The federal intelligence community — a group of 16 agencies with overlapping missions — has been scrambling to build trust with the American populace since one of the IC’s former contractors, Edward Snowden, outed a number of sensitive and controversial spy programs.
A major part of this effort is the newly established IC Transparency Council, which had its official charter signing on April 5.
Download: Intelligence Community Transparency Council Charter
The council was born out of a working group created two years ago that established the four Principles of Intelligence Transparency [see below], which “provide guidance to the intelligence community on being more transparent with the public while protecting the sources and methods necessary for performing its national security mission,” according to a post on the IC blog announcing the charter signing.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper saw continued value in the working group’s efforts and moved to establish the council as a permanent part of the IC.
The council is made up of senior intelligence officials from each of the component agencies and bureaus, each serving a term of at least two years.
The body will continue to work on ways to get more information out the public while also following the four principles it established as a working group:
1. Provide appropriate transparency to enhance public understanding about:
- The IC’s mission and what the IC does to accomplish it (including its structure and effectiveness).
- The laws, directives, authorities and policies that govern the IC’s activities.
- The compliance and oversight framework that ensures intelligence activities are conducted in accordance with applicable rules.
2. Be proactive and clear in making information publicly available through authorized channels, including taking affirmative steps to:
- Provide timely transparency on matters of public interest.
- Prepare information with sufficient clarity and context, so that it is readily understandable.
- Make information accessible to the public through a range of communications channels, such as those enabled by new technology.
- Engage with stakeholders to better explain information and to understand diverse perspectives.
- In appropriate circumstances, describe why information cannot be made public.
3. In protecting information about intelligence sources, methods and activities from unauthorized disclosure, ensure that IC professionals consistently and diligently execute their responsibilities to:
- Classify only that information which, if disclosed without authorization, could be expected to cause identifiable or describable damage to the national security.
- Never classify information to conceal violations of law, inefficiency or administrative error or to prevent embarrassment.
- Distinguish, through portion marking and similar means, classified and unclassified information.
- Consider the public interest to the maximum extent feasible when making classification determinations, while continuing to protect information as necessary to maintain intelligence effectiveness, protect the safety of those who work for or with the IC or otherwise protect national security.
4. Align IC roles, resources, processes and policies to support robust implementation of these principles, consistent with applicable laws, executive orders and directives.
