Continued Oversight of U.S. Government Surveillance Authorities
Senate Judiciary Committee
December 11, 2013
Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 226, 2:00 p.m.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Grassley, members of the subcommittee.
We do appreciate the opportunity to appear today to continue our discussions about the intelligence activities that are conducted pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
It’s critical to assume that the public dialogue on this topic in grounded in fact rather than in misconceptions. And we, therefore, understand the importance of helping the public understand how the intelligence community actually uses the legal authorities provided by Congress to gather foreign intelligence and the extent to which there is vigorous oversight of those activities to ensure that they comply with the law.
As you know, the president directed the intelligence community to make as much information as possible available about certain intelligence programs that were the subject of unauthorized disclosure consistent with protecting national security and sensitive sources and methods.
Since that time, the Director of National Intelligence has declassified and released thousands of pages of documents about these programs, including court orders, and a variety of other documents. We’re continuing to do so.
These documents demonstrate both that the programs were authorized by law, and that they were subject to vigorous oversight, as General Alexander said, by all three branches of government.
It’s important to emphasize that this information was properly classified. It’s been declassified only because in the present circumstances, the public interest in declassification outweighs the national security concerns that originally prompted classification.
In addition to declassifying documents, we’ve taken significant steps to allow the public to understand the extent to which we use the authorities in FISA going forward. Specifically, as we described in more detail in the written statement that we submitted for the record, the government will release on an annual basis the total number of orders issued under various FISA authorities, and the total number of targets affected by those orders.
Moreover, we recognize that it’s important for companies to be able to reassure their customers about how often, or more precisely, how rarely, the companies provide information to the government. And so we’ve agreed to allow the companies to report the total number of law enforcement and national security legal demands they receive each year, and the number of accounts affected by those orders.
We believe that these steps strike the proper balance between providing the public relevant information about the use of these legal authorities, while at the same time, protecting important collection capabilities.
A number of bills that have been introduced in Congress, including the USA Freedom Act, which you’ve sponsored, Mr. Chairman, contain provisions that would require or authorize additional disclosures. We share the goals that these laws and bills provide, providing the public with greater insight into the government’s use of FISA authorities.
However, we are concerned that some of the specific proposals raise significant practical or operational concerns. In particular, we need to make sure that any disclosures are operationally feasible with a reasonable degree of effort, and that they would provide meaningful information to the public.
We also need to make sure that the disclosures do not compromise significant intelligence collection capabilities by providing our adversaries information that they can use to avoid surveillance.
But, Mr. Chairman, I do want to emphasize our commitment to work with this committee and others to ensure the maximum possible transparency about our intelligence activities, consistent with national security. We’re open to considering any proposals, so long as they are feasible and do not compromise our ability to collect the information we need to protect our nation and its allies.
And we’ve been in discussion with the staff of this committee and the Intelligence Committee on some proposals and some alternate means of trying to provide greater transparency while protecting our critical sources and methods. We look forward to continuing to work with you in this regard.
Thank you.