In December 2023, President Biden appointed NAFUSA member David Hickton to
serve a three-year term on the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB)
beginning January 11, 2024. Hickton joins the other members of the nine-person
board who, according to the founding statute, are preeminent in the fields of
history, national security, foreign policy, intelligence policy, social science, law, or
archives.

The PIDB, which was established in 2014, advises and provides recommendations
to the President and other executive branch officials on the “systematic,
coordinated, and comprehensive identification, collection, review for
declassification, and release of declassified records and materials of historic
value…” It serves to promote the fullest possible public access to materials
without undermining the national security of the United States. Five of the nine
members are appointed by the President, and one each by the Speaker and
Minority Leader of the House, and the Majority and Minority Leaders of the
Senate. The current Chair is Mary DeRosa, a Professor from Practice and codirector of the Global Law Scholars Program at the Georgetown University Law
Center. Other members include Andrew Byrnes, Laura DeBonis, Carmen Medina,
Carter Burwell, Ezra Cohen, and Alissa Starzak.

David Hickton left the private practice of law to serve as the U.S. Attorney for the
Western District of Pennsylvania from August 2010 to November 2016, after being
nominated by President Obama. He founded the University of Pittsburgh Institute
for Cyber Law, Policy and Security in 2017 and also has faculty appointments there
as a professor in the School of Law, the School of Computing and Information, and
the Graduate School of Public Information and International Affairs. He currently
serves as Managing Trustee of the National Opioid Abatement Trust II. He is a
graduate of the Pennsylvania State University and the University of Pittsburgh
School of Law.