ALLIED SHARING AND SIPRNET

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 STATE 083673 SIPDIS NOFORN, SIPDIS, FOR DCMS AND ALL CABLE DRAFTERS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/19/2031 TAGS: AMGT AOMS PINR ACOA KCCP SUBJECT: ALLIED SHARING AND SIPRNET Classified By: RM A/S Brad Higgins, For Reasons 1.4 (d) and (g). ¶1. (U) This is an action message. As a part of the continuing war on terrorism and in response to recommendations of the 9/11 and the WMD Commissions, the Congress and the President have mandated a number of changes in the way information is to be shared, within the federal government, between the federal government and state, local and tribal officials (including in some cases the private sector),and with certain of our allies. These changes are making obsolete certain assumptions that have governed the way that we in the State Department write, classify and mark telegrams and other communications. Chief among these are the assumptions that classified State Department telegrams and other communications will not be further disseminated by recipient agencies without the authorization of the originating agency, and that they will similarly not be shared with foreign countries without specific originating agency authorization. This does not mean that agencies originating classified information will not restrict its further dissemination, but this will increasingly require an affirmative action to mark documents to be restricted. The ground rules for additional sharing (and for restricting dissemination) are rapidly being developed within the USG, and posts will be informed as the new rules and procedures are adopted. This telegram deals with sharing information with certain allies. ¶2. (S//NF) The President has instructed that the DOD- controlled SIPRNet be a primary mechanism by which certain information is to be shared with our closest allies in the war on terror: the UK, Australia, and Canada (direct contact is still a primary mechanism also). In carrying out this directive DOD intends to provide UK, Australian, and Canadian users access to all of SIPRNet except for those documents, email, data repositories and services explicitly protected as US-only. DOD will prohibit allied access to documents marked NOFORN, as well as telegrams containing various categories of information such as Arms Export Control Act, NATO information, and Restricted Data. Moreover, DOD's official implementation guidance lists "diplomatic communications" and "foreign policy information" as categories of information generally prohibited from release to these UK/Australia/Canada personnel. ¶3. (S//NF) For exempting these categories from sharing, the DOD solution relies on a variety of network mechanisms, software tools, "dirty-word" filters, and network monitoring systems to prevent UK/Australia/Canada user access to non-releasable content on SIPRNet. The State Department remains engaged in discussions related to this DOD decision. In March 2006 State provided DOD with a comprehensive list of keywords, phrases, markings and other unique identifiers for DOD to use within filters to identify and prevent disclosure of non-releasable, US-only diplomatic reporting information on SIPRNet. A variety of State-specific channels and captions were included among this list of prohibited reporting, e.g., NODIS, LIMDIS, ROGER, EXDIS, SIPDIS, STADIS, OIG, DISSENT, MED, and DS Channel. State at that time also instructed DOD to blacklist all of State's US-only SIPRNet websites to prevent allied user access, meaning that all URLs that begin with "ses.state.sgov.gov","source.ds.state.sgov.go v", "state.sgov.gov", and "ncd.state.sgov.gov" among others are blocked. ¶4. (S//NF) The Department remains actively engaged with the DOD and Director of National Intelligence to ensure that appropriate technical controls are implemented to protect State US-only reporting on SIPRNet. At this stage, however, the filters may not protect all State Department information that should not be shared. Therefore, any State Department reporting that should not be directly accessed by UK/Australia/Canada officials must be marked "NOFORN". This will include, for instance, much information obtained from or about other countries in normal diplomatic intercourse. In many cases this will be a more stringent restriction than desirable because some information not appropriate for sharing with the UK, Australia and Canada will need to be shared with other countries, and in other cases State officials may determine that the information should at some point be released to appropriate allies with access to SIPRNet. However, pending the development of a more refined filtering system or the adoption of additional marking categories, all State STATE 00083673 002 OF 002 Department classified material not intended to be shared with the UK/Australia/Canada, as well as material explicitly intended for a US-only audience, including memorandums, briefings, cables, emails, and other electronically disseminated information, must be marked NOFORN. ¶5. (S//NF) As information is increasingly disseminated electronically within the USG, drafters should adopt insofar as possible common interagency classification and dissemination markings. Diplomatic reporting that is authorized for release to a specific country, or countries, should insofar as possible be marked as "REL TO X", where X is the ISO country code for the country specified for release. Such marking should include the USA country code in addition to the foreign country code. For example, a USG CONFIDENTIAL document approved for release to the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada must be marked, "C//REL TO USA, GBR, AUS, CAN". Cables marked releasable to our UK, Australian, and Canadian partners will not be released to other foreign governments unless specifically included within the REL TO field using the appropriate ISO country code. If necessary, additional sharing instructions should be included in the first paragraph of the text. Again, however, it is recognized that it is often not possible to determine when drafting a document to which countries it may be appropriate to release some or all of the information at which point in time. Accordingly, a NOFORN marking or the absence of a "REL TO" marking does not constitute a prohibition on further dissemination of Department of State information when an authorized Department of State official decides that dissemination is appropriate. Other agency information, however, should not be disseminated except in accordance with markings or with the subsequent authorization of the agency in question. ¶6. (U) The A bureau is currently preparing related document classification and dissemination marking instructions for inclusion within the FAM, and it is likely that additional guidance will be provided via telegram in the coming months. For directives relating to the collaborative sharing with the UK, Australia, and Canada mandated by the President, see: http://www.ismc.sgov.gov/Collaboration/gbr- aus-proxy-info/. For a current listing on of ISO country codes,visit:http://capco.dssc.sgov.gov/security_info/iso3 16 6-countrycodes.html. ¶7. (U) Minimize considered. RICE