“A bill to establish an Independent Financial Technology Working Group to Combat Terrorism and Illicit Financing, and for other purposes.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section establishes the Independent Financial Technology Working Group to Combat Terrorism and Illicit Financing, chaired by the Secretary of the Treasury (through the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Crimes) and consisting of senior representatives from the Departments of the Treasury, Justice, Homeland Security, and State; the Internal Revenue Service; the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the United States Secret Service; and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—plus at least five private sector appointees representing financial technology companies, blockchain intelligence companies, financial institutions, research organizations, and privacy/civil liberties groups. The Working Group must (1) research terrorist and illicit uses of digital assets and emerging technologies and (2) develop legislative and regulatory proposals to strengthen U.S. anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing, and related efforts. It requires an initial report within one year of enactment, annual reports for the next three years, and a final report to the Treasury Secretary, represented agency heads, and appropriate congressional committees; the group sunsets four years after enactment (or upon completing authorized wind-up activities), with any unobligated funds returning to the Treasury.
This section requires the President, acting through the Secretary of the Treasury and in consultation with the Independent Financial Technology Working Group to Combat Terrorism and Illicit Financing, to submit to the appropriate congressional committees within 180 days of enactment an unclassified report (with a possible classified annex) on (1) the potential uses of digital assets and related emerging technologies by states, non-state actors, foreign terrorist organizations, and other terrorist groups to evade sanctions, finance terrorism, launder monetary instruments, or threaten U.S. national security; and (2) a strategy to mitigate and prevent such illicit uses. The unclassified portion must be publicly posted on the Treasury website in precompressed, downloadable, and machine-readable formats, as applicable; and the Secretary of the Treasury must brief the committees within two years on strategy implementation.
This section defines terms for purposes of the Act, including: (1) appropriate congressional committees as the specified Senate committees on banking, finance, foreign relations, homeland security, judiciary, and intelligence, and the specified House committees on financial services, foreign affairs, homeland security, judiciary, ways and means, and intelligence; (2) blockchain intelligence company as any business providing software, research, or services (e.g., blockchain tracing, geofencing, transaction screening) supporting investigations and risk management using cryptographically secured distributed ledgers; (3) digital asset as any digital representation of value recorded on a cryptographically secured digital ledger or similar technology; (4) emerging technologies as critical and emerging technology areas listed in the Critical and Emerging Technologies List of the National Science and Technology Council's Fast Track Action Subcommittee, including updates; (5) foreign terrorist organization as an organization designated under INA §219 (8 U.S.C. 1189); (6) illicit use as including fraud, darknet transactions, money laundering, illicit goods purchases, sanctions evasion, theft, funding illegal activities, child sexual abuse material transactions, and other transactions involving proceeds of specified unlawful activity (18 U.S.C. 1956(c)); and (7) terrorist as a person carrying out domestic terrorism or international terrorism (as defined in 18 U.S.C. 2331).