§1873 Annual reports

Summary

Each year three agencies must send and post reports about certain surveillance orders and how they were used. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts must give Congress, after review by the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence, counts for applications and orders under sections 1805, 1824, 1842, 1861, 1881a, 1881b, and 1881c — including how many were granted, changed, or denied. That report must also list people appointed as amicus curiae by name, include any findings that such an appointment was not appropriate (but those findings must not be posted online), and describe uses of chapter 21 court authority. The report must be posted on the web each April and cover the previous calendar year. The Director of National Intelligence must post a public yearly report each April for the prior 12 months with totals and good-faith estimates for many types of orders. It must show numbers of orders, estimates of how many targets those orders reached, how many targets are known U.S. persons or known non-U.S. persons, counts of search terms and queries involving known U.S. persons, instances the FBI opened certain investigations because of those acquisitions, counts of unique identifiers, criminal-case notices, totals of national security letters and the number of requests inside them, and related items. If an estimate for certain items is fewer than 500, it must be reported as “fewer than 500.” If the DNI cannot get an accurate estimate from all parts of the intelligence community, the DNI must certify that to the same congressional committees, give the estimates it can, say when full estimates are expected, and post that certification (unclassified with a possible classified annex). The FBI Director must also report yearly to those committees about accountability for improper querying of data collected under section 1881a, including numbers of personnel investigations, their outcomes, and any punishments. The FBI must report yearly on U.S. person query counts and related query details (with public release after declassification review by the Attorney General and the DNI) and must begin quarterly reports of U.S. person query counts no later than 1 year after the effective date. Definitions (one line each): “Contents” — the substantive content of a communication; “Electronic communication” — a message sent electronically; “National security letter” — a government request for records under listed statutes; “United States person” — a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident; “Wire communication” — a transmitted electronic voice or similar signal.