How the President’s Daily Brief Is Prepared, Who Sees It, and How Governors Receive Related Intelligence
Context The President’s Daily Brief (PDB) is the U.S. government’s most sensitive, all-source intelligence product for the President and a select group of senior national security officials. This article explains how the PDB is prepared—covering collection, curation, and briefing—why it exists for decision support, who has access, why distribution is tightly controlled, and how state governors receive related but different intelligence through Homeland Security channels. A declassified example—the 6 August 2001 PDB (“Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US”)—shows its format and use. The article also considers the likelihood that news media have genuine access to current PDB content and offers a suggested checklist for assessing media or social media claims of “privileged” PDB information. What the PDB Is—and Why It Exists The PDB is a classified daily intelligence digest compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI) PDB staff in collaboration with the CIA’s Dir...
