The Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) is an advisory committee established by the United States Congress with the official mandate of promoting the fullest possible public access to a thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary record of significant U.S. national security decisions and activities. The Board is composed of nine individuals: five appointed by the President of the United States and one each appointed by the Speaker of the House, House Minority Leader, Senate Majority Leader, and Senate Minority Leader. Appointees must be U.S. citizens preeminent in the fields of history, national security, foreign policy, intelligence policy, social science, law, or archives.
Established by the Public Interest Declassification Act of 2000 (Title VII of P.L. 106–567, 114 Stat. 2856), the board advises the President of the United States regarding issues pertaining to national classification and declassification policy. Section 1102 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 extended and modified the Board.
The director of the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) serves as the executive secretary of the PIDB, and ISOO staff provides support on a reimbursable basis. In December 2020, President Donald Trump appointed Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Ezra Cohen to chair the Public Interest Declassification Board.
Functions Advises the President and other executive branch officials on the systematic, thorough, coordinated, and comprehensive identification, collection, review for declassification, and release of declassified records and materials that are of archival value, including records and materials of extraordinary public interest. Promotes public access to thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary records of significant U.S. national security decisions and significant U.S. national security activities in order to: support the oversight and legislative functions of Congress; support the policymaking role of the executive branch; respond to the interest of the public in national security matters; and promote reliable historical analysis and new avenues of historical study in national security matters. Provides recommendations to the President for the identification, collection, and review for declassification of information of public interest that would not undermine U.S. national security Advises executive branch officials on policies deriving from Executive orders regarding the classification and declassification of national security information. Makes recommendations to the President regarding congressional committee requests to declassify certain records or to reconsider a declination to declassify specific records.
Board members
Presidential Appointees
Paul-Noel Chretien - Appointed to a three-year term by Donald Trump on December 30, 2020. Mr Chretien has a B.A. in economics from Virginia Tech and a J.D. from George Washington University Law School. After time in private practice in Washington D.C., he joined the U.S. Department of Justice, practicing Freedom of Information Act (United States) and Privacy Act of 1974 law. From 2000 until 2019, Mr. Chretien worked at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he held a variety of positions, including Chairman of the Publications Review Board and Liaison Representative to the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP) at the National Archives. In his role as Liaison Representative, Mr. Chretien was responsible for justifying either the declassification of CIA documents or their continued classification to protect national security. Mr. Chretien retired from the CIA in 2019 and is now a management consultant and technical writer at Leidos. Ezra Cohen; - Appointed to a three-year term by Donald Trump on January 11, 2021. Mr Cohen was designated chair for two years on the same date. He has a B.A. in history from the University of Pennsylvania. He has been Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, Director for Defense Intelligence and Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict among other government positions. Laura A. DeBonis - Appointed to a shorter term that will end December 29, 2023 by Joseph Biden on November 30, 2021. She has a B.A. and an M.B.A from Harvard College and Harvard Business School respectively. Ms. DeBonis previously served on the Board from 2015 to 2018 as an appointee of President Barack Obama. Her professional experience include several positions at Google and as a consultant to start ups and non profits. Ms. DeBonis is an emerita trustee for the WGBH Educational Foundation in Boston and has also served as a trustee of the Boston Public Library. Michael G. Lawrence - Appointed to a three-year term by Donald Trump on October 9, 2020. He has a B.S. in Criminal Justice from John Jay College and attended Western Michigan Law School. Before retiring in 2019, he worked in the Intelligence Community in roles such as the Director of the Enterprise Functional Team at the National Security Agency, Senior Advisor to the Director of National Intelligence, National Security Agency Chair at the National Defense University at Ft. McNair, Director in the Office of Strategic Communications, Business Plans, and Operations at the National Reconnaissance Office, and Principal Director for Legislative Affairs at the NSA. Benjamin A. Powell - Appointed to a three-year term by Donald Trump on October 9, 2020. He has degrees in and finance and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. Prior to law school, he was an officer in the Air Force supporting the intelligence missions of United States Space Command Joint Space Intelligence Center, Fleet Intelligence Centers, National Maritime Intelligence Center and more and worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Powell clerked on the United States Supreme Court for Justices John Paul Stevens and Byron White, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for Judge John M. Walker, Jr. He was White House representative to the President's Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, Special Assistant to the President and Associate White House Counsel from 2002 to 2006 and General Counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Congressional Appointees
Carter Burwell - Appointed to a three-year term by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell beginning February 15, 2022. Mr. Burwell received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and a B.A. from Columbia University. He was a law clerk for John Gleeson, U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of New York, and for Karen Henderson on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He was then a counter-terrorism prosecutor at the Department of Justice. He has also been Chief Counsel to U.S. Senator John Cornyn, Counsel to U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley and Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. Harold W. ("Trey") Gowdy - Appointed to a three-year term by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy beginning August 24, 2020. Mr. Gowdy holds a B.A. in history from Baylor University and a J.D. from the University of South Carolina. He was a prosecutor in South Carolina for 16 years. Mr. Gowdy served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina's 4th congressional district from 2011 to 2019. Rep. Gowdy's committee assignments included the House Judiciary Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He chaired the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the United States House Select Committee on Benghazi. Alissa M. Starzak - Appointed by Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer for a three-year term beginning on February 15, 2022. She serves as vice chair of the board, as elected by the members. She graduated from Amherst College and the University of Chicago Law School, where she served as an editor of the University of Chicago Law Review. She clerked for E. Grady Jolly, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Ms. Starzak served as counsel to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Assistant General Counsel at the Central Intelligence Agency’s Office of General Counsel, Deputy General Counsel for Legislation at the U.S. Department of Defense, and the 21st General Counsel of the U.S. Department of the Army. John F. Tierney - Appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a three-year term beginning on July 1, 2020. He holds a B.A. from Salem State College and J.D. from Suffolk University Law School. Mr. Tierney is a former nine-term Massachusetts Congressman who served on the House Intelligence Committee and chaired the National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee of the Government Oversight and Reform Committee.
Previous Board Members Martin Faga - Appointed to a four-year term by President George W. Bush in October 2004 and reappointed for a three-year term in January 2009. In 2005, he was appointed to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Faga was president and chief executive officer of the Mitre Corporation from 2000 to 2006 and is currently a member of its board of trustees. Before joining Mitre, Faga served from 1989 until 1993 as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space with primary emphasis on policy, strategy, and planning. At the same time, he served as Director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Faga's career included service as a staff member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where he headed the program and budget staff; as an engineer at the Central Intelligence Agency; and as a research and development officer in the Air Force. Faga received bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from Lehigh University in 1963 and 1964. Herbert O. Briick - Appointed to a three-year term by President George W. Bush in October 2008. Briick is currently a senior analyst for a subsidiary of General Dynamics. Briick retired from the Central Intelligence Agency in January 2008, following a 33-year career which included service in every directorate of the Agency. For the last five years of his career he was responsible for the management of the CIA declassification program. In that capacity he took part in a wide variety of declassification issues involving the National Security Council, the National Archives and Records Administration, the presidential libraries, the Office of the Historian in the Department of State, other members of the Intelligence Community, the Congress, and non-governmental organizations. He promoted a number of successful initiatives to release previously classified National Intelligence Estimates and other CIA records of historic significance. Briick was awarded the Career Intelligence Medal in recognition of his service to the CIA. Briick graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1973 with a Bachelor of Arts in history and received his Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy in international security studies from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in 1975.