Intelligence Senate Bill Aims to Deal with Salt Typhoon and ODNI Reorganization
Intelligence Community Efficiency and Effectiveness Act of 2025 Passed by Senate Committee
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence recently passed the Intelligence Community Efficiency and Effectiveness Act of 2025, a bill aimed at reforming and streamlining the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the broader intelligence community.
The Act, introduced by Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), focuses on downsizing, depoliticizing, and improving the efficiencies and effectiveness of the ODNI. Key provisions of the Act include:
- Modifying the Director of National Intelligence's (DNI) authorities by removing some personnel policy powers, eliminating the authority to establish National Intelligence Centers, and allowing delegation of certain foreign investment analysis responsibilities to intelligence community elements.
- Reforming acquisition processes across intelligence community elements, requiring the DNI to submit reform plans prioritizing commercial solutions and expediting acquisitions under existing law.
- Capping ODNI personnel and budgeting, with plans to reduce the workforce by over 40% and cut over $700 million from the budget by fiscal year 2025 to return to a leaner, more focused organization in line with its original design.
- Consolidating overlapping mission areas, such as folding the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center's functions into other ODNI elements and transferring education programs from the National Intelligence University to the Department of Defense's National Defense University.
- Politicization reduction and refocus on core coordination roles, as the bill aims to depoliticize ODNI and eliminate mission creep that has made the office more bloated and less effective.
The Act also includes provisions for establishing independent boards, such as the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Review Board, with strict conflict-of-interest rules and expedited security clearances.
In addition, the bill addresses the issue of "Salt Typhoon," a hacking group believed to be operated by China's Ministry of State Security. The legislation aims to strengthen the security of telecommunications networks by establishing baseline cybersecurity requirements for vendors of telecommunications services to the IC.
Furthermore, the bill includes provisions for the intelligence community's use of artificial intelligence, establishing guidelines for the IC's procurement and use of artificial intelligence. The legislation would also ban intelligence community contractors from collecting or selling the location data of IC personnel to prevent foreign adversaries from using commercially available location data to expose IC officers and operations.
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has yet to release details of its intelligence authorization bill mark up. The bill, if passed, marks the most significant intelligence reform effort in two decades, with bipartisan scrutiny and differing opinions on the potential impact on national security.
- The Intelligence Community Efficiency and Effectiveness Act of 2025, passed by the Senate Select Committee, seeks to reform the federal workforce within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the broader intelligence community.
- The Act includes a provision for establishing independent boards, such as the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Review Board, with strict conflict-of-interest rules and expedited security clearances.
- With a focus on reducing politicization, the bill aims to depoliticize ODNI and eliminate mission creep, refocusing on core coordination roles.
- Recognizing the importance of technology in today's war-and-conflicts and policy-and-legislation landscape, the bill includes provisions for the intelligence community's use of artificial intelligence, establishing guidelines for its procurement and use.
- To combat cyber threats, the legislation aims to strengthen the security of telecommunications networks by establishing baseline cybersecurity requirements for vendors of telecommunications services to the IC, addressing concerns related to crime-and-justice and data-and-cloud-computing.
