On April 30, 2008, Patrick Rowan, Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security, announced the formal launch of the Office of Intelligence within the Justice Department’s National Security Division (NSD). The reorganization created three new sections within the Office of Intelligence dedicated to the NSD’s three primary intelligence related functions – operations, oversight and litigation.
The Department of Justice has played a critical role in the nation’s effort to prevent acts of terrorism and to thwart hostile foreign intelligence activities. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Department’s Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR) has grown dramatically because of the steady increase in the number of applications it has handled under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in an effort to ensure that Intelligence Community agencies have the authority necessary to conduct intelligence operations.
The creation of NSD in September 2006 brought OIPR under the umbrella of NSD and presented an opportunity to review the office’s structure and expanding mission. Based on this review, the NSD decided to modify the structure of the office, given that its intelligence staff has grown from fewer than 20 lawyers in 2000 to almost 100 today, and that its intelligence operations have increased with the rise in FISA caseload. Moreover, the office has assumed an expanded role in conducting intelligence oversight and in coordinating FISA-related litigation.
To meet the needs of multi-faceted intelligence mission, the NSD developed a new structure called the Office of Intelligence, which is the successor to OIPR and consists of three specific sections aligned with the division’s core functions: operations, oversight and litigation. Each section is supervised by a chief who reports directly to Matthew G. Olsen, the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Intelligence.
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