DSAC
In fall 2005, a steering committee composed of CSOs from a number of the country’s largest corporations began meeting with Bureau officials and members of the State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) at FBI Headquarters. The committee’s objective was to create a domestic security organization modeled after OSAC to connect private sector security experts with each other and to serve as a vehicle for exchanging information with the Bureau. The FBI agreed to set up and lead this Domestic Security Alliance Council (DSAC), which was officially approved by the FBI Director in December 2005.
Today, DSAC is a public-private partnership offered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Office of Private Sector and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis. DSAC facilitates strong, enduring relationships among its private sector member companies, across the FBI enterprise, and with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Headquarters and Fusion Centers, in addition to other federal government entities to detect, prevent, and deter criminal acts. The program expands the U.S. private sector’s ability to protect its employees, assets and information by providing ongoing access to security information and a network of security experts, as well as continuing education for corporate chief security officers and intelligence analysts.
DSAC currently consists of more than 650 member organizations representing every critical sector and over 70 unique business subsectors. Membership is corporate-based, free and open to for-profit U.S.-based organizations. The DSAC Program Office is headquartered in Washington, D.C. DSAC is overseen by an eight-member public-private Executive Working Group (EWG) comprised of individual chief security leaders from around the country. DSAC’s leadership also includes four committees that carry out the work of the EWG.