Letter to Brian Murphy, Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security - Rose, Walker Make Bipartisan Push for DHS to Increase Intel Focus on China's COVID-19 Actions

Letter

Dear Acting Under Secretary Murphy:

The world continues to learn more about China's efforts to dissemble, obfuscate, and divert
information from the key early months of the novel coronavirus outbreak through to the present
day. Media reports indicate that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of
Intelligence & Analysis (I&A) recently assessed with medium confidence that China was
manipulating public knowledge of the extent and severity of the virus in their country in order to
stockpile resources for their own pandemic response. Earlier today, the Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), in coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI), issued a public warning regarding China's threats to American intellectual property related
to the coronavirus. China's apparent actions create challenges for the efforts to respond to the
COVID-19 pandemic, to say nothing of the public health ramifications for the entire world. In
light of these reports and the recent news that leadership at I&A is in transition, we write to inquire
about I&A's work with respect to China.

As a member of the Intelligence Community (IC), I&A is privy to the intelligence reporting of all
IC agencies and contributes valuable classified and open-source material to the IC intelligence
picture. In particular, I&A sits in a unique position in the IC given its responsibilities to state, local,
tribal and territorial partners, as well as partners in the private sector who rely on DHS reporting
to secure the American public. As such, DHS has an essential role to play in ensuring that the
American public and the American economy get back to normal as quickly as conditions allow.

China's past and present actions with regard to the pandemic implicate issues of cybersecurity,
export enforcement, intellectual property, electronic crimes, and other traditional and nontraditional threats. Given these broad-ranging impacts, we urge I&A to take the critical step of
increasing its focus on China, including the use of commercial trade data.

We also ask that you commit to continuing to share with the Committee all products DHS has
produced on China's actions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including any products not
already transmitted to the Committee. Please make relevant unclassified DHS products available
to Committee staff over official email channels. In addition, we respectfully request a briefing
from I&A on China's actions during this pandemic.

We look forward to continuing to work with you and your team to ensure that DHS has the
resources it needs to protect the American public and aid communities in their return to normalcy
at the appropriate time. Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

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