§430e — Title 10 Armed Forces | U.S. Code

Summary

The Secretary of Defense must create and keep a secure, central technical system to oversee and check risks from commercial companies that support secret U.S. operations. The system must cover past, current, and planned work, including subcontractors. It must use only the smallest amount of information needed to find conflicts between secret activities, show when more coordination is needed, and run overall risk checks. The Secretary can exclude vendor information from the system for operational, counterintelligence, or other national security reasons. If the Secretary does that, they must tell the congressional defense committees and the Senate and House intelligence committees within 7 days, listing by Defense element how many vendors were excluded, the kinds of support they gave, and why. The system must be used whenever a commercial vendor is expected to support a secret activity. A clandestine activity means anything meant to hide or not publicly admit the U.S. Government's role.

Title 10, §430e

Armed Forces — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)The Secretary of Defense shall establish, maintain, continuously update, and use a secure, centralized technical capability to facilitate oversight, deconfliction, and risk assessments of all commercial vendor support to the Department of Defense for clandestine activities. Such capability shall—

(1)enable the Department of Defense to perform oversight, deconfliction, and risk assessments of past, ongoing, or planned clandestine activity involving support from commercial vendors, including all subcontractors; and

(2)include use of the minimum information required to—

(A)identify potential conflicts between clandestine activities;

(B)identify the need for additional coordination with respect to clandestine activities; and

(C)conduct aggregate risk assessments of clandestine activities involving support from commercial vendors; and 11 So in original.

(b)(1)Notwithstanding subsection (a), if the Secretary of Defense determines that information concerning a commercial vendor should not be used by the centralized technical capability required by subsection (a) due to operational, counterintelligence, or other national security concerns, the Secretary may exclude such information from use by such centralized technical capability.

(2)Not later than 7 days after making a determination under paragraph (1), the Secretary shall submit to the congressional defense committees, the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives notice of the determination that includes the following information disaggregated by the element of the Department of Defense with respect to which such commercial vendor provides support:

(A)The number of commercial vendors with respect to which the Secretary made the determination under paragraph (1).

(B)A description of the types of activities supported by such commercial vendors.

(C)The rationale for excluding the information concerning such commercial vendors from such capability.

(c)The Secretary of Defense shall ensure the centralized technical capability required by subsection (a) is used in each case where a commercial vendor is expected to provide support to a clandestine activity to—

(1)deconflict the use of commercial vendors in support of clandestine activities of the Department of Defense; and

(2)assess operational risk and counterintelligence exposure attributable to the use of commercial vendors in support of clandestine activities of the Department of Defense.

(d)In this section, the term “clandestine activity” means any activity where it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Implementation Deadline and Reports Pub. L. 119–60, div. A, title XVI, § 1621(b), Dec. 18, 2025, 139 Stat. 1181, provided that: “(1) Implementation deadline and certification.—Not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this Act [Dec. 18, 2025], the Secretary of Defense shall—“(A) implement the requirements of section 430e of title 10, United States Code, as added by subsection (a) of this section; and “(B) submit to the congressional defense committees [Committees on Armed Services and Appropriations of the Senate and the House of Representatives], the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives a certification that such requirements have been implemented. “(2) Submission of plan.—Not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall—“(A) submit to the committees described in paragraph (1)(B) a report containing the plan to implement the requirements of such section 430e; and “(B) provide to such committees a briefing with respect to such plan. “(3) Progress report.—Not later than 270 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall provide to the committees described in paragraph (1)(B) a briefing describing the progress of the Secretary towards implementing the requirements of such section 430e.”

§430e Vendor support to clandestine activities

Summary

Title 10, §430e

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Citations & Metadata