§1873 Annual Reports

Summary

The Director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts must send a yearly report, after the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence review it for declassification, to the House and Senate intelligence and judiciary committees. The report must list counts for certain surveillance applications and orders (applications, grants, changes, and denials) under sections 1805, 1824, 1842, 1861, 1881a, 1881b, and 1881c; how many amicus curiae were appointed and their names; any findings that an amicus appointment was inappropriate and the text of those findings; and each time the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court or its review court used authority under chapter 21 of title 18, with a description. The Director must put the report on a public website, but may not post the findings about amicus appointments. The Director of National Intelligence must publish a public report each year for the prior 12-month period (made available during April) with totals and good-faith estimates for orders and targets under several parts of the law, including subchapters I, II, and III and sections 1881a, 1881b, 1881c, and specified parts of section 1861. The report covers totals and estimates of targets (known U.S. persons and known non-U.S. persons), numbers of search terms and queries involving known U.S. persons for certain kinds of acquisitions, the number of times the FBI opened non-national-security criminal investigations based on those acquisitions, counts of unique identifiers used, the number of criminal cases where the government gave notice about using such information, totals of national security letters and requests they contained, and related figures. If an estimate required by the law is fewer than 500, it must be reported only as “fewer than 500.” If the DNI cannot accurately produce a required estimate, the DNI must certify that in writing to the committees, report any partial estimates available, say when a full estimate is expected, and post that certification publicly (unclassified with a possible classified annex). The FBI Director must also send annual reports to the same committees about accountability for improper queries of data obtained under section 1881a (including investigations and personnel actions) and must report yearly and quarterly on counts of U.S. person queries, batch-query use, emergency unapproved batch jobs, and related query details. Simple definitions in the law cover the meanings of contents, electronic communication, national security letters (requests under certain statutes), United States person (citizen or lawful permanent resident), and wire communication.