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Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Open Government Plan

2014

Introduction

The following is the 2014 Open Government Plan of the Office of the Director of National

Intelligence (ODNI) as required by the Open Government Directive issued by the Director of 

the Office of Management and Budget on December 8, 2009 and subsequent guidance issued 

on February 24, 2014. 

The ODNI was created by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act and began 

operations when Ambassador John D. Negroponte was sworn in as the first Director of

National Intelligence (DNI) on April 21, 2005.

 

The DNI supports the President’s commitment to increase transparency, participation, and 

collaboration within the Government and with the American people, as stated in the 

President’s January 21, 2009 “Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government.” 

Therefore, the ODNI will continue to make every effort to increase transparency and 

openness, while also protecting classified and sensitive national security information and 

intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure.

The following plan describes how the ODNI currently promotes openness, identifies active 

public disclosure initiatives, and presents new initiatives planned for FY 2014 and beyond. 

This plan does not represent the entirety of Open Government initiatives within the 

Intelligence Community (IC) as a whole.

New or Expanded Initiatives

A. Open Data. 

1. High-Value Information Currently Available for Download and Collaboration

In the interest of increased transparency, the ODNI routinely publishes information

concerning the ODNI and IC on its public website. This information includes

speeches, press releases, Congressional testimony, and statements for the record by 

the DNI and other senior ODNI officials, in various formats. The formats include 

video recordings, podcasts, RSS feeds, and e-mail subscriptions. 
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In addition, the ODNI, through the Office of the Program Manager for the Information 

Sharing Environment, released a series of tools and resources on GitHub, an open 

collaborative platform popular with web developers across the country. The tools 

and resources provide a start-up guide for information interoperability between 

federal agencies; state, local, and tribal governments; and the private sector. Project 

Interoperability was created in the same spirit as the White House’s Project Open 

Data—government should be transparent, participatory, and collaborative. 

2. Increase Public Knowledge and Promote Scrutiny of Agency Services

Pursuant to Executive Order 13392 and memorandums on openness issued by the 

President and the Attorney General, the ODNI continues to proactively publish 

information on its public website to increase public knowledge and understanding. 

Examples of this information include various unclassified policy documents including 

Intelligence Community Directives and Intelligence Community Policy Guidance. 

These disclosures are unprecedented within the IC and have been viewed positively 

by public interest groups. 

B. Proactive Disclosures.

Currently, the ODNI publicly releases a variety of speeches, transcripts of public 

testimony, documents, and press releases relating to senior staff appointments in order 

to inform the public of significant actions and the business of the ODNI. In addition, 

ODNI established the ICONTHERECORD Tumblr page and has posted, among other 

things, several thousand pages of declassified documents in order to better inform the 

public.

C. Privacy. 

Consistent with statutory and policy requirements for agencies to inform individuals

who visit their websites about the use of information automatically collected or

affirmatively provided, ODNI posts its information-handling policies and practices to its 

public website. ODNI’s Privacy Act Regulation, its Privacy Act Routine Uses, its Privacy 

Act Exemption Rules, and all of its Privacy Act Systems of Records Notices are linkable 

from the website’s main page. All entry points to the website provide a link to the

Privacy Policy, and all collection of personally identifiable information is accompanied 

by a Privacy Notice at the point of collection. Social media applications are supported 

by required Privacy Impact Assessments, also accessible by hyperlink.

In addition, ODNI has made public its policy for protecting civil liberties and privacy in 

the interchange of terrorism information among agencies. This policy conforms to 
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Privacy Guidelines issued pursuant to Section 1016(d) of the Intelligence Reform and 

Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 and Section 1 of Executive Order 13399 (Further 

Strengthening the Sharing of Terrorism Information to Protect Americans), which 

called for the establishment of a policy framework to facilitate the sharing of terrorism 

information while protecting the freedom, information privacy, and other legal rights of 

Americans.

Beyond complying with legal requirements to publish certain documents and reports, 

ODNI’s Civil Liberties and Privacy Office (CLPO) has affirmatively undertaken to 

promote broader understanding regarding the incorporation of civil liberties and 

privacy protections into the IC’s policies, procedures, and activities. CLPO has formally 

established, as one of several strategic goals, the goal of providing the ODNI workforce, 

mission partners, oversight bodies, Congress, and the American public appropriate 

transparency into the IC’s civil liberties and privacy protections, including oversight. To 

this end, it populated a website with materials such as media releases, speeches and 

interviews, congressional testimonies, policies and reports, summaries of relevant 

authorities, and other pertinent materials.

Informing the public regarding the existence of “action offices” for redress of complaints 

is critical to open government. CLPO’s web page provides clear guidance for submitting 

a complaint for investigation in the event an individual experiences or perceives an 

abuse of civil liberties and privacy in the administration of ODNI or IC programs or 

operations.

Likewise the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) is proactively providing greater 

transparency into how it performs its counterterrorism mission while protecting the 

privacy and civil liberties of the individuals whose data we access.

NCTC embarked on this initiative in 2012, when it publicly posted its revised Attorney 

General Guidelines, drafted at the unclassified level, in part so that it could be disclosed 

to the public. NCTC published a mission justification paper explaining the need to 

revise the Guidelines, and also a white paper explaining the civil liberties and privacy 

protective features of the new Guidelines. 

NCTC continues to look for additional ways to provide transparency to the public, 

balancing the commitment to openness with the need for security. To this end, NCTC 

has held several outreach events, e.g., a symposium for civil liberties and privacy 

advocacy groups, heritage and faith-based advocacy groups, and national security 

academics in July of 2013, and on May 5, 2014, a second session with a number of these 

advocacy groups, led by the Director of NCTC, Hon. Matthew G. Olsen. In addition, NCTC 

publishes relevant documents to its website from time to time (see URL at Section E).
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Going forward, NCTC continues to explore avenues for providing transparency, e.g., 

documents that can be posted on its public website, topics that might lend themselves 

to the creation of white papers, and continued exchange with the public and advocacy 

communities.

D. Whistleblower Protection. 

The DNI recently issued Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) 120, Intelligence 

Community Whistleblower Protection. ICD 120 was developed in response to the 

requirement in Section D of Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) 19, Protecting 

Whistleblowers with Access to Classified Information, 10 October 2012, that the DNI issue 

policies and procedures for ensuring that all employees serving in IC elements are 

aware of the protections and review processes available to individuals who make 

protected disclosures. The ICD also clarifies that PPD 19 protects contractors from 

reprisal in the form of adverse decisions concerning eligibility for access to classified 

information based on a protected disclosure. The IC policy directs the heads of all IC 

elements to communicate information about the protections and review processes to 

their employees (including contractors serving at their elements) when they enter on 

duty and to the workforce on an annual basis, and to make this information easily and 

readily available to their employees. In executing ICD 120, the DNI is supported by the 

Inspector General of the Intelligence Community who serves as the chairman of the 

External Review Panel hearing whistleblower appeals and conducting outreach and 

training to stakeholders in the IC.

E. Websites and Social Media. 

As mentioned above, ODNI routinely posts material to both www.dni.gov and 

ICONTHERECORD.tumblr.com. 

The Office of the Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment also

maintains a public website and blog at www.ise.gov and active accounts on Twitter, 

Facebook, and LinkedIn. The accounts are used to share information with federal, state, 

local, tribal, private sector, and international partners about ongoing programs and 

initiatives, government and industry best practices, and information sharing and 

safeguarding success stories.
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Ongoing Initiatives

A. Records Management.

Since the ODNI began operations in April 2005, the ODNI Records Management 

program has been working with the National Archives and Records Administration 

(NARA) to create ODNI Records Control Schedules. The Records Management Office 

has drafted over 90% of the schedules and has submitted them to NARA. Draft 

schedules have been completed for various components of the ODNI, including the

NCTC, the largest organization within the ODNI. A portion of the draft schedules have 

also been published in the Federal Register for public comment. The office is currently 

hosting appraisal visits from NARA staff and providing answers to their questions on 

technology issues. These responses will assist NARA with their evaluation of the ODNI’s 

electronic records management program.

B. Freedom of Information Act Requests.

ODNI has taken steps to apply the presumption of openness to its FOIA program. The 

ODNI’s Chief FOIA Officer affirmed ODNI’s commitment to accountability and

transparency by reminding all agency employees that unless disclosure of information 

would harm national security, cause an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, or 

impede law enforcement proceedings, openness should prevail. In addition, the Chief 

FOIA Officer made clear that while the FOIA office has the leading role in processing 

requests, every individual plays a part in ensuring full compliance with all aspects of the 

FOIA. The ODNI FOIA Office hosts IC FOIA Days twice a year to engage IC FOIA Officers 

in discussions on improving the FOIA process to ensure greatest transparency. The

ODNI FOIA page contains the ODNI FOIA Handbook and regulations, information about 

office staffing and organizational structure, and information on how to submit a FOIA 

request by e-mail, in addition to links to other IC FOIA pages.

C. Participation. 

Since the mission of ODNI is to protect and advance U.S. national security interests, and 

much of the work the ODNI performs is classified, the public’s participation in the 

decision-making process of the office may be impractical. The ODNI is working 

internally and with IC partners to evaluate potential security and counterintelligence

issues associated with the development of more automated disclosure of ODNI 

information to the public in order to keep the public informed. The ODNI continues to 

provide its guiding documents to the public, such as the National Intelligence Strategy,

and welcomes public feedback and comments relating to any aspect of this strategy and 

to its FOIA, disclosure, and declassification polices. 
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D. Collaboration. 

Information sharing is a key component of the DNI’s strategy to better enable the IC to 

provide timely and accurate information to decision-makers, war fighters, and other 

U.S. Government departments and agencies. The ODNI has several active initiatives that 

enable information sharing between agencies of the U.S. Government and state, local, 

and tribal governments. A key technical innovation in these initiatives is the 

development of a “Common Trust Environment” that would put uniform identity 

management, information security standards, user authorization, and access control in

place to promote common trust. Similar initiatives, such as privilege management

control technologies and access control pilots, are under discussion as part of the 

Information Sharing Environment (ISE).

Additional information relating to the ODNI and IC information sharing initiatives and 

the ISE may be found at these sites.

Flagship Initiatives

A. IC On The Record Tumblr site

Created at the direction of the President, ICONTHERECORD provides immediate, 

ongoing, and direct access to factual information related to the lawful foreign 

surveillance activities of the U.S. IC. In addition to comprehensive explanations of the 

authorities under which the IC conducts certain foreign surveillance, ICONTHERECORD

addresses the use of collected data and oversight and compliance. It is an unclassified 

online repository for declassified official documents, statements, and speeches that 

members of the public can reference to inform their thinking about surveillance issues.

The aims of ICONTHERECORD are to increase transparency and build the public trust 

through openness and education.

B. NCTC Transparency Initiative

As discussed above, in 2013, NCTC proactively posted a number of documents on its 

website, including its 2012 revised Attorney General Guidelines, a mission justification 

fact sheet, and an ODNI CLPO white paper explaining the civil liberties and privacy 

protection features of the new Guidelines.

In April 2014 NCTC posted three additional documents on its website, all designed to 

provide greater insight into how NCTC accesses, uses, and protects data under its 
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stewardship. Specifically, NCTC posted:

 A white paper overview of NCTC’s Data Access under its 2012 Attorney General 

Guidelines, detailing the categories of data that NCTC replicates, as well as how 

this data is used by NCTC to fulfill its counterterrorism mission; 

 NCTC’s first annual report (redacted) to the ODNI OGC and CLPO, and the IC 

Inspector General (redacted), on NCTC’s access, retention, use, and 

dissemination of non-terrorism datasets, as required under NCTC’s revised 

2012 Attorney General Guidelines; and 

 The Memorandum of Agreement between Department of Homeland Security 

(DHS) and NCTC (redacted) allowing NCTC to gain bulk access to DHS APIS travel 

data for up to 1 year.

In May 2014 NCTC posted additional transparency documents on its website:

 A white paper that describes how NCTC has implemented Baseline Safeguard 

protections mandated by its Attorney General Guidelines, as well as the 

compliance checks and audits of NCTC’s adherence to those safeguards;

 The decision matrix used by NCTC in assessing each replicated non-terrorism 

dataset for potential application of additional Enhanced Safeguards, over and 

above the Baseline Safeguards; and

 NCTC’s Compliance Incident Procedures for reporting, assessing, investigating,

and resolving compliance incidents relating to NCTC’s handling of data.