Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

The Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties assists our dedicated colleagues to secure our country while preserving our freedoms and our way of life. We help our colleagues in four ways:

• Providing advice to Departmental leadership on civil rights and civil liberties issues
• Investigating and resolving complaints filed by members of the public
• Providing leadership to the Department’s Equal Employment Opportunity Programs
• Serving as an information and communication channel with the public

Reports

• No FEAR Act FY 2008 Annual Report to Congress (PDF, 59 pages - 6.15 MB)
• Quarterly Report to Congress, October-December 2008 (PDF, 14 pages - 439.73 KB)
• Annual Report to Congress 2008, (PDF, 35 pages - 481.3 KB)
• Civil Liberties Impact Assessment- State, Local, and Regional Fusion Center Initiative, December 2008, (PDF, 9 pages - 196.33 KB)
• Quarterly Report to Congress, January-March 2008, (PDF, 11 pages - 92.9 KB)
• Quarterly Report to Congress, April-June 2008, (PDF, 11 pages - 90.4 KB)
• Quarterly Report to Congress, October- December 2007, (PDF, 11 pages - 164 KB)
• Annual Report to Congress 2007, (PDF, 34 pages - 419 KB)
• Annual Report to Congress 2005-2006, May 2007 (PDF, 82 pages - 66 MB)
• Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 705 of the Homeland Security Act and the Establishment of the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, June 2004 (PDF, 51 pages - 830 KB)

Organization

The office is led by the Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties who provides advice to the Secretary and the senior officers of the Department on a full range of civil rights and civil liberties issues.

Learn more about the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Organization.

Guidance and Statements

• Privacy and Civil Liberties Policy Guidance Memorandum 2009-01 The Federal Information Sharing Environment (ISE) is designed to facilitate the sharing of terrorism information and weapons of mass destruction information, and homeland security information among all relevant entities through the combination of information sharing policies, procedures, and technologies. The ISE serves the imperatives of enhanced information sharing to combat terrorism and protecting information privacy in the course of increased information access and collaboration across and among ISE participants. The President’s program manager for the ISE issued the ISE guidelines to ensure that the information privacy and other legal rights of Americans are protected in the development and use of the ISE which require relevant entities to have a written privacy protection policy that is at least as comprehensive as these guidelines. This document constitutes the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal ISE Privacy and Civil Liberties Protection Policy.  June 5, 2009 (PDF, 12 pages - 261 KB)
  
• Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Privacy Statement  There are additional specific privacy policies regarding information for the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties pages, in addition to the general privacy policy of the Department of Homeland Security Web site.

More on DHS.gov

• Interagency Coordinating Council on Emergency Preparedness and Individuals with Disabilities
• Privacy Office