United States Department of Justice National Security Division


The United States Department of Justice National Security Division is the division of the DOJ that handles all national security functions of the department. Created by the 2005 USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization, the division consolidated all of the department's national security and intelligence functions into a single division. The division is headed by the Assistant Attorney General for National Security.

History

The National Security Division was created under Section 506 of the 2005 USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush on March 9, 2006.
It consolidated the department's national security efforts within one unit, bring together attorneys from the Counterterrorism Section and Counterespionage Section of the Criminal Division and from the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, with their specialized expertise in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and other intelligence matters. This fulfilled a recommendation of the Iraq Intelligence Commission.
In 2010, its budget was $88 million.

Leadership

The head of the National Security Division is an Assistant Attorney General for National Security appointed by the President of the United States. The current AAG-NS is John Demers.

Organization

The National Security Division is overseen by an Assistant Attorney General, who is assisted by three deputy assistant attorneys general, who are all career attorneys, who each oversee a different branch of the division's sections.
In December 2019, Michael Horowitz, the Inspector General of the DoJ released a report accusing the Division of lying to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in some of its applications for wiretaps. The Presiding Judge of the Court subsequently ordered the Division to "inform the Court in a sworn written submission of what it has done, and plans to do, to ensure that the statement of facts in each FBI application accurately and completely reflects information possessed by the FBI that is material to any issue presented by the application."

List of assistant attorneys general