The bill
SHIELD Against CCP Act
HR. 708, 119th Congress — read as touching Cybersecurity.
Sponsored by
Rep. Strong, Dale W. [R-AL-5]
ID: S001220
Follow the money
The bill
HR. 708, 119th Congress — read as touching Cybersecurity.
The sponsor
Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.
The money
26 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.
The alignment
This bill's text tracks the "Introduction" section, p. 822-824 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
March 10, 2025
📍 Current Status
Next: Both chambers must agree on the same version of the bill.
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!
The SHIELD Against CCP Act - because what the US government really needs is another acronym and a working group to "counter" the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) alleged threats. How quaint.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** This bill establishes a working group within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to examine, assess, and report on efforts to counter CCP-related threats in various areas, including terrorism, cybersecurity, border security, and transportation security. The real purpose? To create more bureaucratic red tape, justify increased funding for DHS, and provide a platform for politicians to grandstand about China.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill creates a new working group with a Director appointed by the Secretary of Homeland Security. This group will:
1. Examine and report on CCP-related threats (because no one has done that before). 2. Account for resources dedicated to countering these threats (a.k.a., justify budget increases). 3. Identify gaps in policies, processes, and activities (code for "we need more money and personnel"). 4. Facilitate cooperation among DHS offices and components (read: create more meetings and paperwork).
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects:
1. The Chinese Communist Party (because they're the boogeyman du jour). 2. US citizens (who will foot the bill for this bureaucratic exercise). 3. DHS employees (who'll have to deal with more red tape and pointless meetings). 4. Politicians (who'll use this as a talking point to sound tough on China).
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a classic case of "security theater" - it provides the illusion of action without actually addressing any real issues. The impact will be:
1. Increased bureaucracy and inefficiency within DHS. 2. More taxpayer dollars wasted on redundant efforts and unnecessary personnel. 3. Politicians getting to pretend they're doing something about China, while accomplishing nothing.
In short, this bill is a symptom of the disease that afflicts Washington: a desperate need for relevance, a lack of real solutions, and an abundance of hot air.
Rep. Strong, Dale W. [R-AL-5]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No PAC contributions found
No committee contributions found
This bill has 8 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
ID: S001201
Top Contributors
10
ID: H001077
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ID: G000590
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ID: G000591
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ID: L000603
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ID: E000300
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ID: M001194
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ID: P000048
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10
Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 65 nodes and 41 connections (57 secondary connections hidden)
Total contributions: $141,450
Showing top 21 donors by contribution amount
Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 3 helped.
Section 2(b)(1)(B) directs the Working Group to examine DHS efforts to counter cybersecurity threats posed by the CCP, and Section 2(f) mandates R&D for technologies enhancing security and situational awareness relating to countering such threats, which benefits cybersecurity firms through potential contracts and increased demand.
Section 2(f) requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to carry out research and development, including operational testing, of technologies and techniques for enhancing DHS security relating to countering threats from the CCP, which likely involves defense contractors for technology development and testing.
Section 2(c) requires the Working Group to review and disseminate information gathered by Federal, State, local, Tribal, and territorial partners and the National Network of Fusion Centers, which supports law enforcement and surveillance technology vendors through increased information sharing and potential demand for surveillance tools.
For each industry this bill affects, here's what the sponsor (Rep. Strong, Dale W. [R-AL-5])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.
— 790 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Systematically reduce and eventually eliminate any U.S. dependence on Communist Chinese supply chains that may be used to threaten national security such as medicines, silicon chips, rare earth minerals, computer motherboards, flatscreen displays, and military components. l Sanction any companies, including American companies like Apple, that facilitate Communist China’s use of its Great Firewall surveillance and censorship capabilities. l Order the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Justice to contract with U.S.-owned and U.S.-operated artificial intelligence companies that are capable of detecting, identifying, and disrupting both the domestic groups’ and CCP influencers’ social media operations and funding streams using public information as a rapidly available offensive measure. l Reinvigorate and expand the DHS crackdown on the CCP’s use of e-sellers (including third-party sellers) and the shippers and operators of major warehouses such as Amazon, eBay, and Alibaba to flood U.S. markets with counterfeit and pirated goods. l Compel the closure of all Confucius Institutes in the U.S., which serve as propaganda arms of the CCP. l Significantly reduce or eliminate the issuance of visas to Chinese students or researchers to prevent espionage and information harvesting. l Hold the CCP accountable for the COVID-19 virus, which almost certainly originated as a genetically engineered virus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and do so through the establishment of a presidential commission or select congressional committee that would investigate the origins of the virus; its various costs, both economically and in human life; and the possible means of collecting damages from the CCP, which are likely to rise to the trillions of dollars. If the new U.S. President wishes to defend this country against the serious exis- tential threat posed by Communist China, that President will adopt all of these proposals through the requisite presidential executive orders or memoranda. Effective Trade Policy in the Real World. To conclude this analysis, it is useful to offer brief reflections on a number of key obstacles to implementing the policy initiatives recommended in this chapter. These obstacles include: — 791 — Trade l The dogma of the Ricardian free-trade model, which has been used as propaganda to thwart the adoption of measures that seek to level the global trading field for American manufacturers, farmers, ranchers, and workers; l The politics of trade policy, which has led to a great divide that makes trade policy reforms difficult to implement; l The economics of trade deficits, which are not adequately understood either by the American public or by the policymaking intelligentsia; and l The crucial role of supportive White House and Administration personnel in implementing effective trade policies. The Dogma of Free Trade. Clearly, the fair and balanced trade orientation of this chapter runs starkly against the free trade grain of the globalist Ricardian orthodoxy, which is predicated on the theory that free trade represents the best path by which to achieve both American and global prosperity. This orthodoxy is based on the ivory tower academic conclusion that if countries trade freely among each other, each will pursue its own comparative advantages; production will be most efficient around the world; the economic pie will be bigger both for the globe and for each free trading country; and (so long as workers who lose their jobs are fairly compensated from the gains from trade) everyone will be better off. The most obvious problem with this orthodoxy (there are many more) is that nowhere is Ricardian free trade mirrored in the real world. Instead, America trades in a world where the WTO’s MFN rules are stacked against us, scofflaws like Communist China run roughshod over what meager WTO rules there are, and the United States among all of the world’s developed nations is the biggest victim of the free trade Ricardian orthodoxy. During his first term, President Donald Trump preached that there can be no free trade without fair, reciprocal, and balanced trade. He was right then, and who- ever is the next President in 2025 should heed this critical principle whenever the flag of free trade is waved to prevent the adoption of needed reforms. The Politics of Trade Policy: Who Benefits? Today, there is a great divide among Americans that stands in the way of constructive trade policy reforms. This great divide is certainly not about a partisan desire for low taxes and a reduced regulatory burden. Rather, it is over whether our borders should be open or secure and whether it is prudent to offshore our manufacturing and defense industrial base and associated supply chains. Those who support secure borders and seek to onshore more of American pro- duction and supply chains do so to boost the real wages of American workers and to
— 216 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Stiffer penalties and mandatory investigations when intelligence leaks are aimed at domestic political targets, l Tighter controls on otherwise lawful intercepts that also collect the communications of domestic political figures, l An express prohibition on politically motivated use of intelligence authorities, and l Reforms to improve the accountability of the Justice Department and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. To keep intelligence credentials from being used for partisan purposes, former high-ranking intelligence officials who retain a clearance should remain subject to the Hatch Act after they leave government to deter them from tying their political stands or activism to their continuing privilege of access to classified government information. The IC should be prohibited from monitoring so-called domestic disinformation. Such activity can easily slip into suppression of an opposition party’s speech, is corrosive of First Amendment protections, and raises questions about impartiality when the IC chooses not to act. CHINA-FOCUSED CHANGES, REFORMS, AND RESOURCES The term “whole of government” is all too frequently overused, but in responding to the generational threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party, that is exactly the approach that our national security apparatus should adopt. CIA Director William Burns has formally established a China Mission Center focused on these efforts, but it can be successful only if it is given the necessary personnel, cross-community collaboration, and resources. That is uncertain at this point, and just how seriously the organization is taking the staffing of the center is unclear. A critical strategic question for an incoming Administration and IC lead- ers will be: How, when, and with whom do we share our classified intelligence? Understanding when to pass things to liaisons and for what purpose will be vital to outmaneuvering China in the intelligence sphere. Questions for a President will include: l What is our overarching conception of the adversarial relationship and competition? l How does intelligence-sharing fit into that conception? — 217 — Intelligence Community Some Members of Congress have said that intelligence relationships such as the Five Eyes28 should be expanded to include other allies in the Asia–Pacific in, for example, a “Nine Eyes” framework. This fails to take into account the fact that any blanket expansion would necessarily involve protecting the sources and methods of a larger and quite possibly more diverse group of member countries that might or might not have congruent interests. That being said, however, a future conservative President should consider what resources and information-sharing relationships could be included in an ad hoc or quasi-formal intelligence expansion (for example, with the Quad) among nations trying to counter the threat from China. Significant technology, language skills, and financial intelligence resources are needed to counter China’s capabilities.29 The IC was caught flat-footed by the recent discovery of China’s successful test of a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile. No longer can America’s information and technological dominance be assumed. China’s gains and intense focus on emerging technologies have taken it in some areas from being a near-peer competitor to probably being ahead of the United States. China’s centralized government allocates endless resources (sometimes inefficiently) to its strategic “Made in China 2025” and military apparatuses, which combine government, military, and private-sector activities on quantum infor- mation sciences and technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, biotechnologies, and advanced robotics. The IC must do more than understand these advancements: It must rally non- government and allied partners and inspire unified action to counter them. In addition, to combat China’s economic espionage, authorities and loopholes in the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)30 will have to be examined and addressed in conjunction with the Attorney General. Many issues within the broader government can be tied back to a more general congressional understanding of the threat due to the compartmentalization of committee jurisdictions and the responsibilities of executive agencies to brief on the nature of the threat. Broader committee jurisdictions should receive additional intelligence from IC agencies as necessary to inform China’s unique and more com- prehensive threat across layers of the U.S. government bureaucracy and economy. Former DNI John Ratcliffe increased the intelligence budget as it related to China by 20 percent. “When people ask me why I did that,” he explained in an interview, “I say, ‘Because no one would let me increase it by 40%.’ I had an $85 billion combined annual budget for both the national intelligence program and military intelligence program. My perspective was, ‘Whatever we’re spending on countering China, it isn’t enough.’”31 From an intelligence standpoint, the need to understand Chinese motivations, capabilities, and intent will be of paramount importance to a future conservative President. It is therefore also of paramount importance that the “whole of government” be rowing together.
— 703 — Department of the Treasury l The U.S. should also examine increasing or decreasing its ownership levels in these institutions in order to achieve maximum leverage. CHINA AND OTHER GEOPOLITICAL THREATS Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States should realign its priorities to meet the United States’ current foreign policy threats, especially from China. On October 20, 2022, the Treasury Department, which chairs CFIUS, adopted the first-ever CFIUS Enforcement and Penalty Guidelines50 on the committee’s national security risk mitigation requirements. However, there are no clear rules that guide CFIUS on mitigation monitoring, nor is there a published penalty sched- ule to standardize accountability when CFIUS pursues a civil money penalty for violators. In addition, Treasury—as chair of the committee—runs an opaque pro- cess that biases committee procedure toward corporate interests and away from national security interests. Finally, the committee’s jurisdiction does not extend over greenfield investments that Chinese state-owned enterprises have historically pursued in the United States, which leaves America vulnerable to an instrument of Chinese economic statecraft. Given these issues, the next steps for CFIUS should be to develop a more coherent—and transparent—mitigation monitoring program to complement the enforcement guidelines, give CFIUS agencies in charge of national security con- cerns an equal voice at the table, and petition Congress to amend the law to cover Chinese greenfield investments. CFIUS should publish a penalty schedule for violations of CFIUS reporting and mitigation requirements. Publishing a penalty schedule for CFIUS violations will reduce the discretion of the committee to waive penalties or impose mere “wrist slap” costs on violators of the law. Additionally, a standardized penalty schedule would likely increase the deterrence of CFIUS enforcement by reducing the per- ception among parties to covered transactions that they can avoid enforcement by the committee or secure special exceptions based on appeals to the commit- tee’s discretion. As a legal matter—and in application by CFIUS—mitigation monitoring has developed as the Wild West. There are no clear rules that guide the entire com- mittee on mitigation monitoring, nor is there the same level of oversight or accountability within and among the agencies as applies when CFIUS reviews a transaction or when it pursues a civil money penalty. Indeed, it is a credit to transaction parties and the professionalism of the governmental officials and con- tractors who conduct mitigation monitoring on behalf of the government that, by and large, mitigation monitoring has worked adequately during the last several decades. But dependency on the personality and capabilities of individuals creates unnecessary risk both for CFIUS and for transaction parties.
Showing 3 of 4 policy matches
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.