Senate Bill Limits Halts to Israel Intelligence Sharing but Leaves Indo-Pacific Ties Fully Adjustable

The Senate Intelligence Authorization Act would bar any president from suspending or reducing intelligence exchanges with Israel unless that president first identifies a concrete national security concern. The measure also directs the executive branch to expand intelligence sharing with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.

The bill states that such exchanges cannot be curtailed without a documented rationale and requires the president to notify the congressional intelligence committees of any decision to limit cooperation.

Each notification would be issued in unclassified form, though a classified annex could be attached. ” It also obliges the director of national intelligence to adopt guidelines protecting sources and methods and to cut off any recipient nation found to share intelligence with an adversarial country. Sen.

Tom Cotton, the Arkansas Republican who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, introduced the measure. It now awaits floor consideration. Separate provisions address intelligence cooperation with Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, India and Vietnam, encouraging work on maritime security and warning systems as well as intelligence ties with Taiwan.

Those sections do not restrict a president’s authority to limit such partnerships. The bill also contains a clause on intelligence support for Ukraine. Under that provision, information sharing would end only after an agreement with Russia is reached, and the director of national intelligence, rather than the president, would hold the power to suspend cooperation on national-security grounds.