Intelligence Surveillance & Privacy

ODNI Releases Procedures Governing Foreign Intelligence Collection

Tia Sewell
Friday, September 4, 2020, 5:00 PM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
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The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has released documents governing procedures for foreign intelligence collection. The documents are related to 2019 certifications under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Section 702 permits the government to conduct targeted surveillance of non-U.S. persons located abroad in order to acquire foreign intelligence information.

The first document is a December 2019 memorandum opinion from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that approved the government’s 2019 certifications and related procedures.

ODNI also provided the targeting, minimization and querying procedures associated with the 2019 certifications.

2019 Targeting Procedures:

2019 Minimization Procedures:

2019 Querying Procedures:

The documents are also available in full-text searchable format on Intel.gov.


Tia Sewell is a former associate editor of Lawfare. She studied international relations and economics at Stanford University and is now a master’s student in international security at Sciences Po in Paris.

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