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have also been other unique identifiers, such as an International Mobile Subscriber Identity
(“IMSI”) or International Mobile Equipment Identity (“IMEI”) number associated with a SIM
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card or phone, respectively. Additionally, the President limited query results to CDRs within
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two hops of the query target instead of the previous three. In other words, although NSA still
received the same CDRs from the same providers, NSA analysts could only retrieve the first two
hops.
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(U) The Board continued its oversight of the CDR program after releasing its report.
Initially, the Board concentrated on reviewing the government’s response to its
recommendations, which the Board summarized in its 2015 Recommendations Assessment
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Report. That report concluded that the government had not implemented the Board’s
recommendation to end the bulk collection of CDRs.

C. (U) The USA Freedom Act

(U) After hearings and debate, Congress enacted the USA Freedom Act on June 2, 2015.
The President signed it into law that day. The Act amended FISA’s provisions governing the
collection of business records, imposing new requirements on the government’s collection of and
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access to CDRs.

see also The White House, Fact Sheet: The Administration’s Proposal for Ending the Section 215 Bulk Telephony
Metadata Program (Mar. 27, 2014), https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/03/27/fact-sheet-
administration-s-proposal-ending-section-215-bulk-telephony-m.
29 (U) NSA briefing to the Board (Jan. 23, 2019). An IMSI is generally a fifteen digit number used to uniquely
identify users on a cellular network. The number is either associated directly with a phone or, more commonly, is
put on a small chip, known as a subscriber identification module (“SIM”) card, which is inserted into a cellular
phone or similar device. An IMEI is a unique number given to mobile phones; it is typically found behind the
battery.
30 (U) The White House, Remarks by the President on Review of Signals Intelligence (Jan. 17, 2014),
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/01/17/remarks-president-review-signals-intelligence;
see also The White House, Fact Sheet: The Administration’s Proposal for Ending the Section 215 Bulk Telephony
Metadata Program (Mar. 27, 2014), https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/03/27/fact-sheet-
administration-s-proposal-ending-section-215-bulk-telephony-m.
31 (U) The White House, Remarks by the President on Review of Signals Intelligence (Jan. 17, 2014),
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/01/17/remarks-president-review-signals-intelligence;
see also The White House, Fact Sheet: The Administration’s Proposal for Ending the Section 215 Bulk Telephony
Metadata Program (Mar. 27, 2014), https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/03/27/fact-sheet-
administration-s-proposal-ending-section-215-bulk-telephony-m.
32 (U) Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, Recommendations Assessment Report (Jan. 29, 2015),
https://www.pclob.gov/library/Recommendations_Assessment-Report.pdf.

33 (U) Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ensuring Effective Discipline Over Monitoring
Act of 2015, Pub. L. No. 114–23, 129 Stat. 268 (2015). Although officially written as the “USA FREEDOM Act,”
we have used “USA Freedom Act” for readability. As defined in the USA Freedom Act, “[t]he term ‘call detail

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