In carrying out their national security mission, Intelligence Community elements may, on occasion, incidentally acquire intelligence information concerning a Member of Congress or congressional staff such as when a surveillance target makes mention of a Member of Congress in a communication. As with all incidentally acquired information about Americans, this information is subject to stringent procedures, approved either by the FISA Court or by the Attorney General under E.O. 12333, which are designed to protect privacy of U.S. persons. In addition to these procedures, IC elements take further protective steps when Congressional Members or their staff are involved.
The process governing the sharing (i.e., dissemination) of congressional identity information was established by former Director of Central Intelligence Robert Gates (“Gates Procedures”) in a 1992 letter that memorialized commitments previously made to Congress. In January 2017, the Director of National Intelligence incorporated the Gates Procedures into the formal Intelligence Community policy framework as an annex to Intelligence Community Directive 112, Congressional Notifications.
The Gates Procedures provide that, unless a specific exception applies, prior approval must be obtained from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence if information identifying Members or their staff by name or by individually identifying titles or characteristics (congressional identity information) is included in intelligence reports being disseminated to Executive Branch entities outside of the requesting IC element. IC elements must submit these requests for approval to the ODNI on a case-by-case basis, and the requests must include, among other things, the officials to whom the element seeks to disseminate the congressional identifying information and the element’s reasons including the congressional identity information. The Gates Procedures also provide detailed rules for subsequent congressional notifications concerning any disseminations of congressional identity information.
Today, in the interest of transparency, we are publicly releasing the procedures, together with the historical documents that show the development of the procedures over time.
Intelligence Community Directive 112 | ICD 112 Annex (Gates Procedures)