In June of this year, President Obama directed me to declassify and make public as much information as possible about certain sensitive intelligence collection programs undertaken under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) while being mindful of the need to protect national security.  Consistent with this directive, today I authorized the declassification and public release of a number of documents pertaining to the Government’s collection of bulk telephony metadata under Section 501 of the FISA, as amended by Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act.

It is not a secret that the Intelligence Community collects information about economic and financial matters, and terrorist financing. We collect this information for many important reasons: for one, it could provide the United States and our allies early warning of international financial crises which could negatively impact the global economy.  It also could provide insight into other countries' economic policy or behavior which could affect global markets.

In June, President Obama directed the Intelligence Community (IC) to declassify and make public as much information as possible about certain sensitive U.S. Government surveillance programs while being mindful of the need to protect sensitive classified intelligence and national security.  Consistent with this directive and in the interest of increased transparency, the DNI has determined, with the concurrence of the IC, that going forward the IC will publicly release, on an annual basis, aggregate information concerning compulsory legal process under certain national security authorities.

Press reports based on an article published in today’s Wall Street Journal mischaracterize aspects of NSA’s data collection activities conducted under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The NSA does not sift through and have unfettered access to 75% of the United States’ online communications. The following are the facts:

In June, President Obama requested that Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper declassify and make public as much information as possible about certain sensitive NSA programs while being mindful of the need to protect sensitive classified intelligence and national security.