The Security, Intelligence, and Information Policy Section provides guidance and oversight designed to preserve civil rights and civil liberties in the execution of homeland security programs and activities. We work with Department components and offices to ensure that appropriate protections and safeguards are incorporated into the Department’s screening and vetting programs, information sharing and safeguarding activities, cybersecurity efforts, security technologies, and intelligence programs and products.
Screening and Vetting
We review screening and vetting programs and work to mitigate any impact on civil rights and civil liberties when the Department interacts with the millions of individuals every day who seek to enter the country, travel by air, or apply for government benefits. Our work supports the Department’s goal to advance risk-based screening while preserving individual rights.
Information Sharing and Safeguarding
We monitor information sharing and safeguarding activities as a member of the Department’s Information Sharing and Safeguarding Governance Board and ensure that civil rights and civil liberties protections are incorporated into sharing and safeguarding operations, policies, domestic agreements, and international arrangements. We also support Department efforts to safeguard government data and systems from insider threats while respecting employee rights and other workforce protections.
Cybersecurity
We support implementation of Executive Order 13636, Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, and provide advice and oversight to DHS cybersecurity efforts to foster a secure and resilient cyberspace that protects civil liberties by design.
Security Technology
We collaborate on the development and deployment of new technologies so that efforts to enhance situational awareness, improve investigative capabilities, and support operational integration build in appropriate safeguards designed to protect civil rights and civil liberties.
Intelligence Activities
We work with Department intelligence enterprise leadership and personnel and conduct compliance oversight activities to ensure intelligence programs and products adhere to civil rights and civil liberties policies and principles.
CRCL partners with the DHS Privacy Office and the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance in the development and delivery of civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy training for personnel at state and major urban area fusion centers. In support of this training mission, CRCL maintains a web portal for single point of access to the wide range of resources and training materials that address civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy.
- Best Practices for Protecting Privacy, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties in Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program
- Department of Homeland Security Federal Information Sharing Environment Privacy and Civil Liberties Policy
- Executive Order 12333, United States Intelligence Activities
- Department of Homeland Security Commitment to Nondiscriminatory Law Enforcement and Screening Activities
- Guidance for Accommodating Religious Beliefs in DHS Policies Requiring Fingerprinting or Photographic Identification
- Executive Order 13636, Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity
- Executive Order 13691, Promoting Private Sector Cybersecurity Information Sharing
- Presidential Memorandum: Promoting Economic Competitiveness While Safeguarding Privacy, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties in Domestic Use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems
By Mail or Phone
Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
2707 Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, SE
Mail Stop #0190
Washington, DC 20528-0190
Toll Free: 1-866-644-8360
TTY: Dial 711 to connect to Telecommunication Relay Services
Email: crcl@dhs.gov