The

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

Presidential Policy Directive 19, signed by President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

, is designed to ensure that employees who serve in the Intelligence Community or have access to

classified information Classified information is material that a government body deems to be sensitive information that must be protected. Access is restricted by law or regulation to particular groups of people with the necessary security clearance and need to k ...

can effectively report waste, fraud, and abuse, while protecting classified information. It is the executive order establishing standards for all Federal agencies with employees covered by the Directive, including those under

Defense Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection The Defense Intelligence Community Whistleblower Program (DICWP) is a sub-mission of the Department of Defense Whistleblower Program. In administering the DICWP, the Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Defense (DoDIG) balances the c ...

and the U.S.

Department of Defense Whistleblower Program The Department of Defense Whistleblower Program in the United States is a whistleblower protection program within the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) whereby DoD personnel are trained on whistleblower rights. The Inspector General's commitment ...

. It also prohibits retaliation against these employees for their reports.The White House, Washington, D.C.
Presidential Policy Directive 19
October 10, 2012. PPD-19 accordingly establishes a system of Intelligence community whistleblowing and source protection under the Office,

Director of National Intelligence The director of national intelligence (DNI) is a senior, cabinet-level United States government official, required by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 to serve as executive head of the United States Intelligence Comm ...

and supervised by the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (IC IG). National security directives are used by the Executive Branch, specifically the White House, to disseminate presidential decisions on matters of national security. The Obama Administration called them Presidential Policy Directives or PPDs.

Goals

PPD-19, as written, states that it: *Prohibits retaliation against any officer or employee of a covered agency within the Intelligence Community. *Prohibits retaliation by affecting eligibility for access to classified information. *Allows for employees who allege reprisal to request an external review by a three-member Inspector General panel if the applicable review process is exhausted. However, the Panel can only make recommendations back to the head of the agency and cannot require agencies to correct retaliation. PPD-19 did not originally protect national security contractors like

Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and s ...

from any form of reprisal except decisions connected to their security clearance. According to whistle-blower lawyer Mark Zaid, excluding contractors was "a remarkable and obviously intentional oversight, given the significant number of contractors who now work within the intelligence community." The procedures for this directive did not go into effect until July 2013, after

made his disclosures. Protections for intelligence community contractors were codified within the

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("FISA" , ) is a United States federal law that establishes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and the collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign po ...

Reauthorization Act of 2018. Parts of PPD-19 were codified into law in the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014.

References

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External links

President Policy Directive PPD-19
United States national security directives Presidency of Barack Obama Whistleblower protection legislation Whistleblowing in the United States Grounds for termination of employment United States federal labor legislation United States Department of Defense