Review – S 4443 Reported in the Senate– FY 2025 Intel Authorization

Last week, Sen Warner (D,VA) introduced S 4443, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025. This bill extends various intelligence agency authorizations and provides congressional directives and oversight to those agencies. The bill contains a number of cybersecurity provisions that may be of interest outside the intelligence community.

Sections addressing cyber security issues of potential concern include:

§313. Report on sensitive commercially available information.

§401. Strategy and outreach on risks posed by People's Republic of China smartport technology.

§510. Management of artificial intelligence security risks. (similar to S 4230)

§511. Protection of technological measures designed to verify authenticity or provenance of machine-manipulated media.

§512. Sense of Congress on hostile foreign cyber actors.

§513. Designation of state sponsors of ransomware and reporting requirements.

§514. Deeming ransomware threats to critical infrastructure a national intelligence priority.

§1203. Strengthening Election Cybersecurity to Uphold Respect for Elections through Independent Testing Act of 2024. (similar to HR 7447- removed from paywall)

Moving Forward

While this bill has now been cleared for consideration in the Senate, it is not likely to come to the floor for direct consideration. In recent years it was incorporated into either a consolidated spending bill or the National Defense Authorization Act as a Division of the bill. In the case of the NDAA, the language from this bill (likely with modifications) would be added to the substitute language when the House passed NDAA was considered. In the case of a spending bill, the intelligence authorization division would be added to the drafted bill behind closed doors, it would be some sort of amalgam of this bill, the House version of the bill and other provisions added as needed.

 

For more details about the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-4443-reported-in-the-senate - subscription required.