The bill
Strategic Task Force on Scam Prevention Act
HR. 5967, 119th Congress — read as touching Big Tech Platforms.
Sponsored by
Rep. Menendez, Robert [D-NJ-8]
ID: M001226
Follow the money
The bill
HR. 5967, 119th Congress — read as touching Big Tech Platforms.
The sponsor
Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.
The money
30 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.
The alignment
This bill's text tracks the "Intelligence Community" section, p. 251-253 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Forwarded by Subcommittee to Full Committee (Amended) by Voice Vote.
August 31, 2026
📍 Current Status
Next: The bill moves to the floor for full chamber debate and voting.
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Another brilliant example of congressional theater, where our esteemed leaders pretend to care about the welfare of their constituents while actually serving the interests of their corporate overlords.
**Main Purpose & Objectives**
The Strategic Task Force on Scam Prevention Act (HR 5967) is a masterclass in legislative doublespeak. The bill's stated purpose is to create an interagency task force to address scams, because apparently, our government has been too busy lining its pockets with lobbyist cash to bother with something as mundane as protecting citizens from financial exploitation.
The real objective? To create a bureaucratic behemoth that will provide a veneer of legitimacy for the government's continued inaction on scam prevention. It's like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound and calling it a day.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law**
The bill establishes an interagency task force comprising representatives from various federal agencies, including the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Department of Justice (DOJ), and Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This task force will develop and implement a national strategy to address scams, which includes:
* Utilizing existing resources like the Consumer Sentinel Network and Internet Crime Complaint Center * Public education (because clearly, the problem is that people are just too stupid to recognize scams) * Coordination with industry entities (read: giving corporations a seat at the table to ensure their interests are protected) * Enforcement actions using existing authorities (because new laws would require actual effort)
The bill also requires the task force to submit a report to Congress within a year, which will undoubtedly be a glowing example of bureaucratic jargon and meaningless statistics.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders**
The affected parties include:
* Consumers (who will continue to be scammed because this bill doesn't actually address the root causes of scams) * Industry entities (who will get to shape policy to their advantage) * Federal agencies (who will get to expand their bureaucratic empires) * Lobbyists (who will get to line their pockets with cash from corporations seeking to influence the task force)
**Potential Impact & Implications**
The potential impact of this bill is zero. Zilch. Nada. It's a placebo designed to make voters feel like something is being done, while actually perpetuating the status quo.
In reality, this bill will:
* Create more bureaucratic red tape * Provide a smokescreen for corporations to continue exploiting consumers * Waste taxpayer dollars on unnecessary reports and task force meetings
But hey, at least our politicians can claim they're "doing something" about scams. That's all that matters, right?
Rep. Menendez, Robert [D-NJ-8]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No PAC contributions found
No committee contributions found
This bill has 10 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
ID: H001093
Top Contributors
24
ID: C001119
Top Contributors
27
ID: D000624
Top Contributors
23
ID: N000147
Top Contributors
20
ID: W000830
Top Contributors
23
ID: M001227
Top Contributors
26
ID: T000460
Top Contributors
43
ID: K000385
Top Contributors
22
ID: C001125
Top Contributors
31
ID: S001230
Top Contributors
23
Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 55 nodes and 72 connections
Total contributions: $72
Showing top 25 donors by contribution amount
Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 4 helped.
Section 2(c)(1)(C) directs the task force to coordinate with industry entities, including providers of online platforms, which benefits big tech platforms by involving them in scam prevention efforts and potentially shaping favorable policies.
Section 2(d)(2)(C) explicitly lists cryptocurrency as an industry sector to consult, indicating the bill aims to engage crypto firms in scam prevention, which could lead to regulatory clarity or cooperative frameworks beneficial to the industry.
Section 2(d)(2)(H) and (I) include communications equipment manufacturers and communications providers as industries to consult, suggesting the bill will involve telecom firms in anti-scam initiatives, potentially leading to collaborative benefits.
Section 2(c)(1)(C) mentions coordination with providers of online platforms, which encompasses e-commerce and retail tech firms, implying they will be engaged in scam prevention efforts that could enhance consumer trust and reduce fraud-related losses.
For each industry this bill affects, here's what the sponsor (Rep. Menendez, Robert [D-NJ-8])received from donors associated with that industry during the 2022–present cycles. Donations are not proof of intent — they are a record of who funds the people writing the law.
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document.AI-enhanced analysis provides detailed alignment ratings.
AI Analysis:
"Both the bill and the Project 2025 policy emphasize interagency coordination, industry outreach, and developing national strategies to protect U.S. economic interests, though the bill focuses on consumer scams while the policy addresses foreign counterintelligence threats."
— 218 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise NATIONAL COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY CENTER (NCSC) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) has taken a keen inter- est in possibly updating the codified language underpinning much of the nation’s counterintelligence apparatus. “Spy vs. spy” threats continue to exist, but the rise of China and (to an extent) Russia’s machinations move beyond the governmental sphere to technological, economic, supply chain, cyber, academic, state, and local espionage threats at a level our country has never seen. The asymmetric threat includes cyber, nontraditional collection, and issues involving legitimate busi- nesses serving as collection platforms. Barring statutory changes that could occur before 2025, a future conserva- tive President should further empower and resource the IC by executive order or through suggested changes in the Counterintelligence Enhancement Act (CEA) of 2002.32 NCSC was given some authority for outreach efforts on behalf of the IC for counterintelligence education, insider threats, and broader U.S. government best practices, but there remain significant deltas between Title 50 and non–Title 50 entities’ protections. Primary operational elements should remain at the FBI and CIA, with the Bureau and NCSC collaborating on nongovernmental outreach. While there is no need to create a separate agency, a future President and DNI should amplify NCSC’s authorities and roles with respect to counterintelligence strategy, policy, outreach, and governance, including supporting necessary Joint Duty Assignments (JDA) for FBI and CIA personnel. At the same time, the FBI requires significant additional resources and legal authorities to fulfill its statu- tory role as the lead operational counterintelligence agency in dealing with the ever-growing threats posed by our adversaries. The CEA should be updated to include foreign espionage efforts aimed at universities. Corporate America, technology companies, research institutions, and academia must be willing, educated partners in this generational fight to protect our national security interests, economic interests, national sovereignty, and intellectual prop- erty as well as the broader rules-based order—all while avoiding the tendency to cave to the left-wing activists and investors who ignore the China threat and increasingly dominate the corporate world. Reinstitution of the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board and the National Security Business Alliance Council should be prioritized with leadership from the NCSC, the FBI, or a com- bination of both entities. When the CCP steals at least $400 billion–$600 billion in intellectual prop- erty each year, it is time to devote some strategic thinking to exactly how and to what degree counterintelligence efforts can help to protect America’s commercial endeavors. If Chinese strategic technology gains are happening almost entirely in transnational commercial space, for example, and the private sector is also gath- ering and analyzing some critical intelligence, these essential data points should assist in national-level counterintelligence efforts. — 219 — Intelligence Community The NCSC was created in the aftermath of 9/11 as the Terrorist Threat Integra- tion Center (TTIC), which later became the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) pursuant to President George W. Bush’s Executive Order 13354.33 The NCTC was an organization of approximately three dozen detainees from across the U.S. government with a mandate to integrate counterterrorism intelligence and missions, including terrorist screening. Eventually: In November 2014 the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) established NCSC by combining [the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive] with the Center for Security Evaluation, the Special Security Center and the National Insider Threat Task Force, to effectively integrate and align counterintelligence and security mission areas under a single organizational construct. The Director of NCSC serves in support of the DNI’s role as Security Executive Agent (SecEA) to develop, implement, oversee and integrate personnel security initiatives throughout the U.S. Government.34 NCSC has added value in such areas as fusing cross-community intelligence for terrorism watchlisting purposes and improving information sharing while carrying roughly half of the overall cadre for the ODNI. An incoming Administration should focus NCTC on integrative tasks, many of which cannot be carried out elsewhere in the IC, but should not use personnel and resources for redundant analyses that duplicate the work of such other IC entities as the FBI and CIA. ADDITIONAL AREAS FOR REFORM Analytical Integrity. The “tradecraft” of intelligence analysis is mostly a col- lection of lessons learned over decades about what works and does not work in a profession whose high-stakes work is performed by thousands but that also bears little outside scrutiny and provides few metrics by which to gauge success or failure on a regular basis. These lessons have accumulated from: l The perceived misuse of intelligence by consumers as was the case with respect to war-related assessments in the Johnson and Bush Administrations; l Failures such as the failures to warn of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the specific threat of 9/11; l Successes in piecing together tactical and often technical puzzles such as estimates of Iranian nuclear program maturation; and l Strategic victories such as anticipating critical geopolitical developments that have been years in the making.
AI Analysis:
"Both the bill and the Project 2025 proposal emphasize interagency coordination (particularly involving DHS and DOJ) to combat financial crimes and protect the public, but the bill addresses scam prevention broadly while Project 2025 focuses narrowly on reforming the Secret Service’s protective mission and targeting immigration-related financial crimes."
— 157 — Department of Homeland Security to such returnees. These two steps could be foundational for any improvements in the recruiting process. U.S. SECRET SERVICE (USSS) Needed Reforms The U.S. Secret Service must be the world’s best protective agency. Currently, the agency is distracted by its dual mission of protection and financial investigations. The result has been a long series of high-profile embarrassments and security fail- ures, perhaps most notably its allowing of then-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to be inside the Democratic National Committee office on January 6, 2021, while a pipe bomb was outside. Despite the great size and scope of the January 6 inves- tigation, this high-profile incident of danger to a protectee remains unresolved. The failures of the USSS protective mission are too numerous to list here. A December 2015 bipartisan report from the House Oversight Committee listed dozens of such incidents as well as needed recommendations for reform.14 This chapter adopts those findings and recommendations in whole, especially the finding that USSS’s dual-mission structure detracts from the agency’s protective capabilities. At the time of that report, USSS agents spent only one-third of their work hours on protection-related activities as opposed to investigative activities. USSS was established initially to investigate counterfeit currency, but its mission has evolved over the decades to prioritize electronic financial crimes. For example, as this chap- ter was being written, all 15 of the USSS’s most wanted individuals were wanted for financial crimes, many of them international in nature. Notably, the last head of the agency left not for a protection-related job, but to be the Chief Security Officer of social media company SnapChat. This is a pattern that has developed over the years, with agents seeking to burnish their online financial crimes credentials to secure corporate security jobs. Coupled with some of the lowest morale in the federal government, the agency has completely lost sight of the primacy of its protective mission. New Policies USSS should transfer to the Department of Justice and Department of the Treasury all investigations that are not related to its protective function. It should begin the logistical operation of closing all field offices throughout the country and internationally to the extent they are not taken over by Treasury or Justice. USSS agents stationed outside of Washington, D.C., should be transferred to work in Immigration and Customs Enforcement field offices where they would continue to be the “boots on the ground” to follow up on threat reports throughout the country and liaise with local law enforcement for visits by protectees. — 158 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise The only investigations not related to USSS’s protective function that agents should pursue would be directed by HSI and relate to tracking the financial crimes associated with illegal immigration. This should include tracing remittances, any funds that are used to pay coyotes or the cartels, and payments by businesses to illegal aliens and all other crimes associated with illegal immigration. USSS should keep visitor logs for all facilities where the President works or resides. The Biden Administration has evaded such transparency with President Biden spending a historic amount of time for a President at his Delaware residence. This has left the American people in the dark as to who is influencing the highest levels of their own government. Budget The suggested reforms would result in a significant USSS budget reduction, primarily because the agency would relinquish dozens of physical offices through- out the U.S. and internationally. Some amount of savings should be used to fix the personnel problems and for recruitment initiatives aimed at individuals who are inclined to join a protection-focused agency. Personnel As documented extensively in the above-referenced 2015 bipartisan congressio- nal report, low morale and high turnover are key drivers of USSS problems. With their mission focused on protection, agents would no longer spend the bulk of their time developing unrelated skillsets. Instead, USSS agents could hone their protection skills and pursue a protection career path in the agency rather than quickly leaving USSS for high-paying corporate security jobs. The Uniform Division (UD) of USSS requires a significant staffing increase. As documented in the bipartisan report, understaffing results in unpredictable and long hours, which in turn result in high turnover, which only compounds the problem. Another key issue is that UD officers lack the ability to enforce criminal laws outside the immediate vicinity of the White House. As the District of Columbia is a federal jurisdiction and currently is beholden to the trend of progressive pro- crime policies, UD officers should enforce all applicable laws. The result would be to allow UD officers to gain more law enforcement experience—an attractive credential that would improve morale. TRANSPORTATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION (TSA) The TSA model is costly and unwisely makes TSA both the regulator and the regulated organization responsible for screening operations. As part of an effort to shrink federal bureaucracies and bring private-sector know-how to govern- ment programs, TSA is ripe for reform. The U.S. should look to the Canadian and
AI Analysis:
"The bill focuses on consumer scam prevention through interagency coordination and public education, while the Project 2025 Intelligence Community section emphasizes counterintelligence against foreign espionage, IP theft, and securing economic assets. Both share a theme of cross‑sector collaboration to mitigate threats, but their substantive objectives differ significantly."
— 218 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise NATIONAL COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY CENTER (NCSC) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) has taken a keen inter- est in possibly updating the codified language underpinning much of the nation’s counterintelligence apparatus. “Spy vs. spy” threats continue to exist, but the rise of China and (to an extent) Russia’s machinations move beyond the governmental sphere to technological, economic, supply chain, cyber, academic, state, and local espionage threats at a level our country has never seen. The asymmetric threat includes cyber, nontraditional collection, and issues involving legitimate busi- nesses serving as collection platforms. Barring statutory changes that could occur before 2025, a future conserva- tive President should further empower and resource the IC by executive order or through suggested changes in the Counterintelligence Enhancement Act (CEA) of 2002.32 NCSC was given some authority for outreach efforts on behalf of the IC for counterintelligence education, insider threats, and broader U.S. government best practices, but there remain significant deltas between Title 50 and non–Title 50 entities’ protections. Primary operational elements should remain at the FBI and CIA, with the Bureau and NCSC collaborating on nongovernmental outreach. While there is no need to create a separate agency, a future President and DNI should amplify NCSC’s authorities and roles with respect to counterintelligence strategy, policy, outreach, and governance, including supporting necessary Joint Duty Assignments (JDA) for FBI and CIA personnel. At the same time, the FBI requires significant additional resources and legal authorities to fulfill its statu- tory role as the lead operational counterintelligence agency in dealing with the ever-growing threats posed by our adversaries. The CEA should be updated to include foreign espionage efforts aimed at universities. Corporate America, technology companies, research institutions, and academia must be willing, educated partners in this generational fight to protect our national security interests, economic interests, national sovereignty, and intellectual prop- erty as well as the broader rules-based order—all while avoiding the tendency to cave to the left-wing activists and investors who ignore the China threat and increasingly dominate the corporate world. Reinstitution of the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board and the National Security Business Alliance Council should be prioritized with leadership from the NCSC, the FBI, or a com- bination of both entities. When the CCP steals at least $400 billion–$600 billion in intellectual prop- erty each year, it is time to devote some strategic thinking to exactly how and to what degree counterintelligence efforts can help to protect America’s commercial endeavors. If Chinese strategic technology gains are happening almost entirely in transnational commercial space, for example, and the private sector is also gath- ering and analyzing some critical intelligence, these essential data points should assist in national-level counterintelligence efforts.
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
Policy matches are calculated using a hybrid approach: initial candidates are found using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text, then an AI model (Llama 3.1 70B) provides detailed alignment ratings and analysis. Ratings range from 1 (minimal alignment) to 5 (very strong alignment). This analysis does not imply direct causation or intent.