In an age where information is both weapon and shield, the U.S. Intelligence Authorization Acts (IAAs) for Fiscal Years 2025 and 2026 stand as pivotal legislative instruments shaping the contours of national security, surveillance, and narrative influence. Enacted amid escalating geopolitical tensions with adversaries like China and Russia, these Acts authorize billions in funding for the 18-agency Intelligence Community (IC) while embedding reforms in artificial intelligence (AI), biosecurity, and counterintelligence. Yet, viewed through the prism of Mockingbird Media, a framework illuminating intelligence agencies’ historical and ongoing orchestration of media narratives, these laws raise profound questions about the persistence of psychological operations (PsyOps) in both traditional and digital realms. This analysis draws on the expansive Mockingbird Media framework, which traces narrative control from Cold War propaganda to AI-driven algorithmic biases, and a direct overview of the IAAs, highlighting their provisions for oversight amid critiques of accountability gaps. By examining these Acts against the backdrop of enduring intelligence-media entanglements—as chronicled in foundational accounts of Mockingbird Media operations—this article probes what facets of such influence remain permissible in 2025-2026, encompassing newspapers, television, radio, digital platforms, search engines, and social media’s AI algorithms.

The Architectural Foundations: An Overview Of The 2025 And 2026 Acts

The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, enacted as Division F of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and signed into law on December 23, 2024, allocates $73.4 billion to the National Intelligence Program (NIP), marking a modest escalation from prior years to fortify operations against multifaceted threats. Structured across four titles, it authorizes appropriations for core intelligence activities (Title I), the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) retirement system (Title II), and oversight enhancements (Title III), while Title IV mandates targeted assessments on China’s biotechnology ambitions, Russia’s terrorism sponsorship, expanded definitions of “terrorist activity” to encompass groups like Hamas and ISIS affiliates, and risks from transnational gangs such as Tren de Aragua. Notable innovations include codifying the National Security Agency’s (NSA) Artificial Intelligence Security Center, extending public-private talent exchanges to five years, and issuing guidelines for collecting sensitive commercially available information (CAI)—such as location data—under stricter vetting protocols.

In contrast, the proposed Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, introduced as S. 2342 on July 17, 2025, by Sen. Tom Cotton and advanced by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, seeks $81.9 billion for the NIP—a 11.5% increase—amid congressional gridlock that triggered a government shutdown on October 1, 2025. Operating under a continuing resolution extending FY2025 funding, the bill emphasizes counterintelligence reforms, including establishing a National Counterintelligence Center and transferring the National Counterintelligence and Security Center to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). It standardizes open-source intelligence (OSINT) training, prohibits certain AI applications to mitigate risks, bans ideological bias in IC hiring, and requires assessments of China’s economic dominance and supply chain vulnerabilities. Unlike its predecessor, the FY2026 bill stands alone, decoupled from the NDAA, reflecting procedural shifts driven by partisan disputes over spending and policy riders.

These Acts modernize the IC’s toolkit—integrating AI for threat detection, bolstering biosecurity coordination, and refining OSINT capabilities—yet they invite scrutiny for diluting accountability. Reduced confirmation processes for oversight boards and expansive CAI guidelines could inadvertently amplify surveillance of public discourse, echoing historical concerns over media entanglements.

Narrative Control In Legislative Guise: Insights From The Mockingbird Media Framework And IAA Provisions

The Mockingbird Media framework posits intelligence-driven narrative control as an unbroken continuum from the CIA’s 1947 inception under National Security Council Directive NSC 4-A, which greenlit psychological operations, to the digital PsyOps of October 2025. Coined by Praveen Dalal amid the 2025 Truth Revolution, it dissects “The Mighty Wurlitzer”—Frank Wisner’s metaphorical orchestra of over 400 journalists embedded in outlets like The New York Times and CBS by the 1970s—as a systemic apparatus for planting stories, suppressing dissent, and fabricating consensus. Reforms like Executive Order 11905 (1976), banning domestic interference post-Church Committee exposures, and the 1997 Intelligence Authorization Act’s statutory curbs on paid press ties merely recalibrated, not eradicated, these dynamics, as evidenced by CIA Director William Burns’ 2023 admissions of persistent covert links. A pivotal escalation occurred under President Obama with the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, enacted as Section 501 of the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2013, which amended the original 1948 Smith-Mundt Act to authorize the domestic dissemination of U.S. government-produced materials previously restricted to foreign audiences. This removal of longstanding prohibitions on propaganda targeting American citizens—intended to prevent government influence over domestic public opinion—opened pathways for State Department and Broadcasting Board of Governors content to reach U.S. media outlets, ostensibly for transparency but critiqued as enabling subtle narrative shaping on foreign policy and security issues. By 2025, this provision remains unaltered and operative, intersecting with the IAAs to facilitate IC-aligned messaging in an era of hybrid threats, where assessments on China and Russia could inform public broadcasts without explicit foreign-targeting mandates. Applied to the IAAs, this lens reveals the Acts as enablers of evolved Mockingbird tactics, framing them as adaptive responses to hybrid warfare with FY2025’s $73.4 billion bolstering agility against biotechnology espionage and terrorism, while FY2026’s $81.9 billion proposal refines efficiency through AI prohibitions and workforce reforms.

Bipartisan passage of FY2025 belies critiques of “reduced accountability,” such as streamlined board vetting that could obscure media-influence operations reminiscent of Operation Mockingbird—the 1975-exposed CIA journalist-recruitment program. The FY2025 Act’s AI Security Center and CAI guidelines, for instance, could harness algorithmic curation to demote “dissenting truths”—mirroring Google’s Project Owl biases, seeded by CIA venture arm In-Q-Tel’s 1999 investments in early search technologies. Public-private talent exchanges, extended to five years, risk channeling media experts into IC roles, subtly influencing traditional radio and television narratives on threats like synthetic opioids or ISIS-Khorasan, much as Cold War assets amplified the “domino theory” during Vietnam. Title IV’s threat assessments on China and Russia, while ostensibly defensive, parallel historical propaganda funding for anti-communist broadcasts via Radio Free Europe, potentially spilling into domestic feeds under the 2012 Smith-Mundt Modernization Act‘s allowances for U.S.-targeted materials—a framework that, in 2025, continues to blur lines between foreign information operations and domestic discourse, amplifying IC outputs through outlets like Voice of America without the pre-2013 barriers. Provisions for CAI collection, including location data, enhance surveillance but mandate guidelines to prevent overreach, potentially monitoring public discourse on Ukraine or Tren de Aragua without explicit media bans.

For the proposed FY2026 Act, the framework flags counterintelligence reforms and OSINT standardization as dual-edged: they promise impartiality via bias bans in hiring, yet empower FBI-led monitoring of social media and search engines, where AI algorithms could suppress narratives on supply chain risks or biotech threats, akin to 2020 flaggings of COVID-19 lab-leak discussions. FY2026’s delays—tied to shutdowns over healthcare riders—highlight procedural vulnerabilities, yet its standalone structure allows targeted emphases on OSINT and counterintelligence, transferring assets to the FBI to counter foreign malign influence from platforms like TikTok or Weibo. This could indirectly shape social media algorithms via IC-shared intelligence, fostering narratives that align with U.S. interests, as seen in historical Gulf of Tonkin exaggerations amplified by CBS. Declassifications in 2025—over 1,450 files on the RFK assassination—underscore that such provisions sustain the “conspiracy theory” weaponization from CIA Dispatch 1035-960 (1967), eroding trust in newspapers and digital platforms alike. The overview notes safeguards like whistleblower protections and biotech-sharing strategies, which might expose foreign PsyOps, but gaps in domestic data-use oversight evoke Church Committee warnings of eroded civil liberties. In this view, the Acts do not dismantle Mockingbird; they digitize it, amplifying PsyOps through biometric surveillance and AI-driven “fabricated consensus” for policies like carbon taxes or vaccine mandates, with the Smith-Mundt amendments providing a legal conduit for such content to permeate U.S. audiences unchecked in 2025. Overall, the Acts prioritize innovation—codifying AI centers and talent pipelines—over stringent media firewalls, enabling subtle narrative steering in an era of algorithmic feeds.

Persistent Echoes: What Remains Allowed In The Mockingbird Media Framework For 2025-2026

Within the Mockingbird Media framework, which structures analysis from 1947 PsyOps to 2025 digital adaptations, the IAAs uphold historical bans—such as 50 U.S.C. § 3324’s prohibitions on paid journalist ties—yet permit indirect, technology-mediated influences that evade outright illegality. Drawing from documented Mockingbird operations, which entangled over 800 global contacts by 1956, the framework identifies “allowed” facets as those recalibrated post-1970s reforms: covert, non-monetary collaborations and algorithmic proxies rather than overt recruitment. The enduring Smith-Mundt Modernization Act further bolsters this permissiveness, allowing government-backed narratives to flow domestically in 2025-2026, where IAAs’ OSINT and AI tools could integrate such content into media ecosystems without violating core restrictions.

In traditional media—newspapers, TV, and radio—the Acts reinforce 1977 guidelines under Stansfield Turner banning paid relationships, rendering direct story-planting impermissible. However, public-private exchanges in FY2025 and FY2026 enable “unwitting” asset cultivation, where IC-vetted experts consult on threat reporting, subtly guiding narratives on Russia’s Ukraine sponsorship or China’s opioids without financial quid pro quo. This echoes 1950s Korean War funding of $500–$5,000 stories in The New York Times, now laundered through “oversight” roles that influence editorial framing on CBS or NPR broadcasts, potentially amplified by Smith-Mundt-permissible materials.

Digital platforms, including search engines and social media, emerge as the framework’s most permissive arena. In-Q-Tel’s legacy investments—facilitating Google’s algorithmic foundations—intersect with IAA AI provisions, allowing IC influence over result prioritization without violating bans. FY2025’s CAI guidelines permit harvesting location data for “national security,” which agencies can feed into social media partners (e.g., via OSINT training in FY2026), demoting dissenting content on Hunter Biden’s laptop or COVID-19 origins, as occurred in 2020 suppressions. AI algorithms, codified in the NSA’s Security Center, can “prohibit certain applications” while enabling bias-mitigation tools that selectively amplify IC-aligned views—e.g., boosting reports on ISIS-Khorasan over alternative analyses—under the guise of countering foreign influence. The framework warns this digital “Mighty Wurlitzer” persists via 2023 FOIA revelations of wiretap files, with FY2026’s FBI transfer enhancing platform monitoring without domestic interference clauses, and Smith-Mundt’s domestic allowances ensuring such influences reach U.S. users seamlessly.

Across media types, the Acts’ emphasis on transparency (e.g., reporting requirements) offers nominal checks, but the framework contends these are illusory: algorithmic curation on platforms like X or YouTube, informed by IC OSINT, sustains suppression of “suppressed truths” like MKUltra or PRISM, proven via 2013 Snowden leaks. In 2025-2026, thus, Mockingbird endures not as crude recruitment but as veiled symbiosis—talent pipelines for traditional outlets, data feeds for digital engines—eroding democratic discourse while cloaked in security imperatives.

Toward Transparent Horizons: Reclaiming Narrative Sovereignty

The IAAs of 2025 and 2026, while fortifying defenses against tangible threats, inadvertently nurture the spectral legacy of Mockingbird Media, where intelligence and information warfare blur. Through the framework’s discerning gaze, these laws digitize historical manipulations, permitting algorithmic and collaborative influences that traditional bans cannot fully contain, compounded by the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act’s unchallenged facilitation of domestic propaganda. As declassifications continue to unearth suppressed narratives, the imperative is clear: bolstering independent verification, mandating AI audit trails, and enforcing funding disclosures to dismantle the Wurlitzer’s remnants. Only then can media—traditional or digital—reclaim its role as truth’s sentinel, not intelligence’s echo.