§3371 Required counterintelligence assessments, briefings, notifications, and reports

Summary

The Director of National Intelligence must post an online advisory about foreign counterintelligence and cybersecurity threats to campaigns for Federal office. The DNI must work with the Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis and the FBI Director. Each advisory, while protecting intelligence sources and methods, must describe the threats, give simple best practices campaigns can use, and point to public resources (including U.S. Government resources). The advisory should be first posted no later than 1 year before the election and can be updated as needed. For elections in 2020, the first advisory had to be posted no later than 60 days after December 20, 2020. If the FBI Director and the DHS Under Secretary jointly decide a campaign faces a higher threat, they may share extra information directly with that campaign. Within 45 days after a Federal election cycle ends, the DNI must assess any information that a foreign government or someone acting for a foreign government tried to interfere in Federal elections during that cycle. The DNI must send the findings and supporting information to the President; the Secretaries of State, the Treasury, and Defense; the Attorney General; the Secretary of Homeland Security; and Congress. The assessment must identify, as much as possible, what happened, who was involved, and which foreign governments authorized or supported it. No later than 60 days after the cycle ends, the DNI must make the findings public as much as possible while protecting sources and methods. A "Federal election cycle" starts the day after a regularly scheduled general election for Federal office and ends on the date of the next regularly scheduled general election. This applies to the cycle that began during November 2018 and every cycle after that.