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Judiciary Committee advances bill allowing Office of Homeland Security to receive certain DCI information
Summary
The House Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to send House Bill 329, which would add the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security to statutes enabling the Department of Criminal Investigation to share certain criminal intelligence and change language from 'shall' to 'may' for interagency cooperation, to the House floor.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman called the committee to order and the committee advanced House Bill 329, the Office of Homeland Security Amendments, after a brief presentation and limited questions.
Representative Laurie Bratton of House District 51, sponsor, told the committee the bill restores and narrows language from a prior effort so the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security may receive criminal intelligence from the Department of Criminal Investigation (DCI) when needed to perform statutory duties. "This is a...Phoenix bill," Bratton said, adding the measure adds the Office of Homeland Security to an existing statute and creates a new subsection allowing the office to receive criminal information for purposes set out in the Wyoming Homeland Security Act. She said the bill also replaces "shall" with "may" where the statute currently requires cooperation, leaving the decision to cooperate to the Office's director.
Bratton said the changes were drafted in coordination with legislative services and with the Director of the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security and the Director of DCI.
Representative Chastick asked whether the only change from the earlier defeated measure was the replacement of "shall" with "may." Bratton confirmed that was the substantive difference. No members of the public provided testimony; the committee moved the bill (moved by Representative Lien, second by Representative Feiler) and approved it on a roll call vote with the committee recording nine ayes.
The bill would (1) add the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security to the list of agencies with which DCI may cooperate, (2) create a subsection allowing the Office of Homeland Security to receive criminal intelligence for statutorily enumerated purposes under the Wyoming Homeland Security Act (Title 19, Chapter 13, Article 1), and (3) change existing statutory language from mandatory cooperation ("shall") to permissive cooperation ("may") in the specified provision, leaving the choice to the director.
