Shaheen-Backed Legislation to Support Victims of Directed Energy Attacks Signed into Law
**The legislation led by Senators Shaheen, Collins, Warner and Rubio will support U.S. Intelligence and Diplomatic staff who have suffered brain injuries likely from directed energy attacks**
(Washington, DC) – Today, legislation to support American public servants who have incurred brain injuries likely from directed energy attacks was signed into law by President Biden. The Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks (HAVANA) Act, authored by Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Susan Collins (R-ME), Mark R. Warner (D-VA) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), will authorize financial support and ensure medical care for injured individuals. Both the Senate and House previously passed the HAVANA Act unanimously.
“For far too long, U.S. public servants and their loved ones who’ve suffered from directed energy attacks have been denied the care they need and deserve. That’s unacceptable, and is why I’ve partnered with Senator Collins and this bipartisan group of lawmakers to ensure affected Americans have access to long-term, emergency health benefits,” said Senator Shaheen. “By removing barriers to critical medical attention and paving the way for personnel with brain injuries to recover, the HAVANA Act is an important step forward. I’m very pleased President Biden has signed our bipartisan legislation into law, and I’ll continue to fight to get to the bottom of these attacks and protect our national security.”
The HAVANA Act will authorize the CIA Director and the Secretary of State to provide injured employees with additional financial support for brain injuries. Both the CIA and State Department will be required to create regulations detailing fair and equitable criteria for payment. This legislation will also require the CIA and State Department to report to Congress on how this authority is being used and if additional legislative or administrative action is required.
Symptoms of these directed energy attacks have included severe headaches, dizziness, tinnitus, visual and hearing problems, vertigo and cognitive difficulties, and many affected personnel continue to suffer from health problems years after the attacks. The HAVANA Act will give the CIA Director, the Secretary of State and other agency heads additional authority to provide financial assistance to those suffering from brain injuries as a result of these attacks.
Senators Shaheen, Collins, Warner and Rubio’s legislation was co-sponsored by Senators John Cornyn (R-TX), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Richard Burr (R-NC), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Angus King (I-ME), James Risch (R-ID), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Rick Scott (R-FL), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Maggie Hassan (D-NH).
Click HERE to read the text of the law.
Senator Shaheen has stood by government employees and their families who have suffered from these mysterious injuries, and leads efforts in Congress to provide them critical health benefits. She recently introduced new bipartisan legislation, the Directed Energy Threat Emergency Response Act, with Senator Collins to reform the U.S. government’s investigation and response to suspected directed energy attacks and improve access to care for impacted individuals. Specifically, the bill would require the President to designate a senior national security official to organize a whole-of-government response and direct the heads of relevant agencies to designate senior officials to lead their agency’s response. Shaheen successfully added key provisions of this legislation in the SASC-approved National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year (FY) 2022. In the FY2021 NDAA that became law, Shaheen successfully included language to expand a provision in law that she previously wrote to provide long-term, emergency care benefits to all U.S. Government employees and their dependents who were mysteriously injured while working in China and Cuba. Shaheen’s measure to amend the law followed her letter with Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) in May 2020 calling on the administration to interpret the law as intended by Congress.
On the TODAY Show last year, Shaheen responded to the findings of a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report on these injuries and underscored the urgent need to take action to address these attacks that have targeted American public servants and their families. Despite Shaheen’s calls for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to come before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to address what the Trump administration was doing to uncover the source of these attacks and protect American public servants, Pompeo never appeared. Pompeo also never responded to bipartisan calls in the Senate led by Shaheen to detail how the Trump administration would respond to the findings of the NAS report. During Secretary of State Blinken’s confirmation hearing, Shaheen reiterated that uncovering the causation of these attacks and assisting those who’ve been injured must be top priorities for the Biden administration. In February, Shaheen spoke with CNN in an exclusive interview on developments to uncover the source of targeted directed energy attacks against U.S. personnel and their families.
