President's Daily Brief
The President's Daily Brief[1] (PDB), sometimes referred to as the President's Daily Briefing or the President's Daily Bulletin, is a top-secret document produced each morning for the President of the United States. Responsibility for producing the PDB — which was traditionally that of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency — was transferred to the Director of National Intelligence on April 21, 2005, upon the confirmation of John Negroponte by the Senate.[2]
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Purpose and history[edit]
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This section does not cite any references or sources. (November 2009) |
The PDB is intended to provide the president of the United States with new international intelligence warranting attention and analysis of sensitive international situations. The prototype of the PDB was termed the President's Intelligence Check List; the first was produced by CIA officer Richard Lehman at the direction of Huntington D. Sheldon on June 17, 1961.
Although the production and coordination of the PDB was a CIA responsibility, other members of the U.S. Intelligence Community reviewed articles (the "coordination" process) and were free to write and submit articles for inclusion.
While the name of the PDB implies exclusivity, it has historically been briefed to other high officials. The distribution list has varied over time, but has always or almost always included the Secretaries of State and Defense and the National Security Advisor. Rarely, special editions of the PDB have actually been "for the President's eyes only," with further dissemination of the information left to the President's discretion.
Production of the PDB is associated with that of another publication, historically known as the National Intelligence Daily, that includes many of the same items but is distributed considerably more widely than the PDB.
Sources[edit]
The PDB is an all-source intelligence product summarized from all collecting agencies.[3][4] The Washington Post noted that a leaked document indicated that the PRISM SIGAD run by National Security Agency (NSA) is "the number one source of raw intelligence used for NSA analytic reports."[5] The PDB cited PRISM data as a source in 1,477 items in the 2012 calander year.[6]
Political importance[edit]
Former Central Intelligence Director George Tenet considered the PDB so sensitive that during July 2000 he indicated to the National Archives and Records Administration that none of them could be released for publication "no matter how old or historically significant it may be."[7]
During a briefing on May 21, 2002, Ari Fleischer, former White House Press Secretary, characterized the PDB as "the most highly sensitized classified document in the government."[8]
Public awareness[edit]
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This section does not cite any references or sources. (November 2009) |
The PDB was scrutinized by news media during testimony to the 9/11 Commission, which was convened during 2004 to analyze the September 11, 2001 attacks. On April 8, 2004, after a testimony by then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, the Commission renewed calls for the declassification of a PDB from August 6, 2001, entitled Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US. Two days later, the White House complied and released the document with minimal redaction.
References[edit]
- ^ "Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of Intelligence Products Page". 2006-06-16. Archived from the original on 2006-06-16. Retrieved 2011-12-03.
- ^ CIA to Cede President's Brief to Negroponte, a February 19, 2005 Washington Post article
- ^ "A Look Back ... The President's First Daily Brief". 02-06-2008. Retrieved 06-07-2013.
- ^ "Association of Former Intelligence Officers Speech Transcript". 08-12-2011. Retrieved 06-07-2013.
- ^ "U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program". The Washington Post. June 6, 2013. Retrieved June 6, 2013.
- ^ "Prism scandal: Government program secretly probes Internet servers". 06-07-2013.
- ^ Under Bush, the Briefing Gets Briefer, a May 24, 2002 Washington Post article
- ^ Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer on May 21, 2002, from the website of the White House
