Counterintelligence Surveillance Under FISA Grew in 2011
In 2011, the US Government submitted 1,745 applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for authorization to conduct electronic surveillance or physical searches under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), according to a new annual report to Congress. Of these, 1,676 included requests for authority for perform electronic surveillance, the report said.
That compares to 1,579 such applications in 2010 (including 1,511 for electronic surveillance).
As is usually the case, the FIS Court did not deny any electronic surveillance applications in whole or in part last year, though it made modifications to 30 of them.
The new report says that the government filed 205 applications for business records (including “tangible things”) for foreign intelligence purposes last year, compared to 96 in the previous year.
But the number of “national security letters” (a type of administrative subpoena) declined last year. In 2011, the FBI requested 16,511 national security letters pertaining to 7,201 U.S. persons, the new report said, compared to the 2010 total of 24,287 letter requests concerning 14,212 U.S. persons.
We came out of the longest shutdown in history and we are all worse for it. Who won the shutdown fight? It doesn’t matter – Americans lost. And there is a chance we run it all back again in a few short months.
Promising examples of progress are emerging from the Boston metropolitan area that show the power of partnership between researchers, government officials, practitioners, and community-based organizations.
Americans trade stocks instantly, but spend 13 hours on tax forms. They send cash by text, but wait weeks for IRS responses. The nation’s revenue collector ranks dead last in citizen satisfaction. The problem isn’t just paperwork — it’s how the government builds.
In a new report, we begin to address these fundamental implementation questions based on discussions with over 80 individuals – from senior political staff to individual project managers – involved in the execution of major clean energy programs through the Department of Energy (DOE).