Browsing: Office of the Director of National Intelligence

The Public Interest Declassification Board meets publicly tomorrow amid anticipation that the Obama administration may at last take up the panel’s recommendations for modernizing the national security classification system. Those 14 recommendations are now almost a year old; the first was for the White House to name a steering committee to guide implementation of the other 13. “All indications are” that the administration is now going to appoint a committee along those lines,  John Powers, a staff member for the declassification board, said in a phone interview today. A spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council could not be reached…

In the wake of WikiLeaks’ disclosure of some 250,000 State Department cables, the Obama administration is ordering executive branch departments and agencies to review procedures for protecting classified information. “The recent irresponsible disclosure by WikiLeaks has resulted in significant damage to our national security,” Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew wrote in a memo released this morning. “Any failure by agencies to safeguard classified information pursuant to relevant laws . . . is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.” Effective immediately, all agencies that handle classified information must set up security assessment teams to review implementation of procedures…