Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007

H.R. 5020, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, is a funding and oversight bill that sets the budget and provides legal authority for the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. Intelligence Community, including the CIA, FBI, and NSA. The bill outlines how these agencies can spend federal funds on counterterrorism, cybersecurity, and foreign intelligence operations while establishing new reporting requirements to keep Congress informed of their activities.

For the average citizen, the bill’s primary impact is on national security and the management of government secrets. It seeks to improve how different levels of government share information about terrorist threats and proposes a more efficient security clearance system to better utilize experts with critical foreign language skills. Additionally, the bill includes measures to discourage the unauthorized disclosure of classified information and requires studies on the effectiveness of military technology, such as unmanned aerial vehicles (drones).