Answer to Question 1
The FBI sends National Security Letters (NSLs) to telephone companies, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), consumer credit reporting agencies, banks, and other financial institutions directing the recipients to turn over all of the metadata (i.e., noncontent information, such as an e-mail address but not the message) from all customer records for intelligence-gathering purposes (Doyle 2011, 1). Examples of the importance of NSLs in fighting terrorism include: identifying telephone numbers called by associates of terror suspects to initiate investigations into possible terrorist cells, convicting a representative of a foreign power, identifying connections between suspected terrorists and federal criminal convicts, conducting counterintelligence investigations of sources, investigating the financial support of terrorism, and investigating narcotics trafficking.
Answer to Question 2
C