Grenell takes steps to better protect Americans’ identities in US intelligence reports

The leader of U.S. national intelligence has issued a memo ordering the entire U.S. intelligence community to adopt consistent principles on how information on anonymous identities are disseminated in government reports. 

The memo written by Richard Grenell, the acting director of Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and obtained by Just the News states Grenell's "increasingly concerned" with intelligence reports in which the policies regarding masked identities are "inconsistently applied." 

The intelligence community for a variety of reasons regularly suppresses, or "masks," the identity of sources, subjects of investigation and other Americans that may end up in IC [intelligence community] reports. Operatives will often describe masked individuals in ways vague enough to preclude any identification of them. Yet Grenell in his memo implied that this practice is not rigorously followed throughout the community. 

"It is critical that we afford the same rigorous privacy and civil liberties protections to all U.S. persons regardless of whether they are a private citizen, Member of Congress, or an official serving within our Government’s Executive Branch," he wrote in the memo, issued late last month. 

A senior administration official involved in intelligence matters this weekend told Just the News that there is a wide variety of protocol spread out across the intelligence community. 

"There are 17 intelligence agencies and each one has its own rules for how to safeguard the identities of Americans who inadvertently appear in intelligence reporting.  Congress has rightfully created a high standard for its members and staff, but the ADNI wants to ensure the privacy of all Americans is being respected equally," the official said.

In the memo, Grenell directed “all IC elements” to review their identity dissemination protocols and “as necessary, modify internal procedures to ensure the rules governing disseminations are consistently applied.”

“Moving forward, all IC Elements should, by default, characterize U.S. person identities in disseminated intelligence reporting in a sufficiently generic manner to mask their identity,” he also said.

The director asked that every agency under his purview report back within a month to describe the steps it will take to ensure compliance with the order.