The move by an agency within the Department of Homeland Security was part of a broader effort by the Biden administration to strengthen oversight and set clear guidelines for handling intelligence.
For two decades, privacy and civil liberties advocates have worried about the potential for abuse by a small, little-known intelligence agency with broad surveillance powers and a nebulous mandate.
The summer of 2020 did little to allay those fears: Inexperienced intelligence officers from the agency were deployed to Portland, Ore., to compile dossiers on people protesting against police violence. The intelligence officers also produced reports that included names of journalists.
The episode cast a spotlight on the room for overreach in relatively obscure parts of the government, in this instance an agency in the Department of Homeland Security called the Office of Intelligence and Analysis.
On Friday, officials took a parting attempt to outline the agency’s limits on domestic spying, in a bid to curtail potential abuses. It is part of a broader effort by the Biden administration in recent years to strengthen oversight and set clear guidelines for handling intelligence.
The agency was established in 2003 with the mission of assessing terrorists and other threats to homeland security, namely foreign terrorism. But as those threats have evolved to include domestic violent extremism and targeted violence like mass shootings, so have intelligence collection and analysis, expanding the potential exposure — and privacy violations — of American citizens.
To ward against wrongdoing, the head of the agency, Kenneth L. Wainstein, bolstered oversight of its actions.