The anti-leak procedures announced last week by the Director of National Intelligence apply specifically to intelligence community employees. But the DNI is also responsible more broadly for security policies that affect almost everyone who holds a security clearance for access to classified information, whether or not it pertains to intelligence, as well as other government employees who are candidates for “sensitive positions.”
The DNI’s role as “Security Executive Agent” was described in a March 2012 directive, according to which he is responsible for oversight of “investigations and determinations by any agency for eligibility for access to classified information and eligibility to hold a sensitive position.”
The DNI’s authority extends to every individual who has or seeks access to classified information with only a handful of exceptions: the President, the Vice President, Members of Congress, Justices of the Supreme Court, and Federal judges appointed by the President.
In this capacity, the DNI is responsible for developing standardized procedures for security questionnaires, financial disclosure forms, polygraph policies and practices, and foreign travel and foreign contact reporting requirements. See “Security Executive Agent Directive (SEAD) 1,” effective 13 March 2012.
“SEAD 1 applies to all departments and agencies performing investigations or adjudications of persons proposed for eligibility to hold a sensitive position whether or not requiring access to classified information,” said Charles B. Sowell of ODNI in congressional testimony last month. “The ODNI also led the interagency efforts to revise the National Security Adjudicative Guidelines” — which are used to evaluate a person’s loyalty, reliability and trustworthiness — “which we expect to issue later this year,” he said.
To fight the climate crises, we must do more than connect power plants to the grid: we need new policy frameworks and expanded coalitions to facilitate the rapid transformation of the electricity system.
Without information, without factual information, you can’t act. You can’t relate to the world you live in. And so it’s super important for us to be able to monitor what’s happening around the world, analyze the material, and translate it into something that different audiences can understand.
There is a lot to like in OPM’s new memos on federal hiring and senior executives, much of which reformers have been after for years, but there’s also a troubling focus on politicizing the federal workforce.
FAS is excited to announce it has acquired MetroLab Network (MLN), bringing together two teams with a shared commitment to harnessing science, technology and innovation to drive impact in new ways in communities across the country.