Sharing CUI – An Example

A lot of valuable security information is gathered and published as Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). While not subject to the same controls as classified information, the government still tries to restrict the sharing of such information for a variety of reasons, most of them justifiable. Even when such information is leaked and shared in the press, current government regulations limit the ability of government employees and contractors to use such information.

There are a number of ways that agencies can get around the information sharing limitations associated with CUI. I ran across a time-honored CUI bypass (redaction) in a recent online article found at DomesticPreparedness.com. The actual article is very short, but it provides a link to a presumably officially redacted copy of a report by the DHS Office of the Inspector General on “CBP Outbound Inspections Disrupt Transnational Criminal Organization Illicit Operations”. The original version of the report was marked as “Law Enforcement Sesitive”. While the redaction markings on the document are not annotated as to the authority responsible for the redaction, the redacted report is maintained on the OIG web site, so I think we can safety assume that the rules about sharing CUI are not being violated in this case.

The amount of redacted information included in this non-CUI version of the report is actually relatively small. The example below shows the redactions on page 8 of the report, the first place where data is redacted in this report. Even without knowing what is redacted, it is relatively easy to contextually understand why the blanked out text has been removed.

Paragraph with redacted material on page 8

The most important thing about the redaction efforts in this document is the fact that the redacted material does not materially detract from the information being shared in the report.

Redacting information in an existing CUI labeled report should be less difficult and time consuming than writing an unclassified version from scratch. It should also be easier to review the document for the approval process.