Category: Uncategorized

Just as the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) Director Mark A. Bradley acts as the Executive Agent for the Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) Program in reforming the protection and handling of unclassified information across Executive Branch agencies, the ISOO Director also serves as the Executive Secretary for the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB).

Congress established the PIDB to promote broad public access to an accurate record of the most significant national security decisions and activities of the United States Government.  Serving the President as a joint Executive and Legislative Branch advisory board, the PIDB seats nine members, five appointed by the President and one each by the Speaker and Minority Leader of the House as well as the Majority and Minority Leaders of the Senate. Appointees must be U.S. citizens who are preeminent in the fields of history, national security, foreign policy, intelligence policy, social science, law, or archives.

The PIDB advises the President on the classification and declassification of National Security Information (NSI), providing policy recommendations that promote the appropriate sharing and protection of NSI in the current digital age.  The bipartisan PIDB is in the final stages of preparing a new report to the President recommending a strategy to reduce over-classification, to make classification more precise, and to facilitate more rapid and agile information sharing through digital communications and information systems.

PIDB’s Declassification Technology Working Group, composed of Executive Branch classification and information security officials, have provided input to develop the forthcoming report to the President.  Recommendations in the report focus on issues of modernizing declassification in the management of electronic records across the federal government, and other issues of information security and access vital to the public interest.

PIDB encourages information and security management professionals to comment on the recommendations by subscribing to the PIDB blog Transforming Classification, at: https://transforming-classification.blogs.archives.gov/, where, in the coming weeks, PIDB will publish the report.

 

 

The next scheduled webinar will be 15 May 2018 (1-3 EDT). All subscribers to the CUI Blog will receive links and call-in information to access the webinar prior to the event.

The Archivist of the United States, David S. Ferriero, introduces a new CUI video on YouTube, which stresses the critical importance of sharing and protecting CUI.

Addressed to the wide community involved in handling and protecting CUI, the CUI video runs about 12 minutes, and presents discussions on the following topics:

• The definition of CUI, and the distinctions between types of information provided in the CUI Registry;
• The principles of access and sharing as they apply to lawful government purpose and limited dissemination control markings;
• Marking requirements overall, and for email, packages and standard mail;
• Controlled environments, both physical and electronic;
• The reproduction of CUI;
• FAXing CUI;
• Reporting incidents;
• The destruction of CUI; and
• The acceptable indicators for the decontrol of CUI.

In the video, Mr. Ferriero acknowledges the implementation of CUI concepts and tools “as an art practiced by civil servants in every department and agency, and their non-federal partners, working on behalf of the American people.”

The video is available for download from the ISOO website and may be used to support and supplement training and awareness efforts.