The Security, Intelligence, and Information Policy Section provides guidance and oversight designed to preserve civil rights and civil liberties in the execution of homeland security programs and activities. We work with Department components and offices to ensure that appropriate protections and safeguards are incorporated into the Department’s screening and vetting programs, information sharing and safeguarding activities, cybersecurity efforts, security technologies, and intelligence programs and products.

Areas of Focus

• Screening and Vetting: We review screening and vetting programs and work to mitigate any impact on civil rights and civil liberties when the Department interacts with the millions of individuals every day who seek to enter the country, travel by air, or apply for government benefits. Our work supports the Department’s goal to advance risk-based screening while preserving individual rights.
• Information Sharing and Safeguarding: We monitor information sharing and safeguarding activities as a member of the Department’s Information Sharing and Safeguarding Governance Board and ensure that civil rights and civil liberties protections are incorporated into sharing and safeguarding operations, policies, domestic agreements, and international arrangements. We also support Department efforts to safeguard government data and systems from insider threats while respecting employee rights and other workforce protections.
• Cybersecurity: We support implementation of Executive Order 13636, Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, and provide advice and oversight to DHS cybersecurity efforts to foster a secure and resilient cyberspace that protects civil liberties by design.
• Security Technology: We collaborate on the development and deployment of new technologies so that efforts to enhance situational awareness, improve investigative capabilities, and support operational integration build in appropriate safeguards designed to protect civil rights and civil liberties.
• Intelligence Activities: We work with Department intelligence enterprise leadership and personnel and conduct compliance oversight activities to ensure intelligence programs and products adhere to civil rights and civil liberties policies and principles.

Resources

• The Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
• Department of Homeland Security Federal Information Sharing Environment Privacy and Civil Liberties Policy
• Executive Order 12333, United States Intelligence Activities
• Department of Homeland Security Commitment to Nondiscriminatory Law Enforcement and Screening Activities
• Guidance for Federal Law Enforcement Agencies Regarding the Use of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, National Origin, Religion, Sexual Orientation, or Gender Identity
• Guidance for Accommodating Religious Beliefs in DHS Policies Requiring Fingerprinting or Photographic Identification
• Executive Order 13636, Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity
• Executive Order 13691, Promoting Private Sector Cybersecurity Information Sharing
• Presidential Memorandum: Promoting Economic Competitiveness While Safeguarding Privacy, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties in Domestic Use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems