information security oversight process foia

#Information security oversight process foia full

Internally, a wide range of NSA offices currently exercise oversight authority, including the Office of the Inspector General, the Office of the General Counsel, the Office of the Director of Compliance, the Office of Civil Liberties and Privacy, and compliance offices embedded within NSA's mission elements. NSA accounts for all identified errors and violations, no matter how slight, in its oversight reporting process. Reports generated as a result of this process are subject to further constraints on access and handling. This process is referred to as 'minimization.' Without appropriate minimization, NSA intelligence reporting generally cannot be distributed to other agencies-'disseminated,' in intelligence parlance-even if the other agency requires the information. person information, unless specific exceptions apply. After foreign intelligence or counterintelligence information is acquired, it must be analyzed to remove or mask certain protected categories of information, including U.S. At the targeting stage, NSA collects only those communications that it is authorized by law to collect in response to valid foreign intelligence and counterintelligence requirements.

#Information security oversight process foia full

These protections apply across the full spectrum of the signals intelligence process.

The released reports demonstrate that NSA has multi-layered protections in place for signals intelligence information. Data incorrectly acquired is almost always deleted, referred to as the 'purge' process. Nevertheless, as the IOB reports make clear, NSA takes even unintentional errors seriously and institutes corrective action, typically involving at a minimum a combination of training and technical measures designed to prevent recurrences. As conveyed in the released materials, an array of technical and human-based checks attempt to identify and correct errors, some amount of which occur naturally in any large, complex system. NSA goes to great lengths to ensure compliance with the Constitution, laws and regulations. Grassley on September 11, 2013, discussed 12 instances of intentional misuse that occurred between Januand September 11, 2013). In the very few cases that involve the intentional misuse of a signals intelligence system, a thorough investigation is completed, the results are reported to the IOB and the Department of Justice as required, and appropriate disciplinary or administrative action is taken (a publicly available letter from NSA's Inspector General to Senator Charles E. The vast majority of compliance incidents involve unintentional technical or human error. In general, each NSA report contains similar categories of information, including an overview of recent oversight activities conducted by NSA's Office of the Inspector General and the Office of the General Counsel signals intelligence activities affecting certain protected categories and descriptions of specific incidents which may have been unlawful or contrary to applicable policies. These reports are also provided to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The materials also include four annual reports (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010) which are consolidations of the relevant quarterly reports.Įxecutive Order 12333, as amended, requires Intelligence Community elements to report to the IOB, in a manner consistent with Executive Order 13462, as amended, intelligence activities they have reason to believe may be unlawful or contrary to Executive Order or Presidential Directive. The release includes quarterly reports submitted from the fourth quarter of 2001 to the second quarter of 2013. Following a classification review, the National Security Agency (NSA) is releasing in redacted form NSA reports to the President's Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB).