After renewed indignation against a hacking scandal Involving former federal agents, U.S. lawmakers plan to pass new restrictions that would limit the type of work former intelligence officials could do for foreign governments after leaving the service.

As first reported by Reuters, the proposed changes are contained to an extent of the current version of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022. Admittedly, the expenditure bill still has a long way to go before it is enacted, but the text of the bill shows that the measure would be prohibit certain former intelligence officers from engaging in “national security, intelligence or homeland security” work on behalf of a foreign government, or a company representing that government, for a period of 30 months after leaving the service. In addition to this, if and when such work occurs, new reporting requirements should be met. For a period of 5 years after their role with the American intelligence community In the end, the officer would have to report information about “after-service employment” to the head of the intelligence “element” he was working for. Those who fail to meet these requirements could face fines or jail time, the bill says.

Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, chairman of the US House Special Committee on Intelligence, said the proposed changes are intended to ensure that US intelligence “skills” are not used to “violate the rights of the man “.

“Members of the intelligence community are developing the skills to protect our country from bad foreign actors, and this intellectual property really belongs to the United States,” Schiff said. told Reuters. “It must not be used by foreign governments to spy on Americans or to violate the human rights of dissidents … We will make sure that does not happen again.”

Other members of Congress familiar with the bill told the outlet that the legislation was aimed at preventing former spies from providing security services to foreign countries with “poor human rights records.”

The proposed changes follow a new controversy surrounding “Raven Project”, A secret operation carried out by a company based in the United Arab Emirates cybersecurity company, DarkMatter. “Raven” saw crowds of former Americans Intelligence agents are helping the UAE government monitor and hack its detractors, including journalists, activists and US-based people. The project was initially discovered via a 2019 Reuters survey, but the case recently returned to public view when three men formerly attached to “Raven” – all former NSA agents – were charged by the federal government as part of at their work for DarkMatter. The men, who are accused of using “illicit, fraudulent and criminal means” to “gain unauthorized access to protected computers in the United States and elsewhere”, all entered into deferred prosecution agreements, allowing them to pay heavy fines in order to to avoid jail.