Annual Transparency Report released by the US Intelligence

In April 2017, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released its fourth annual Statistical Transparency Report Regarding Use of National Security Authorities for calendar year 2016.

The annual Transparency Report provides information (in form of statistics) about how often the US government uses certain national security authorities for surveillance activities. Further, it explains under which legal basis a surveillance has to be performed and names national security authorities (besides the FISA authorities) that are involved, such as the CIA, FBI or the NSA.

It is shown that based on the applied surveillance activity and the purpose of the investigation, U.S.-persons as well as non-U.S.-persons can be targets. Furthermore, it is described which legal prerequisites have to be fulfilled when investigating a target.

For example, the Transparency Report provides information about the number of issued National Security Letters (NSLs) by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The number of NSLs slightly decreased compared to last year. However the number of issued NSLs does not contain the number of individuals or organisations that are the subjects of the NSLs.

During an investigation, personal data may be collected for example telephone numbers or email addresses.