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(U) SID's Interactions with Congress: Communications and Orgs
FROM: SIGINT Communications
Unknown
Run Date: 05/30/2003
(U) This is the final article of our series:
(U) Communications
(U) How Many Congressional Queries and Briefings Does SID LA
Handle Per Month?
(U//FOUO) The number of queries from staffers varies. The busiest
months are typically March, April and May, because the staffers are
reviewing the CBJB and preparing their budget mark ups. This
year, a total of 18, 40, and 23 RFIs were received during these
months, respectively. A large majority of the queries require a very
quick turnaround during this time, and as it is LA's opportunity to
influence the mark ups, these requests are given focused
attention.
(U//FOUO) Requests for briefings tend to be heaviest from Jan May. Again, this is due to the fact that staffers are preparing for
their mark ups. This year, the number of staffer visits to SID
ranged from 12 to 16 per month during the period of March
through May. These visits often included multiple briefings.
(U) How Else Does SID LA Communicate With Congress?
(U//FOUO) In addition to budgeting issues, Congress is also
responsible for general oversight of NSA (and SID), to ensure we
are doing our job competently and adhering to the law. As a result,
we keep the Congress informed of significant developments that
may affect our performance (positively or negatively). A vehicle for
doing this is a "Congressional Notification". These range from "bad
news" reports-- such as power outages that have resulted in
degradation of service or security breaches at field stations-- to
items of interest such as:
the NSA Off-site Language Processing Facility;
Global Network Analyst Intern Program;
change in SID leadership; and
new partnerships with Third Parties.
As such, notifications are a great way to keep Congress informed of
good news as well as bad news. They should hear it from us before
they read it in the paper.
(U) How Does SID LA Communicate with the SID Workforce?
(U) Every Friday SID LA publishes a Weekly Congressional Update
providing feedback on recent congressional visits, highlighting
upcoming visits and congressional travel. This update can be found
on the SID LA website . The updates are also available via the SID
Notes/Reports section of the SID Today homepage.
(U) Organizational Structure
SERIES:
(U) SID and Congress
1. SID's Interactions
with Congress:
Setting the Budget
2. SID's Interactions
with Congress:
Budget Jargon and
RFIs
3. SID's Interactions
with Congress:
Communications and
Orgs
4. Re-Invigorating the
Collection
Association
(U) How Does SID LA Work With NSA's LAO?
(U//FOUO) SID LA provides congressional staffers and committees
with appropriate SIGINT-related information and briefings and
develop the SID Congressional Engagement Strategy for inclusion
into the overall NSA Engagement Strategy. The office is not
forward-deployed from NSA LAO, but is actually assigned to SID
and staffed by SIGINTers. It is structured similarly to NSA LAO in
that SID LA has separate "account managers" for the involved
congressional committees. Office personnel usually attend SID
briefings to the congressional staffs and committees and provide
feedback on these sessions to SID leadership. They can then
provide background information as to the tone and context
surrounding follow-on queries from Congress.
(U//FOUO) For further information on how NSA LAO interacts with
Congress, see their web page at "go lao".
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108