On January 14, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released new procedures approved by the DNI and the Attorney General governing the conduct of ODNI intelligence activities.
As required by Executive Order 12333, these procedures, commonly referred to as the “Attorney General (AG) Guidelines,” provide the core protections for ODNI’s collection and handling of information concerning U.S. persons in the conduct of lawful intelligence activities. The Guidelines also prescribe the limited circumstances in which ODNI personnel may participate in a U.S. organization without disclosing their ODNI affiliation.
Until the effective date of the new ODNI AG Guidelines on March 23, ODNI will continue to conduct intelligence activities within established National Counterterrorism Center or CIA AG Guidelines.
“As intelligence professionals, our first duty is to the American people,” said Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe. “We must continue to ensure that we always conduct our intelligence activities lawfully, appropriately integrate intelligence in support of national security, and protect the privacy and civil liberties of every American. ODNI’s AG Guidelines provide the framework for executing that mission.”
The new ODNI AG Guidelines are part of a multi-year effort to update comparable sets of procedures across the Intelligence Community (IC). They ensure the IC takes a consistent approach to protecting privacy and civil liberties while integrating information across many different intelligence elements and disciplines.
Consistent with the Principles of Intelligence Transparency for the IC, the ODNI’s AG Guidelines are unclassified and proactively released in their entirety here. In addition, a narrative document describing key provisions of the Guidelines, including the authorities and restrictions that govern ODNI’s collection, evaluation, retention and dissemination of information, as well as the oversight mechanisms that ODNI will use to ensure compliance with these protections, is available here.
Source: ODNI
By Loren Blinde
January 15, 2021
