Homeland Security Open Source Information Enhancement Act of 2008

[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3815 Introduced in House (IH)]

110th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 3815

To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to require the Secretary of
    Homeland Security to make full and efficient use of open source
 information to develop and disseminate open source homeland security
             information products, and for other purposes.

_______________________________________________________________________

                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            October 10, 2007

 Mr. Perlmutter (for himself, Mr. Daniel E. Lungren of California, Mr.
Thompson of Mississippi, Mr. Shays, Mrs. Lowey, Mr. Carney, Mr. Renzi,
 and Ms. Harman) introduced the following bill; which was referred to
                   the Committee on Homeland Security

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL

To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to require the Secretary of
    Homeland Security to make full and efficient use of open source
 information to develop and disseminate open source homeland security
             information products, and for other purposes.

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

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Homeland Security Open Source
Information Enhancement Act of 2007''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) The Internet has profoundly expanded the amount,
        significance, and accessibility of all types of information,
        but the Department of Homeland Security has not sufficiently
        expanded its use of such information to produce analytical
        products.
            (2) Open source products can be shared with Federal, State,
        local, and tribal law enforcement, the American public, the
        private sector, and foreign allies because of their
        unclassified nature.
            (3) In a report to the President released on March 31,
        2005, the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the
        United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction found that
        ``the need for exploiting open source material is greater now
        than ever before'', but that the Federal Government's ``open
        source programs have not expanded commensurate with either the
        increase in available information or with the growing
        importance of open source data to today's problems''.
            (4) The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for
        providing open source products to consumers consistent with
        existing Federal open source information guidelines.

SEC. 3. FULL AND EFFICIENT USE OF OPEN SOURCE INFORMATION.

    (a) In General.--Subtitle A of title II of the Homeland Security
Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 121 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the
following:

``SEC. 203. FULL AND EFFICIENT USE OF OPEN SOURCE INFORMATION.

    ``(a) Responsibilities of Secretary.--The Secretary shall ensure
that Department components responsible for information sharing and
infrastructure protection under section 201(d) make full and efficient
use of open source homeland security information to develop and
disseminate open source products.
    ``(b) Critical Infrastructure Analysis.--The Secretary shall--
            ``(1) ensure that the Department makes full and efficient
        use of open source information to analyze United States
        critical infrastructure nodes from the perspective of
        terrorists and other activities with a nexus to terrorism using
        publicly available information; and
            ``(2) shall share the unclassified results of such analysis
        with appropriate Federal, State, local, tribal, and private-
        sector officials.
    ``(c) Protection of Privacy.--
            ``(1) Compliance with other laws.--The Secretary shall
        ensure that the manner in which open source information is
        gathered and disseminated by the Department complies with the
        Constitution, section 552a of title 5, United States Code
        (popularly known as the Privacy Act of 1974), provisions of law
        enacted by the E-Government Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-347),
        and all other relevant Federal laws.
            ``(2) Description in annual report by chief privacy
        officer.--The Chief Privacy Officer of the Department shall
        include in its annual report to Congress a description of the
        types of personally identifiable information collected by
        Department intelligence components.
    ``(d) Inspector General Report.--The Inspector General of the
Department shall audit the use and dissemination of open source
information by the Department to evaluate the effectiveness of the
Department's activities and to ensure that it is consistent with
existing Federal open source information guidelines.
    ``(e) Open Source Information Defined.--In this section the term
`open source information' means information that is publicly available
and that can be used and disseminated in a timely manner to an
appropriate audience for the purpose of addressing a specific homeland
security requirement.''.
    (b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of contents in section 1(b) of
such Act is amended by adding at the end of the items relating to such
subtitle the following:

``Sec. 203. Full and efficient use of open source information.''.

SEC. 4. OPEN SOURCE INFORMATION DEFINED.

    In this Act the term ``open source information'' has the meaning
that term has in section 203 of Homeland Security Act of 2002, as
amended by this Act.
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