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Freedom Act. 301 (This includes an unknown number of duplicates. 302 ) The scale of the
collection is also proportionally large relative to the number of seed numbers associated with
international terrorism. Last year, the government obtained 14 FISA court orders based on a
“reasonable articulable suspicion” that a specific selection term was associated with international
terrorism. 303 Those 14 orders enabled the government to collect 434 million records pertaining
to more than 19 million unique phone numbers. 304 Given the exponential math of two-hop
collection, it is reasonable to assume that most of these were second-hop contacts—callers two
degrees of separation removed from the initial suspicious actor. Our report describes the privacy
considerations that arise from domestic collection and storage of call detail records on this scale.

(U) On the other side of the balance is the operational need for this collection.
International terrorism remains a dangerous threat. Al Qaeda, ISIS affiliates, and other
international terrorist groups continue to menace the United States. Terrorists have capitalized
on modern communications technologies, including social media and encrypted messaging, to
identify, radicalize, and even direct from afar potential attackers in the US homeland. 305

(U) Given terrorist groups’ reliance on digital communications, electronic surveillance
will continue to play an indispensable role in protecting the nation from terrorism. This includes
collection and analysis of communications metadata. The insightful discussion by Board
Members Nitze and Bamzai illustrates how metadata analysis, including multi-hop contact-
chaining, can “add significant intelligence value to national security investigations.” 306 Indeed,
metadata analysis may become even more important for counterterrorism as content is
increasingly protected by strong, end-to-end encryption.

(U) The question is what role USA Freedom Act CDRs can play in that defense. The
upcoming sunset of the Act’s CDR authority arrives against the backdrop of terrorist groups’
widely documented shift away from telephony to newer, more secure modes of communication.
Researchers have observed that “[a]fter the Snowden leaks revealed how valuable terrorists’
unencrypted communications were for US counterterrorism efforts, terrorist groups swiftly

301 (U) Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Statistical Transparency Report Regarding Use of National
Security Authorities, Calendar Year 2017, at 35 (Apr. 2018) (534.3 million records); 2018 Statistical Transparency
Report at 30 (434.2 million records).
302 (U) See Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Statistical Transparency Report Regarding Use of
National Security Authorities, Calendar Year 2017, at 35 (Apr. 2018) (“[T]he number reported above . . . includes
duplicate records[.]”).
303 (U) 2018 Statistical Transparency Report at 30.
304 (U) 2018 Statistical Transparency Report at 30.
305 (U) See, e.g., Bipartisan Policy Center, Digital Counterterrorism: Fighting Jihadists Online, 5, 15 (May 2018).

306 (U) Statement of Aditya Bamzai and Jane Nitze, Part I.

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