Senate intelligence packing would limit suspending information-sharing with Israel

Buried inside the Senate Intelligence Authorization Act is a provision to expand and enhance intelligence sharing with Israel, with a key stipulation: Such security information exchanges cannot be suspended or reduced unless the president identifies a specific national security concern.

Citing the “evolving threat environment in the Middle East,” the amendment is intended to enhance intelligence collaboration through robust intelligence sharing and analytic partnership to counter terrorism, cyber threats, sanctions evasion and other transnational security challenges.

The bill argues that U.S. security assistance and defense cooperation will “help Israel maintain its qualitative military edge” with a focus on “integrated air and missile defense, maritime security, early warning systems, and intelligence-sharing frameworks.”

Under the bill, the president must also expand and enhance intelligence sharing and analytic cooperation with countries that have “normalized relations with Israel pursuant to the Abraham Accords” to “strengthen regional security integration.” This includes the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.

If passed, all future presidents must document any determination to suspend, reduce or limit intelligence sharing with Israel, including the national security rationale for doing so, such as the protection of intelligence sources and methods or counterintelligence risk.

After making the determination, the president must notify the congressional intelligence committees of the decision. The bill was introduced by Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican, the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. It now awaits consideration on the Senate floor.

Each report would be unclassified, but may include a classified annex.

The president must also update the committees on progress toward “seamlessly integrating Israel into regional air and missile defense.”

If an information-sharing recipient nation also has an analytic cooperation with an adversarial country, there is one method to bypass the president to suspend sharing: the director of national intelligence.

Included in the bill, the director of national intelligence must adopt guidelines and safeguards to protect intelligence sources and methods and to ensure that recipients maintain U.S. security protection requirements.

If the director determines that a recipient of intelligence sharing has any intelligence, defense or technological information-sharing relationship with an adversarial nation, the director shall restrict all access to it.

Israel is not the only country under the bill to receive special attention when it comes to information sharing; other sections address intelligence cooperation in the Indo-Pacific — Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, India and Vietnam. It encourages cooperation on maritime security, military warning, intelligence cooperation with Taiwan and regional intelligence sharing.

It does not, however, limit a president’s ability to restrict such collaborations.

Another country with an intelligence support clause is Ukraine during its war with Russia, which similarly limits the ability to suspend support. Such information sharing would be terminated after reaching an agreement with Russia.

But the director of national intelligence, not the president, would have the power to suspend its intelligence partnership upon determining a national security concern.