§1813 Procedures for the retention of incidentally acquired communications

Summary

Require each head of an intelligence agency (or the department head that runs it) to write procedures, worked out with the Director of National Intelligence and approved by the Attorney General, no later than 2 years after December 19, 2014. The rules must cover cases where intelligence collection that is not done under a court order, subpoena, or similar legal process is likely to pick up a private phone or electronic message from or to a United States person. The rules must allow collecting, keeping, and sharing those messages while following the limits below. Covered communication: a nonpublic phone or electronic message taken without a party’s consent, including stored electronic messages. Head of an element of the intelligence community: the agency head or the department head that contains it. United States person: the legal definition in section 1801. A message may not be kept more than 5 years unless one of seven exceptions applies: it is found to be or needed for foreign intelligence; it looks like evidence of a crime and law enforcement keeps it; it is encrypted or likely has a secret meaning; all parties are believed to be non‑U.S. persons; keeping it is needed to stop an imminent threat to life (in which case the threat and the kept information must be reported to the congressional intelligence committees within 30 days); it is kept for technical assurance or legal compliance (access to such data must be reported yearly to those committees); or the agency head approves a longer retention for national security and gives the congressional intelligence committees a written certification saying why, for how long, what will be kept, and what privacy protections will be used.