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Note: Contact info and telephone numbers deleted by me. # Note: The following text is a quote: Presidential Task Force on Controlled Unclassified Information Releases Report and Recommendations Release Date: December 15, 2009 For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary Secretary Napolitano and Attorney General Holder announce dedicated offices to support threat-based information sharing and reporting between all levels of government Report and Recommendations of the Presidental Task Force on Controlled Unclassified Information (PDF - 50 pages, 1.25 MB) Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder today announced two major steps in their...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA and the FBI have for the first time in two decades reached a new wide-ranging agreement on how to coordinate their intelligence activities in a post-Sept. 11 world of increasingly blurred divisions of duty, officials say. A classified memorandum of understanding, which is under review by senior Bush administration officials, redefines the relationship by which the two agencies have operated worldwide since the Cold War era of the 1980s, officials said. The document, which was jointly negotiated several weeks ago, is expected to be submitted for approval to the new director of national intelligence, John...

WASHINGTON — Bucking the trend to break down walls between law enforcement agencies, the U.S. Capitol Police (search) has asked to be able to decline information requests from the executive branch. The Capitol Police insist this power is important to protect sensitive information from Freedom of Information Act (search) requests. The executive branch is subject to FOIA requests, but the legislative branch, of which the Capitol Police is a part, is not.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite increasing concern about terrorist threats to the United States, the FBI before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was hampered by a culture resistant to change, inadequate resources and legal barriers, the national commission investigating the attacks said on Tuesday. "From the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, FBI and Department of Justice leadership in Washington and New York became increasingly concerned about the terrorist threat from Islamic extremists to U.S. interests both at home and abroad," said the report, presented at a commission hearing. Attorney General John Ashcroft, his predecessor, Janet Reno, former FBI Director...

"Information-sharing" has been the mantra driving the creation of the Homeland Security Department. That refrain seems straightforward enough until policy makers pause to consider what it means for government to collect and use personal information in the war on terrorism. They will find both practical and legal obstacles--including the Privacy Act--to the creation of such government databases. The legislation creating the new department did nothing to loosen the government's data-handling rules, but an intense interest in one project, the Total Information Awareness system, within the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has focused attention on the privacy issues inherent in...

Sources:  Reuters  |  AP  |  ABCNEWS.com   Friday March 15 3:24 AM ETLawmakers Demand Anti-Terror Details By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress may have to cut into spending that President Bush wants if his administration keeps unconstitutionally withholding information about anti-terror efforts at home, a House member said. And that was a Republican. White House budget chief Mitchell Daniels got it from both sides of the aisle in the latest clash between Congress and the White House over information sharing and the war. By the end of a hearing before members of the House Appropriations Committee,...