AFI 61-204: Public Release Review and Distribution Statements

Air Force Instruction 61-204 is the older designation for the rules that govern how scientific and technical information gets cleared for release outside the Department of the Air Force. The instruction has been superseded: the governing document today is DAFI 61-104, “Management of Scientific and Technical Information (STINFO),” issued 25 August 2025. The core requirement has not changed. Before any unclassified technical material reaches an outside audience, it must pass a formal review covering security, policy, and export controls, and the document must carry a distribution statement that matches how it was cleared.

From AFI 61-204 to DAFI 61-104

If your local procedures still cite AFI 61-204, those references now point to DAFI 61-104.¹ The Air Force renumbered and updated the instruction to align with the restructured DAFPD 61-1 policy directive. DAFI 61-104 provides guidance for creating, protecting, disseminating, archiving, and destroying Air Force scientific and technical information, and it implements the Department of Defense’s broader Scientific and Technical Information Program established by DoDI 3200.12.²

Everything that follows describes the current instruction. If you were sent a checklist or template that still uses the 61-204 number, treat it as valid guidance only where it matches the requirements below.

Who Has to Follow It

DAFI 61-104 covers all active-duty military members and civilian employees of both the Department of the Air Force and the Space Force who are involved in science, technology, or engineering work. That includes researchers at Air Force Research Laboratory facilities, test engineers, program managers overseeing development contracts, and anyone producing technical content under Air Force funding.

The obligation extends to outside partners. Contractors, grantees, and organizations working under cooperative agreements comply through contractual clauses. The Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement requires final scientific or technical reports from contractors to include proper distribution statements and be submitted to the Defense Technical Information Center.³

What Needs a Public Release Review

Virtually any unclassified technical material you intend to share outside authorized government channels needs formal clearance first. “Public release” means disclosure to anyone not already authorized to receive the information, whether that is posting a paper on a personal website, presenting at a conference, or publishing in a peer-reviewed journal. Format doesn’t matter. Digital files, printed documents, oral presentations, and poster sessions all trigger the requirement.

Common materials that need review:

Journal articles and conference papers, including drafts submitted for peer review
Technical reports: interim, annual, and final
Theses and dissertations, when the work was funded by or conducted for the Air Force
Presentations and speeches, including slides, talking points, and recordings
Posters and abstracts. A 200-word conference abstract counts.

The review checks three things: that the material contains no classified or controlled information that would be improperly disclosed, that it is technically accurate, and that it complies with export-control regulations. A document cannot carry Distribution Statement A (“Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited”) until it has passed this process.⁴

The Fundamental Research Carve-Out

One important exception applies to fundamental research. Under National Security Decision Directive 189, basic or applied research in science and engineering whose results are ordinarily published and shared broadly within the scientific community is treated differently from proprietary or classified work. Technical information resulting from contracted fundamental research is normally assigned Distribution Statement A without the full security review, except in rare cases where the material would reveal unique and critical military system performance characteristics or manufacturing technologies.⁴

For the exclusion to apply, the research must be conducted within the United States, the contract or agreement must impose no publication restrictions beyond a limited proprietary-information review, and there can be no sponsor restrictions on the nationality of personnel involved. If any of those conditions is absent, the work does not qualify and must go through the standard clearance process. The contracting officer must determine in writing that the research meets the fundamental research definition.

Preparing Your Submission

Good preparation saves weeks. Packages stall most often because they are incomplete, so getting the paperwork right on the first pass matters more than people realize.

Standard Form 298

The backbone of the submission is Standard Form 298, the Report Documentation Page.⁵ The one-page form captures what a reviewer needs to evaluate and catalog your document. Key fields:

Report type: annual, final, interim, or other category
Dates covered by the research
Contract or grant number. Contracts go in Block 5a, grants and cooperative agreements in Block 5b.
Block 12, the distribution statement. This must match the statement on the document itself.
Block 14, the abstract. An unclassified summary of roughly 200 words covering the most significant findings.

Inconsistent markings between the SF 298 and the document are a common reason for rejection. Before submitting, compare Block 12 against the distribution statement printed on your document’s first page.³

Internal Coordination

Before the package leaves your office, you will typically need sign-off from your program manager confirming the material aligns with the program’s scope, and from your local security manager verifying the document is unclassified. All authors and contributors must be accurately listed, along with the intended venue for disclosure. The completed package goes to your organization’s Scientific and Technical Information (STINFO) manager, who serves as the single point of contact for STINFO activities at your unit and ensures the submission is complete before routing it into the formal review chain.⁶

The Review Pipeline

Once the STINFO manager accepts your package, it enters the formal review. Specifics vary by organization, but the general flow involves security review, policy review, and export-control screening.

Security and Policy Review

The Air Force’s public affairs office handles initial security review for materials containing only Air Force equities. Security reviewers determine whether the submission contains classified or sensitive information and forward relevant portions to subject-matter experts. If the material touches on programs or information belonging to agencies outside the Air Force, the request goes to the Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review (DOPSR), which becomes the release authority.⁷ The policy review runs in parallel and checks whether the content aligns with established Department of Defense and Air Force positions.

Export-Control Screening

This is where many submissions hit delays. Reviewers check whether the material contains technical data controlled under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) or the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). ITAR covers defense articles and related technical data on the United States Munitions List; EAR covers dual-use items. If your paper describes performance parameters of a weapons system, manufacturing processes for controlled items, or software with military applications, expect the export-control review to add time. Material containing export-controlled technical data cannot receive Distribution Statement A and must instead carry a more restrictive statement.⁴

Timelines and Outcomes

Plan for several weeks at minimum. Complex or sensitive material can take significantly longer, particularly when multiple agencies must weigh in. If you have a conference deadline, start the clearance process well before the abstract submission date, not after you’ve finished the paper. The three possible outcomes are full approval, approval contingent on specified changes, or disapproval. A disapproval typically comes with an explanation of what information triggered the objection, and you can often revise and resubmit.

Distribution Statements A Through F

Every technical document leaving a DoD organization must carry a distribution statement on its first page or cover, regardless of format. The statement must include both the letter code and the full text.⁴ There are six statements, and the one assigned to your document determines who can access it:

Statement A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. The only statement that allows truly open dissemination, and only applied to unclassified information that has passed the public release review.
Statement B. Distribution limited to U.S. Government agencies only. Controlled for reasons like export restrictions, proprietary information, or operations security. Anyone else must request access through the controlling DoD office.
Statement C. Distribution limited to U.S. Government agencies and their contractors. Common for export-controlled or critical technology information.
Statement D. Distribution limited to the Department of Defense and U.S. DoD contractors only. Narrower than Statement C because it excludes other federal agencies.
Statement E. Distribution limited to DoD components only, meaning military personnel and DoD civilian employees. Contractors are excluded.
Statement F. Further distribution only as directed by the controlling DoD office. The most restrictive, and it cannot be applied to scientific or technical information governed by DoDI 3200.12.

Each restricted statement (B through F) must include the specific reason for the restriction and the date of determination.⁸ If your document does not qualify for Statement A, work with your STINFO manager to identify the correct statement and controlling office.

CUI Markings for Restricted Documents

Documents assigned Distribution Statement B through E that contain Controlled Unclassified Information need specific CUI markings beyond the distribution statement itself. Two CUI categories most commonly apply to Air Force technical work: export-controlled information and controlled technical information.⁹

The mandatory markings:

Page markings. The acronym “CUI” at the top and bottom of every page. Do not add “UNCLASSIFIED” before “CUI,” and do not add the CUI category to page headers or footers.
Designation indicator block. Required on the first page or cover, this block identifies the creating office, the CUI categories in the document, the applicable distribution statement, and a point-of-contact name with phone number or email.
Full distribution statement. Written out in full on the first page, in addition to the letter code in the designation indicator block.

Portion markings on individual paragraphs, figures, and tables are optional but recommended. If you use them at all, you must apply them to every portion in the document. You cannot mark some paragraphs and skip others.

The Separate Obligation to Submit to DTIC

Clearing your document for public release is only half the obligation. DoD regulations separately require that all results from research, development, test, and evaluation efforts be submitted to the Defense Technical Information Center, regardless of outcome.² DTIC serves as the central repository for DoD scientific and technical information, and posting your document on an organizational website does not satisfy this requirement.³

Submissions must contain enough detail for another researcher to understand the purpose, scope, approach, results, and conclusions of your work. Merely providing citations to where the information can be found elsewhere doesn’t count. The submission must include the SF 298 with a distribution statement already assigned. DTIC will not accept documents without one. Negative results are just as required as positive ones. The point is to prevent duplication of effort across the department.

What Happens If You Skip the Process

Releasing technical data without clearance is not a paperwork formality you can fix after the fact. The consequences depend on what kind of information was disclosed and how it was controlled.

For CUI generally, unauthorized disclosure triggers reporting to the Unauthorized Disclosure Program Management Office and notification of the appropriate military counterintelligence organization. Senior leaders and supervisors must take appropriate administrative, legal, or corrective action proportional to the violation.¹⁰ That can mean a letter of reprimand, loss of security clearance, or termination.

The stakes escalate sharply when export-controlled technical data is involved. Unauthorized disclosure of ITAR-controlled information can result in both civil and criminal sanctions under the Arms Export Control Act. Violations have led to penalties in the hundreds of millions of dollars for defense contractors and potential imprisonment for individuals. Even an unintentional release, such as emailing a controlled technical drawing to a foreign collaborator without a license, can trigger an enforcement action. A formal inquiry is not required for every CUI incident, but that means the decision rests with leadership, and leadership has wide discretion.

Practical Tips for Smooth Clearance

People who go through this process regularly learn a few things the hard way. Start the review the moment you have a reviewable draft, not when you have a camera-ready final. Conference deadlines don’t move, review timelines are unpredictable, and “I need it by Friday” has never accelerated a security review.

Write your abstract and SF 298 with the reviewer in mind. A clear, jargon-light abstract helps the security reviewer understand the scope of your work quickly, which reduces the chance they’ll flag something out of caution that isn’t sensitive. Make sure co-authors agree on the author list before submission. Last-minute changes restart portions of the review at some organizations.

If your work builds on earlier cleared publications, note that in your submission. Reviewers can move faster when they can see the underlying methodology was already approved and your new paper only adds incremental results. If you’re a contractor, coordinate with your contracting officer’s representative early. The government side often needs to concur before your organization’s clearance office will accept the package.

1
Department of the Air Force. DAFI 61-104 – Management of Scientific and Technical Information (STINFO)
2
Department of Defense. DoDI 3200.12 – DoD Scientific and Technical Information Program (STIP)
3
Defense Technical Information Center. Defense Technical Information Center FAQs
4
Department of Defense. DoDI 5230.24 – Distribution Statements on DoD Technical Documents
5
General Services Administration. Report Documentation Page
6
Department of Defense. The USAF STINFO Program Overview
7
Department of Defense Inspector General. Review of the Policies for Prepublication Review of DoD Classified and Controlled Unclassified Information
8
DoD CUI Program. Distribution Statements
9
Department of Defense. Cleared CUI Training Aid – Markings
10
Department of Defense. DoDI 5200.48 – Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI)