§3059 Foreign Malign Influence Center

Summary

Creates a Foreign Malign Influence Center inside the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The Center must include analysts from across the intelligence community, including those with diplomatic and law enforcement roles. It must have access to all U.S. government intelligence and reporting about foreign malign influence. The Center is the main office that analyzes and combines that information and gives full assessments, warnings, and briefings to policy officials and Congress. The Director of the Center is chosen by the Director of National Intelligence, reports to that Director, runs the Center’s work, and can make response recommendations if the President or the Director of National Intelligence asks. At least once a year, and whenever directed, the Center’s Director must send a report to the congressional intelligence committees, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Each report must cover the Center’s major activities and any needed recommendations, including steps to protect privacy and civil liberties. After December 31, 2028, the Director of National Intelligence may end the Center only if they give certain congressional committees a detailed plan showing other offices can take over the work and a timeline for closing the Center. The law lists covered foreign countries as the Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the People’s Republic of China, and any other country the Center’s Director names. “Foreign malign influence” means hostile efforts by or strongly supported by those governments to influence U.S. government policy, state or local governments, elections, or public opinion, by open or secret means.