By Cliff Montgomery – Aug. 20th, 2014
The National Security Agency (NSA) must prepare unclassified studies on “all NSA bulk collection activities,” declared the Senate Appropriations Committee in its Defense Department Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year (FY) 2015.
The Senate panel informed the Agency that it must put together a report which describes “all NSA bulk collection activities, including when such activities began, the cost of such activities, what types of records have been collected in the past, what types of records are currently being collected, and any plans for future bulk collection.”
A second study will force the NSA to state just how many phone records it has reviewed over the last five years via its telephone meta-data program, and a third must provide “a list of terrorist activities that were disrupted, in whole or in part, with the aid of information obtained through NSA’s telephone meta-data program and whether this information could have been promptly obtained by other means.”
The required NSA studies must be “unclassified to the greatest extent possible,” added the Senate panel.
But perhaps American citizens shouldn’t get too excited over these developments. Last year, the Senate Committee’s FY 2014 Defense Appropriations bill placed identical demands on the NSA to produce such reports those demands were flatly ignored.
The Senate Appropriations bill for FY 2015 was released last month. Perhaps predictably, the section of the bill which insisted on the NSA reports was buried in the legislation. But The American Spark is providing its readers with the full section demanding the studies from the NSA, below:
“The Committee directs the National Security Agency [NSA] to provide to the congressional intelligence committees, and the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, and the House Committee on the Judiciary, no later than 90 days after enactment of this act:–A report, unclassified to the greatest extent possible, setting forth:For the last 5 years, on an annual basis, the number of records acquired by NSA as part of the bulk telephone meta-data program authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, pursuant to section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, and the number of such records that have been reviewed by NSA personnel in response to a query of such records andTo the extent possible, an estimate of the number of records of United States persons that have been acquired by NSA as part of the bulk telephone meta-data program and the number of such records that have been reviewed by NSA personnel in response to a query.–A report, unclassified to the greatest extent possible, and with a classified annex if necessary, describing all NSA bulk collection activities, including when such activities began, the cost of such activities, what types of records have been collected in the past, what types of records are currently being collected, and any plans for future bulk collection.–A report, unclassified to the greatest extent possible, and with a classified annex if necessary, including a list of terrorist activities that were disrupted, in whole or in part, with the aid of information obtained through NSA’s telephone meta-data program and whether this information could have been promptly obtained by other means.”
