	Introduction

A National Security Letter (NSL) is roughly comparable to an administrative subpoena. The House passed such a bill, H.R. S. 2685 , however, failed to secure the three-fifths vote necessary for cloture. USA PATRIOT Act

Section 505 of the USA PATRIOT Act altered the FBI's NSL authority under Section 2709 (communications information), the Right to Financial Privacy Act (financial information), and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (consumer credit information) in several ways:
it expanded issuing authority to include the heads of FBI field offices (special agents in charge (SACs)); it eliminated the requirement of specific and articulable facts demonstrating a nexus to a foreign power or its agents; it required instead that the information was sought for or relevant to various national security investigations; and It directed that no NSL related investigation of a "U.S. person" (American citizen or foreign resident alien) be predicated exclusively on First Amendment protected activities. More specifically, the report found that
a "significant number of NSL-related possible violations were not being identified or reported" as required; the only FBI data collection system produced "inaccurate" results; the FBI issued over 700 exigent letters acquiring information in a manner that "circumvented the ECPA NSL statute and violated the Attorney General's Guidelines ... and internal FBI policy"; the FBI's Counterterrorism Division initiated over 300 NSLs in a manner that precluded effective review prior to approval; 60% of the individual files examined showed violations of FBI internal control policies; the FBI did not retain signed copies of the NSLs it issued; the FBI had not provided clear guidance on the application of the Attorney General's least-intrusive-feasible-investigative-technique standard in the case of NSLs; the precise interpretation of toll billing information as it appears in the ECPA NSL statute is unclear; SAC supervision of the attorneys responsible for review of the legal adequacy of proposed NSLs made some of the attorneys reluctant to question the adequacy of the underlying investigation previously approved by the SAC; there was no indication that the FBI's misuse of NSL authority constituted criminal conduct; personnel both at FBI headquarters and in the field considered NSL use indispensable; and information generated by NSLs was fed into a number of FBI systems. The District Court for the Northern District of California agreed with the Second Circuit that the secrecy provisions as written violate the First Amendment and that the judicial review section as written violates both the First Amendment and separation of powers principles. Proposed Amendments in the 113th Congress

Bills in 113 th Congress that would have amended the NSL statutes and related provisions proposed adjustments in four areas: (1) the grounds for issuing an NSL; (2) confidentiality requirements, enforcement, and judicial review; (3) reports and audits; and (4) sunset and repeal. H.R. S. 1599 (Leahy) and S. 2685 (Leahy) would have amended the statutory provisions governing judicial review of NSLs nondisclosure orders. Several bills would have permitted public reporting by the recipients of NSLs and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) orders. Thus, S. 2685 (Leahy) and H.R. H.R. 3035 (Lofgren), S. 1551 (Wyden), and S. 1599 (Leahy) each would have allowed recipients to issue periodic reports on the number of NSL requests they received, organized according to the NSL statute under which the requests were received or by categories of the authorizing statutes. S. 1215 (Leahy) and S. 1599 (Leahy) would have called for a similar audit covering 2010 through 2013. In the case of S. 1215 , these intelligence assessments would have been required of the Inspectors General of the various agencies of the intelligence community. S. 1215 (Leahy) and S. 1599 (Leahy) would have changed that. Effective June 1, 2015, the bills would have returned NSL statutes to their pre-USA PATRIOT Act form. They would have established a transition provision under which the law prior to May 31, 2015, would have continued to apply with respect to investigations or offenses begun prior to June 1, 2015. 2709, the Right to Financial Privacy Act, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act. 802 of the National Security Act (50 U.S.C. 119 (text)

Audit of Use of National Security Letters.
A National Security Letter (NSL) is roughly comparable to an administrative subpoena. Various intelligence agencies use NSLs to demand certain customer information from communications providers, financial institutions, and consumer credit reporting agencies under the Right to Financial Privacy Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the National Security Act, and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Congress weighed several NSL amendments during the 113th Congress. The House passed one, H.R. 3361. The Senate failed to provide the three-fifths vote necessary for cloture on another, S. 2685. Yet in the end, the 113th Congress adjourned without enacting any of the proposed NSL amendments.
The bills in the 113th Congress that would have amended the NSL statutes proposed adjustments in four areas: (1) the grounds for issuing an NSL; (2) confidentiality requirements and judicial review; (3) reports and audits; and (4) sunset and repeal. S. 1551 (Wyden), H.R. 3361 (House-passed), S. 1599 (Leahy), and S. 2685 (Leahy) would have defined more precisely the circumstances under which an NSL might be issued.
Initially, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and later the District Court for the Northern District of California concluded that the statutory secrecy and judicial review provisions relating to NSLs, read to their fullest, are inconsistent with the proscriptions of the First Amendment right to free speech and the principles of separation of powers. S. 1215 (Leahy), H.R. 3361 (House-passed), S. 1599 (Leahy), and S. 2685 (Leahy) would have amended the provisions in question roughly along lines suggested by the Second Circuit.
In the past, Congress has counterbalanced expanded NSL authority with increased oversight mechanisms. For example, it directed the Department of Justice's Inspector General to conduct an audit of NSL authority from 2001 to 2006, and instructed the Attorney General to report to Congress annually on the extent of NSL use. Several proposals in the 113th Congress would have supplemented the existing mechanisms. S. 1215, S. 1551, and S. 1599 would have called for greater detail in the Attorney General's annual reports. H.R. 3035 (Lofgren), S. 1551, and H.R. 3361 and S. 1599 would have authorized recipients to issue public reports on the NSLs they receive.
As an additional oversight tool, S. 1215 and S. 1599 would have returned all but two of the NSL statutes to their pre-USA PATRIOT Act form, effective June 1, 2015. The exceptions would have been the National Security Act NSL statute, which evokes few privacy concerns, and the sweeping, USA PATRIOT Act-born, Fair Credit Reporting Act NSL statute, which the bills would have repealed.
This report reprints the text of the five NSL statutes as they now appear and as they appeared prior to amendment by the USA PATRIOT Act (to which form they would have been returned under S. 1125 and H.R. 1805). Related reports include CRS Report R40138, Amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Extended Until June 1, 2015, by [author name scrubbed], and CRS Report RL33320, National Security Letters in Foreign Intelligence Investigations: Legal Background, by [author name scrubbed].