Senate Intelligence Committee Votes to Bolster Whistleblower Protections
WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee backed new protections for intelligence community whistleblowers and new reporting requirements for political campaigns as part of a broader intelligence authorization bill.
The legislation, approved 14-1 by the panel on Wednesday, follows President Donald Trump repeatedly lashing out at a whistleblower, whose complaint about the president’s telephone call with Ukraine’s president led to his impeachment in the Democratic-led House. Trump was acquitted by the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans.
The committee supported measures that would prohibit leaking a whistleblower’s identity, clarify the definition of an “urgent concern” that must be transmitted to Congress, and allows both the intelligence community inspector general and whistleblowers to come directly to the intelligence committees in the House and Senate.
Sharing a complaint with the subject of it without written consent would also be made a crime.
It also includes panel Vice Chairman Mark Warner’s legislation requiring political campaign officials to report when foreign nationals make offers of donations or other assistance and cooperation, according to a committee aide.
Acting Intelligence Chairman Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, and Warner, a Virginia Democrat, jointly announced the broad intelligence authorization legislation Wednesday after the vote.
The bill “represents the Senate Intelligence Committee’s strong, bipartisan effort to give our Intelligence Community the resources, authorities, and personnel to protect America’s national security while increasing government efficiency,” Rubio said.
Warner said the measure “takes key steps to improve our national security, including investments in 5G technology, reforms to our security clearance process, and important protections for whistleblowers to report wrongdoing.” Warner said.
The legislation includes efforts to confront attempts to compromise U.S. networks and computers, ensure secure 5G networks with open standards and identify Chinese corruption and influence operations especially regarding Hong Kong, according to the committee.
The committee also said the bill includes provisions targeting corruption by Russian and Eastern European oligarchs, and protecting against foreign influence threats and election interference on social media.
———
©2020 Bloomberg News
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
In The News
Health
Voting
Intelligence
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden ordered U.S. intelligence officials to "redouble" their efforts to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, including any possibility the trail might lead to a Chinese laboratory. After months of minimizing that possibility as a fringe theory, the Biden administration... Read More
WASHINGTON - Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., is pressing for a comprehensive assessment of China’s efforts to expand its presence and influence in Latin America and the Caribbean and how these efforts could undermine American interests. Under the auspices of a new bill Murphy has authored, the... Read More
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden announced Monday he has chosen veteran diplomat William Burns to be his CIA director. A former ambassador to Russia and Jordan, Burns, 64, had a 33-year career at the State Department under both Republican and Democratic presidents. He rose through... Read More
WASHINGTON - China, Russia and Iran are continuing to try to disrupt political campaigns and the 2020 general election, posing "a direct threat to the fabric of our Democracy," the nation's top counterintelligence official said Friday. William Evanina, director of the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security... Read More
Russian state intelligence is hacking international research centers that are racing to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, the U.K., U.S. and Canadian governments said. It is unclear whether research facilities have been damaged or if the vaccine programs have been set back as a result of the... Read More
WASHINGTON - Reps. Joe Cunningham, D-S.C., and Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., want intelligence officials to immediately notify key members of Congress when they determine -- with moderate to high confidence -- that a foreign government is deliberately seeking to kill or severely injure U.S. service members. The... Read More
