide compliance incidents identified by NSD’s sampling and oversight. It is worth noting that none of those queries actually returned any Section 702 collection. A second incident involving another batch query resulted in just under 2,000 improper queries. Together, the two incidents made up almost 99% of the IC’s compliance incidents and resulted in the significant increase in the overall compliance incident rate, as noted above.

The period covered by this 21st Joint Assessment, during which these incidents occurred, preceded the FBI’s implementation of remedial actions taken within the past few years to enhance compliance with the applicable query standard. In its 2018, 2019, and 2020 Section 702 opinions addressing the Government’s annual certification of its Section 702 program, the FISC discussed certain FBI query compliance incidents. In its 2018 Section 702 opinion addressing the Government’s annual certification of its Section 702 program, which followed the period covered by this 21st Joint Assessment, the FISC found that the FBI’s querying procedures were not consistent with Section 702 or the Fourth Amendment in part because they did not require adequate documentation of justifications for U.S. person queries. In response to the Court’s opinion, as well as opinions in 2019 and 2020, the FBI made system modifications necessary to meet query recordkeeping and documentation requirements and provided training on these new modifications. The previously released December 2019 and November 2020 FISC opinions discuss the measures FBI has taken to address the query compliance issues.

ODNI has previously released a number of prior joint assessments, which may be found on IC on the Record and Intel.gov.

Below is today’s release, in redacted form:

21st Joint Assessment (dated March 2021): reporting period June 1, 2018-November 30, 2018

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Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena

June 25, 2021

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence submitted to Congress a preliminary report regarding Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) that relays the progress the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force has made in understanding UAP.

Download the report

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ODNI Releases Annual Intelligence Community Transparency Report  

April 30, 2021

Today, consistent with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA), as amended (codified in 50 U.S.C. § 1873(b)), and the Intelligence Community’s (IC) Principles of Intelligence Transparency , ODNI is releasing the eighth annual Statistical Transparency Report Regarding Use of National Security Surveillance Authorities.

This report provides the public not only statistics, but also contextual information, regarding the scope of the government’s use of FISA authorities, National Security Letters, and other national security authorities.  In conjunction with other publicly released material, this report adds insight into the rigorous and multi-layered oversight framework governing the IC that safeguards the privacy and civil liberties of United States (U.S.) person and non-U.S. person information acquired pursuant to these national security authorities.

“We are pleased to publish ODNI’s eighth annual statistical transparency report,” said Ben Huebner, Chief, ODNI Office of Civil Liberties, Privacy, and Transparency. “The Intelligence Community remains committed to providing the public with information regarding how important national security authorities are used in practice.  The information in today’s report will help foster continued public dialogue regarding how the Intelligence Community protects national security, our privacy, and our liberty.”

Additional public information on national security authorities is available at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI) website, www.dni.gov and the Intelligence Community’s public website, www.intel.gov.