Scattered Castles: IC Directive on Personnel Security
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence today released a series of policy documents governing security clearances and access to classified information for intelligence community employees.
Intelligence Community Directive 704 (pdf) and five accompanying policy guidance documents set forth policy on security clearance background investigations, adjudicative guidelines, clearance revocation and appeal processes, reciprocal acceptance of security clearances, and more.
Intelligence Community Policy Guidance 704.5 (pdf) identifies “Scattered Castles” as a comprehensive database of IC security clearance authorizations, which can be used to verify clearances.
With minor technical changes, the new directive and accompanying guidance appear to closely replicate the previous policy under Director of Central Intelligence Directive 6/4.
See ICD 704 and the supporting guidance, along with other IC Directives, here.
No one will be surprised if we end up with a continuing resolution to push our shutdown deadline out past the midterms, so the real question is what else will they get done this summer?
Rebuilding public participation starts with something simple — treating the public not as a problem to manage, but as a source of ingenuity government cannot function without.
If the government wants a system of learning and adaptation that improves results in real time, it has to treat translation, utilization, and adaptation as core functions of governance rather than as afterthoughts.
Coordination among federal science agencies is essential to ensure government-wide alignment on R&D investment priorities. However, the federal R&D enterprise suffers from egregious siloization.