This piece was originally published on The SCIF, the blog of the National Security Institute.
This piece is the first a two-part series that will explore how the Federal and state governments are working to reform transparency rules to expose malign foreign influence in policy discussions. In this first piece, I will examine the Federal efforts to reform transparency rules. In the second, I will examine the state efforts to reform transparency rules.
In Washington, D.C. and in state capitals across the country, lawmakers are considering new laws to improve transparency about foreign lobbying and advocacy in the United States. These promising efforts could expose malign foreign influence activities and allow policymakers to be better positioned to address national security threats posed by foreign adversaries by understanding who they are meeting with when on different policies.
On Capitol Hill, a bipartisan coalition of senators are backing several legislative reforms to amend the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA). While these laws have been on the books for decades, they have well-known loopholes and weaknesses that lobbyists and foreign interests can use to avoid disclosure.
