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, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released its sixth annual Statistical Transparency Report Regarding Use of National Security Authorities presenting statistics on how often the government uses certain national security authorities.
Providing these statistics allows for an additional way to track the use of FISA authorities and National Security Letters (NSLs). The statistics also add further context regarding the IC’s rigorous and multi-layered oversight framework that safeguards the privacy of United States persons’ information and non-U.S. persons’ information acquired pursuant to these national security authorities. This report goes beyond the government’s statutory duty of providing statistics by further providing the public with detailed explanations as to how the IC uses its national security authorities.
“We’re again pleased to publish our annual statistical transparency report – the 6th annual report,” said Alex Joel, who leads the ODNI’s Office of Civil Liberties, Privacy, and Transparency. “As with past reports, this report provides statistics and explanations on how we use key authorities. Because it is important to understand these statistics in a broader context, we strive to explain that context clearly, which is challenging given the complexities of the authorities and the classified nature of these topics. We continue to look for ways to improve understanding of these authorities. Besides the new format and navigation of this year’s report, we are also pleased to be able to release, for the first time, the number of unique identifiers used to communicate information collected pursuant to Call Detail Records (CDRs) orders obtained per Section 501(b)(2)(C).”
Additional public information on national security authorities is available at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI) website, www.dni.gov, the Intelligence Community’s public website, www.intel.gov, and ODNI’s public Tumblr site, IC on the Record at IContheRecord.tumblr.com.
