HR-7856 : Still Just a Bill

Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021

This bill authorizes various intelligence-related activities for FY2021 and contains other related provisions.

The bill's provisions include those

• requiring each intelligence community element to notify Congress before conducting certain activities, including providing support to a government response to a domestic civil disturbance, with some exceptions, or engaging in an activity pursuant to a presidential emergency action document;
• generally prohibiting the intelligence community from awarding a contract for a national security satellite that uses a star tracker not produced in the United States;
• providing for paid leave for a civilian intelligence community employee to address a serious health condition;
• establishing the Office of the Ombudsman for Analytic Objectivity;
• requiring the Department of Homeland Security to establish an intelligence and cybersecurity diversity fellowship program, which may provide an eligible individual with a paid internship or employment offer upon graduation;
• imposing certain protections related to intelligence community inspectors general, such as by limiting when the President may remove such an inspector general and limiting who may serve as an acting inspector general;
• providing for criminal penalties in certain instances for a federal government employee or officer who knowingly and willfully discloses the identity of an intelligence community whistleblower;
• requiring a political committee to report certain foreign contacts and establishing criminal penalties for violations of such requirements in certain instances; and
• prohibiting the use of funds made available to the intelligence community for FY2021 to enable or assist air strikes in Yemen by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition.