Michael Howell
Deputy Program Manager
Office of the Program Manager, Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE)
From a legal perspective, responsible information sharing means complying with laws, regulations, and policies. If you’re in the Intelligence Community, sharing also requires the protection of sources and methods. Everyone would also likely agree that sharing should ensure the information is safeguarded from malicious threats, unauthorized use, or compromise. From the public’s perspective, we need to protect the American people’s personal freedoms, to include their privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties.
And while this may appear to clash with the concept of an information sharing environment, there is no inherent conflict between sharing information and protecting it. Protection and sharing are two sides of a coin - without protection, sharing is not possible; and without sharing, protection loses its relevance. WikiLeaks has sharply illustrated the need to protect information, even as we develop better capabilities to share it.
We need the right people to have the right information in the right format at the right time to enhance our national security while protecting the privacy, civil liberties and civil rights of the American people.
Mr. Howell will discuss:
1. Necessity of information sharing
2. Necessity of information safeguarding
3. Role of privacy, civil rights and civil liberties
4. Executive Order 13587
5. National Strategy for Information Sharing and Safeguarding