NARA Announces Advisory Committee Meeting for July 27th

Today the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) published a notice in the Federal Register (76 FR 41826) announcing a meeting of the State, Local, Tribal, and Private Sector Policy Advisory Committee (SLTPS-PAC). The SLTPS-PAC was chartered last December to “advise the President, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), and other executive branch officials on all matters concerning the policies relating to access to and . safeguarding of classified national security information by U.S. State, Local, Tribal, and Private Sector Entities, as specified in Executive Order 13549 and its implementing directive.” (SLTPS-PAC Charter, pg 1)

The July 27th meeting will be open to the public. The notice is remarkably reticent about the agenda for the meeting; saying simply that the “meeting will be held to discuss the matters relating to the Classified National Security Information Program for State, Local, Tribal, and Private Sector Entities”.

There is limited public seating available for this meeting, so individuals planning on attending are being required to provide the ISOO (ISOO@nara.gov) with their name and phone number by July 25th.

With an increasing emphasis on the sharing of intelligence information with private critical infrastructure and key resource (CIKR) facilities, there will be more of a push for private entities to be able to handle classified information. This group could provide a valuable resource for ensuring that the Federal government understands the problems associated with the private sector meeting the requirements for handling this information.