Announcing the Publication of ISOO’s Fiscal Year 2024 Annual Report to the President

In early August, the Information Security Oversight Office transmitted our Fiscal Year 2024 Annual Report to the President of the United States. I am pleased, today, to formally issue the report to the public, and to share it with our many stakeholders within and beyond the federal government.

In considering how to approach this, the first annual report issued during my tenure as ISOO's director, I studied our prior releases, dating all the way back to 1979. It was fascinating to observe the evolution of ISOO's mission and instructive to see how many different ways, over time, we've approached this work.

(not to mention it was also a truly wild ride through the history of civic information design).

If someone were to perform a similar bit of bureaucratic spelunking in the future, they would find that it was in Fiscal Year 2024 that ISOO first articulated its mission via four concise areas of action:

• Oversight and Compliance
• Guidance and Implementation
• Data Collection and Analysis
• Administration and Engagement

These core duties cut across ISOO's underlying authorities to consolidate what have historically been considered as an array of separate administrative program areas and information silos.

I feel confident that these newly defined entry points will make our work more accessible and that this new structure will also help ISOO better capture and convey the realities - and risks - of our modern data environment, which demands more dynamic, holistic solutions for safeguarding and sharing information.

To that end, I hope you'll take a few minutes to review the letter to the President, which introduces the annual report. It is a concise summation of where I believe our mission is headed, and therefore where ISOO, as an organization, needs to go to meet that mission.

While ISOO's reports reach back to 1979, our roots run much deeper. In fact, our mission is as old as our nation - ensuring that the information generated the American government (a unique, and uniquely valuable, national resource) is both assiduously protected and judiciously shared.

This is a responsibility that is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence itself, which while drafted in deepest secrecy, includes in its text a formal obligation to "publish and declare" its contents, marking America's commitment to transparency at the moment, and in the mechanism, of our founding.

When you next have the opportunity to visit the National Archives, along with making a mandatory spin through our magnificent Rotunda to see the Declaration in person, take time for a look at the ornate sculptures that grace the triangular pediment crowning the Archives' Pennsylvania Avenue entrance.

As you do, note of the two stone gryphons, framing the scene from each corner, These are, according to their sculptor, Adolph Weisman, the "Guardians of the Secrets of the Archives."

That's ISOO.

We've been a part of America's story since day one. And we are so integral to its telling over time that they carved us in stone on the face of the majestic building where we make our home.

You'll find these deep roots overtly reflected throughout the FY 2024 Annual Report in our explication of lawful authorities that flow from the U.S. Constitution as well as more subtly integrated via images of the bronze medallion that graces the floor of the National Archives rotunda, depicting figures who represent the purpose of the American government.

With this edition of the ISOO annual report, I like to think that we've dug down deep and found our fundament. And as our nation urgently pursues an array of improvements across the information security landscape, ISOO will work diligently to ensure that the continued evolution of its oversight capabilities are foundational to that progress.

My thanks to our team for their hard work over the last year, and also to our colleagues throughout, and beyond, government who contributed their time and energy to the development of this document.

Michael D. Thomas
DIRECTOR

View the ISOO Fiscal Year 2024 Annual Report
Visit the ISOO Annual Report Library