WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), in consultation with the Department of Justice (DOJ), is publicly releasing the 29th 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) with redactions. This Joint Assessment covers the period of 1 June 2022 through 30 November 2022.
The information discussed in this Joint Assessment predates the reforms passed by Congress in the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA), which became law on 20 April 2024. As a result, none of the information or trends discussed in this assessment reflects implementation of the provisions of RISAA.
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 (NSD) and ODNI conduct regular assessments to review compliance and evaluate how agencies that receive unminimized Section 702 collection implement the authority.
NSD and ODNI submit their assessments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), relevant congressional committees, and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board through the Joint Assessments. The Joint Assessments describe how those agencies that receive unminimized information acquired under Section 702 -- the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), and National Security Agency (NSA) -- 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 29th Joint Assessment
During the 29th reporting period (1 June 2022 through 30 November 2022), DOJ and ODNI assessed that NSA, FBI, CIA, and NCTC continued to implement the Section 702 procedures and followed 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. DOJ and ODNI assessed that the overall compliance is a result of training, internal processes designed to identify and remediate potential compliance issues, and a continued focus by internal and external oversight personnel to ensure compliance with the applicable procedures.
NSD regularly reviews FBI's compliance with its query procedures. While the FBI query compliance incident rate has historically fluctuated between reporting periods, NSD and ODNI have identified FISA queries as a compliance challenge for FBI. Beginning in the summer of 2021 and continuing throughout 2022, NSD, ODNI, and FBI invested significant resources in long-term improvements to FBI query compliance. Beginning with the period covered by the 28th Joint Assessment and continuing with this 29th Joint Assessment, those efforts have yielded significant compliance benefits.
Report Redactions and Format
Consistent with Executive Order 13526, when developing the redacted copy of these joint assessments, ODNI consults with DOJ, NSA, CIA, NCTC, and FBI to identify what information must be redacted because disclosure would cause exceptionally grave or serious damage to national security. This review is also conducted to ensure that information is not redacted to conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error or to prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency. While certain sensitive facts must remain classified, ODNI and DOJ draft these reports with the intent of subsequent public release. Thus, when possible, classified information has been moved to footnotes; classified charts have corresponding unclassified charts with percentages; and unclassified summaries are provided before classified details. Importantly, the following types of information are unclassified and released: compliance incident rates; the categories of compliance incidents; trends and remediation efforts; and descriptions of incidents, including those affecting U.S. persons and FBI query incidents.
With respect to format, DOJ and ODNI significantly shortened this report from previous iterations for readability purposes, focusing on overall trends in agency compliance rather than specific compliance incidents.
FBI Remediation Efforts
For further information on the FBI's remediation efforts undertaken in coordination with NSD and ODNI, please review "Recent Efforts to Strengthen FISA Compliance" and "FBI Remedial Measures" publicly available on DOJ's website at: www.justice.gov/NSD/FISA and www.justice.gov/NSD/media/1344761.
For additional discussion of FBI compliance trends, please review the 2024 April and 2024 September FISC Opinions, which detail compliance incidents during recent certification periods, and assess the strength of the recent remedial measures FBI implemented to bolster compliance with its querying procedures.
For further information on the query reforms required by RISAA, which the FBI has implemented since 20 April 2024, the text of the law is available here: www.congress.gov/118/plaws/publ49/PLAW-118publ49.pdf
Additional Information
The 29th Joint Assessment is posted in full-text searchable format on Intel.gov.
This joint assessment, along with previous assessments and additional public information on national security authorities, is available on Intel.Gov/FISA.