The Office of Civil Liberties, Privacy and Transparency (CLPT) leads the integration of civil liberties and privacy protections into the policies, procedures, programs and activities of the Intelligence Community (IC). Its overarching goal is to ensure that the IC operates within the full scope of its authorities in a manner that protects civil liberties and privacy, provides appropriate transparency, and earns and retains the trust of the American people.
CLPT is led by the Civil Liberties Protection Officer, a position established by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. The Act provides that the Civil Liberties Protection Officer reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), and sets forth his duties, which include ensuring that privacy and civil liberties protections are appropriately addressed in the policies and procedures of intelligence agencies; overseeing compliance by the ODNI with privacy and civil liberties in programs and operations administered by the ODNI; and ensuring that the use of technology sustains, and does not erode, privacy. The Civil Liberties Protection Officer also serves as the ODNI’s Chief Transparency Officer. In that capacity, he is responsible for leading implementation of the Principles of Intelligence Transparency for the IC. The Principles guide how the IC should make information publicly available while protecting classified information, when disclosure would harm national security.
