I 

109TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION H. R. 5003 

To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to provide for the full and 

efficient use of open-source intelligence. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

MARCH 16, 2006 

Mr. SIMMONS (for himself and Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California) introduced 

the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Homeland Security 

A BILL 

To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to provide 

for the full and efficient use of open-source intelligence. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Homeland Security 

5 Open Source Intelligence Enhancement Act of 2006’’. 

6 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

7 Congress finds the following: 

8 (1) Open-source intelligence is intelligence that 

9 is produced from publicly available information and 

10 is gathered, exploited, and disseminated in a timely 


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1 manner to an appropriate audience for the purpose 

2 of addressing specific intelligence and information 

3 requirements. 

4 (2) With the ‘‘information revolution’’, the 

5 amount, significance, and accessibility of open-source 

6 information has expanded significantly, but the De7 partment of Homeland Security has not expanded 

8 its exploitation efforts and systems to produce open9 source intelligence. 

10 (3) The dissemination and use of validated 

11 open-source intelligence inherently enables informa12 tion sharing because open-source intelligence is pro13 duced without the use of sensitive sources and meth14 ods. 

15 (4) Open-source intelligence products can be 

16 shared with the American public and foreign allies 

17 because of the unclassified nature of open-source in18 telligence. 

19 (5) The National Commission on Terrorist At20 tacks Upon the United States, in its final report re21 leased on July 22, 2004, identified shortfalls in the 

22 ability of the United States to use all-source intel23 ligence, a large component of which is open-source 

24 intelligence. 


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1 (6) In the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism 

2 Prevention Act of 2004, Congress called for the co3 ordination of the collection, analysis, production, and 

4 dissemination of open-source intelligence. 

5 (7) In a report to the President released on 

6 March 31, 2005, the Commission on the Intelligence 

7 Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weap8 ons of Mass Destruction found that ‘‘the need for 

9 exploiting open-source material is greater now than 

10 ever before’’, but that ‘‘the Intelligence Community’s 

11 open source programs have not expanded commensu12 rate with either the increase in available information 

13 or with the growing importance of open source data 

14 to today’s problems.’’ 

15 SEC. 3. FULL AND EFFICIENT USE OF OPEN-SOURCE INTEL16 LIGENCE. 

17 (a) REQUIREMENT.—Subtitle A of title II of the 

18 Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 121 et seq.), 

19 is amended by adding at the end the following: 

20 ‘‘SEC. 203. FULL AND EFFICIENT USE OF OPEN-SOURCE IN21 TELLIGENCE. 

22 ‘‘(a) USE BY UNDER SECRETARY AND ASSISTANT

23 SECRETARY.—The Secretary shall ensure that, in meeting 

24 their analytic responsibilities under sections 201(d) and 

25 204(c) and in formulating requirements for additional inVerDate Aug 31 2005 04:16 Mar 18, 2006 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H5003.IH H5003

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1 formation, the Under Secretary for Intelligence and Anal2 ysis and the Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protec3 tion make full and efficient use of open-source intelligence 

4 by acquiring, gathering, processing, and analyzing open5 source information to produce open-source intelligence 

6 products. 

7 ‘‘(b) CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE ANALYSIS.—The 

8 Secretary shall ensure that the Department makes full 

9 and efficient use of open-source information to analyze 

10 United States critical infrastructure nodes from the per11 spective of terrorists using publicly available information. 

12 The Secretary shall share the results of the analysis with 

13 appropriate Federal, State, local, tribal, and private-sector 

14 officials.’’. 

15 (b) CLERICAL AMENDMENT.—The table of contents 

16 in section 1(b) of such Act is amended by by adding at 

17 the end of the items relating to such subtitle the following 

18 the following: 

‘‘Sec. 203. Full and efficient use of open source intelligence’’. 

Æ 


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