Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) is unclassified information that the United States Government creates or possesses that requires safeguarding or dissemination controls limiting its distribution to those with a lawful government purpose. Reviewers must approve CUI before releasing it to the public.
The DoD CUI Program, established through Executive Order 13556, standardizes the safeguarding of information across multiple categories. For example, CUI categories exist to protect Privacy Act information, attorney-client privileged information, and controlled technical information, among many others. The DoD CUI Registry provides a complete list of these categories at https://www.dodcui.mil.
CUI markings alert recipients to handle the information according to law, regulation, or Government-wide policy.
For DoD, CUI also enables consistent processes to safeguard information for specific national security purposes, such as physical and operational security. CUI-protected information is unclassified, but requires control to prevent the release of unclassified information that, if publicly associated with defense missions or aggregated with other sources of information, often will reveal exploitable information to adversaries or violate statutory requirements.
Who can access CUI?
- The DoD authorizes any Member of Congress and their personal or professional staff to share CUI.
- The standard for access to CUI is a “lawful government purpose.” The U.S. defines this as ‘any activity, mission, function, operation, or endeavor that the U.S. Government authorizes or recognizes as within the scope of its legal authorities or the legal authorities of a non-executive branch entity.” (32 CFR 2002.4(bb))
- Many different groups may have a “lawful government purpose” in receiving access to CUI. In addition to any Member of Congress or their staff, this may include State, Local, Tribal, and Territorial Governments, appropriate industrial partners, other Federal Agencies, Allies and Partner Nations, and members of academia.
How should members and staff handle CUI?
- Members or staff who receive a CUI-marked document—whether during a briefing or otherwise—may share it widely. CUI does not prohibit dissemination within Congress – it only prohibits public release.
- CUI markings do not prohibit Executive Branch briefers from leaving documents behind after a congressional engagement.
- Members and staff can request to keep any materials brought to a briefing.
What do the markings “Legislative Materials” and “For Committee Use Only” mean?
Agencies apply the CUI category ‘Legislative Materials’ (LMI) to protect data related to Congress’s legislative or oversight responsibilities over DoD. This includes data related to proposed or pending legislation as well as DoD responses to congressional inquiries and any other information which, if disclosed, would reveal the nature and scope of congressional inquiries to DoD.
“For Committee Use Only” indicates that only Members and staff of a particular Committee should read a document. DoD recognizes there may be a need to share information beyond the Committee. When this is necessary, DoD asks that the Committee re-engage with DoD so DoD can help remove that requested limitation where possible. For example, in extraordinary circumstances, personally identifiable information (PII) may be provided in response to a congressional investigation where PII is requested in a Chairman’s letter. In such cases, any PII production would be for Committee Use Only.
How is DoD training and reforming CUI practices internally and with Congress?
What actions is the Department taking to educate and implement proper use of CUI with Congress and internally within the Department?
- DoD requires annual CUI training. To date, 2.3 million military, civilian and contractor personnel have been trained. Training Resources are available at https://www.dodcui.mil.
- DoD is taking steps to reform its congressional reporting processes to address these concerns.
- DoD’s program is an implementation of existing federal requirements. The Department is a leading advocate for increased simplification and uniform adoption by all federal agencies of the national CUI program through an ongoing interagency review process.
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