On November 28, 2015, the collection of bulk telephony metadata authorized under Section 215 ended. Shortly thereafter, the Government implemented a new process authorized by the USA FREEDOM Act to acquire selected telephony metadata. Although the government is no longer accessing bulk metadata produced by telecommunications providers under the Section 215 program for analytic purposes, continued retention of this data is necessary to comply with preservation obligations in civil litigation challenging the program, including court orders entered in two of those cases. Today, we are releasing minimization procedures applicable to the government’s retention of the bulk metadata produced as part of the Section 215 program. These minimization procedures were approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) in an Opinion and Order issued on November 24, 2015, which was previously released by the FISC.
As mandated by the FISC’s Order and the approved minimization procedures, no access to the bulk metadata has been permitted for intelligence analysis purposes since November 28, 2015. Retention of and access to the bulk metadata has been permitted after termination of the bulk program for only two limited purposes. First, in order to comply with its legal obligations to preserve records in certain pending civil litigation, the government is permitted to retain bulk metadata until the government’s preservation obligations are lifted, and appropriately trained and authorized NSA technical personnel are permitted to access this data to ensure continued compliance with the government’s preservation obligations. Second, appropriately trained and authorized NSA technical personnel were permitted to access the bulk metadata during a technical access period, which ended on February 29, 2016, for the sole purpose of verifying the completeness and accuracy of call detail records produced under the new selected telephony metadata process.
Once the government’s preservation obligations are lifted, the government is required to promptly destroy all bulk metadata produced by telecommunications providers under the Section 215 program. The government is also required to destroy the results of queries of that metadata, subject only to narrow exceptions set forth in the FISC’s Order and the approved minimization procedures that permit the government to retain: (1) information derived from the bulk metadata that has been previously disseminated in accordance with court-approved minimization procedures (e.g., intelligence reporting on terror threats); (2) the results of queries of the bulk metadata that form the basis of such disseminations; and (3) summary reports prepared by NSA technical personnel from data obtained during the technical access period for the purpose of verifying the completeness and accuracy of call detail records produced under the new selected telephony metadata process.
Please see ODNI’s November 27, 2015 Official Statement and Fact Sheet for more information concerning the termination of the bulk telephony metadata program and the transition to the selected telephony metadata process authorized by the USA FREEDOM Act.