§3371c Notification of Significant Foreign Cyber Intrusions and Active Measures Campaigns Directed at Elections for Federal Offices

Summary

The Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the FBI, and the Secretary of Homeland Security must work together if they determine that on or after December 20, 2019, a major foreign cyber attack or a secret foreign influence operation aimed at an upcoming federal election has happened or is happening, and they have moderate or high confidence that a foreign government or a foreign group or person is responsible. If they make that determination, they must give a classified briefing within 14 days to congressional leaders (the Senate majority and minority leaders, the Speaker of the House, and the House minority leader), the congressional intelligence committees, and certain other listed congressional committees. The briefing must describe the incident, identify who is blamed, say whether the information should be released to the public, and include any other joint information the three officials think is appropriate. For a cyber attack on election systems, the Department of Homeland Security must offer a briefing to the owners or operators of the affected systems about the attack and steps to fix or lower the risk; that briefing can be classified and shown only to people with proper clearances. All briefings must protect intelligence sources and methods. Definitions (one line each): active measures campaign = a foreign covert or semi‑covert intelligence operation; cyber intrusion = an unauthorized electronic event that harms election systems or their data; electronic election infrastructure = electronic systems used by the federal, state, or local government, political parties, or campaigns for federal elections; high confidence = based on high‑quality information from multiple sources; moderate confidence = credible and plausible but less fully corroborated; other appropriate congressional committees = specified Armed Services, Foreign Affairs/Relations, Homeland Security, and Appropriations committees in each chamber.