Speaker: Michael D. Thomas, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
Abstract: The United States government generates and maintains vast amounts of information, put to use every day for the public good. Some of this information, gathered in the interest of our national security, demands special safeguarding. The Information Security Oversight Office is singularly positioned to provide insight into the management and health of this unique – and uniquely valuable – national resource, performing an essential role in ensuring that national security information is both assiduously protected and judiciously shared. Balancing such secrecy with transparency remains a foundational tension in American governance. Today, it is widely recognized that we too often privilege the former, with our government keeping far too many secrets for far too long, failing to meet modern expectations of accessibility to records of extraordinary public interest. Chronic overprotection of information, infrastructure fragmentation, and inadequate public access to records of significant civic interest have consistently eroded public trust and squandered institutional value, while paradoxically undermining the security such secrecy purports to serve. We are in a moment of epochal technological change and to meet this moment our current concepts for information management must evolve. Modernization — encompassing the thoughtful integration of emerging technologies including artificial intelligence — presents a path to a more efficient, accurate, and automated classification and declassification system for national security information. Such advances could meaningfully resolve systemic deficiencies that have persisted largely unaddressed for decades. The challenge is substantial, to shift the structures – and cultures – of a system that has operated largely unchanged decades. But it is more than balanced by the scale of the opportunity that awaits, when we unlock the full value of our information, making good on our foundational promise of accountable government, and in so doing, advancing our nation’s security, prosperity, and values.
Bio: Michael D. Thomas is Director of the Information Security Oversight Office, responsible to the President for oversight of U.S. Government-wide information security programs. He previously served on the White House National Security Council and at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Thomas began his career at the National Archives, departing to work as an investigator for private clients as well as in the public interest. He also spent time with a series of start-ups, including two ranked among Inc. Magazine’s “500 Fastest Growing Companies in America.” Thomas is a graduate of George Washington University, studying Philosophy and International Affairs.