DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS
TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL
(U//FOUO) Who Is SID's Focal Point for Interacting With Congress?
FROM:
SID Congressional Issues Team (S02L2)
Run Date: 02/16/2006
(U//FOUO) The story of how SID's Congressional Issues Team manages SID's interactions with
Capitol Hill...
(U//FOUO) For members of the SID Congressional Issues Team, each day can bring a unique set
of circumstances or a new set of challenges. When we arrive in the morning, we never know
completely what our day will bring.
(U//FOUO) It could be a day hosting congressional visitors, or coordinating a trip to Capitol Hill
with a group of SID briefers. It could be a day that requires chasing after a quick turn-around
request for information (RFI) from a professional staff member from the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence. Or it may very well be an afternoon spent in the Director's small
conference room, hoping against hope that the A/V equipment is working, the briefers don't run
over their allotted time, the questions from the Congressional visitors are answerable and you're
able to make it back to the office before everyone else leaves. Welcome to a day in the life of
SID Congressional Issues!
(U//FOUO) NSA's special relationship with Congress became formalized in the mid 1970's with
the establishment of intelligence oversight committees, and their appropriations committee
counterparts, in both the Senate and House of Representatives. DIRNSA is obligated by law
to keep the congressional intelligence committees fully informed of intelligence
activities conducted by NSA. Through the Legislative Affairs Office (LAO), NSA interacts with
the oversight committees on a daily basis:
the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI),
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI),
the Senate Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee (SAC/D), and
the House Appropriations Committee, Defense Subcommittee (HAC/D).
LAO also works with other committees that have jurisdiction over defense and national security
issues, such as the Armed Services Committees and Foreign Relations Committees, as well as
the U.S. Senators and Representatives from the State of Maryland.
(U//FOUO) The SID Congressional Issues Team, S02L2, serves as the SID focal point
between LAO and SID elements on SIGINT Enterprise actions and requests for information
related to congressional oversight. We accept, track and respond to congressional inquiries and
provide value-added resources to SID senior leaders. We coordinate multiple SID inputs to
Questions for the Record (QFR), Congressionally Directed Actions (CDAs), hearings, notifications
and appeals to legislative language impacting NSA's budget and turn them into a unified SID
reply.
(U//FOUO) Each response usually involves several different SID elements, subject matter
experts, staff and action officers to approve the response, not to mention the various editors
and chiefs required for coordination and final approval. Though time consuming and labor
intensive, all these steps are required to ensure the NSA response to Congress is accurate and
provides the specific information they requested. Not too hard, you think? Usually not, however,
most requests (or maybe it just seems like most requests) come into the building late in the
afternoon (or maybe it just seems like late in the afternoon) with a response due back to
Congress by noon the next morning! Sound familiar?
(U//FOUO) OK, so maybe this isn't the norm, but it does happen. Though challenging, all
Congressional requests provide great insight into how much Congress relies on NSA to
be the subject-matter experts on a variety of topics. One of our greatest opportunities to
showcase this comes from a recent invitation to regularly brief at the Speaker of the House's
weekly intelligence briefings. Speaker Hastert is very knowledgeable on intelligence issues, so
each week the SID organization must choose a current, relevant topic that will be sure to grab
the Speaker's attention. Some of our initial topics have been on special collection programs,
financial intelligence initiatives and counter-narcotics success stories.
(U//FOUO) When members of Congress, or their professional staffers, want to get out of the city
and visit the NSA campus, there is a great deal of pre-planning and juggling of schedules that
goes on, as the SIDCI team works with LAO to ensure a SID agenda that is tailor-made for a
particular Senator or Representative. It doesn't sound too difficult if you have a few weeks to do
all the planning. However, most Congressional visits tend to be short notice, with very little lead
time to contact a SID organization and request a briefing or two. Fortunately, since most people
understand that it is Congress who provides our paychecks and foots the bills for our newest
technologies, finding a briefer, even on very short notice, can usually be done without pleading,
bribery, coercion or the promise of your firstborn. The SIDCI team is always very grateful to the
SID organizations for sharing their expertise with our congressional visitors. And yes, we do
realize how much we ask of you!!!
(U) Capitol Hill (Reuters)
(U//FOUO) Note: On the SID today homepage you can find links to recent SID congressional
notifications (i.e. formal messages informing Congress of a situation or event) and SID
congressional updates (an account of current day-to-day interactions with Congress). Look for
them in the "SID Notes/Reports" section.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS
TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL
DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108