Christopher Bing and Joel Schectman

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – A new law prohibits former spies of the United States from hiring foreign governments to do business with them after their departure from Washington.

As part of $1.5 trillion in spending bills, President Joseph Biden signed the legislation into law on Tuesday. The bill prohibits U.S. Intelligence officials who have knowledge about spycraft or national security secrets, from selling their services to any country for 30 months.

According to Reuters, a congressional aide explained that Joaquin Castro (Democratic U.S. Representative) introduced the legislation in order to resolve issues raised during a 2019 Reuters Investigation. Reuters revealed that the United Arab Emirates used former National Security Agency hackers to spy on dissidents, journalists and others over a one-year period.

“We don’t want our best trained intel officers going straight into the hands of foreign governments for the sake of money,” Castro said. This discourages intelligence mercenaries, and it protects our national interests.”

Project Raven, a UAE spy operation called Project Raven (NASDAQ) hacked into Facebook and Google accounts, as well as thousands of Apple (NASDAQ) iPhones. This was to target activists who, according to human rights organizations, were then arrested and tortured.

Although U.S. law prohibits intelligence personnel from disclosing national security secrets in any way, there has never been a rule that prevented retired intelligence officers of the Central Intelligence Agency (NSA) from selling their services abroad.

The new law, which will apply to former intelligence officers after their retirements, requires them to report foreign government activities to Congress and the U.S intelligence community for five years.

It applies to the CIA, NSA, and more than a dozen other American intelligence agencies.

Rhea Siers is a former top official of the NSA. She said that the law addressed a crucial gap in the current law which has permitted American officials to make grave ethical violations for their own personal gain.

“Even after government employment, intelligence officers have a responsibility to uphold the public trust,” she said. “Personally, I was appalled by what was revealed about Project Raven, especially the involvement in conducting surveillance of U.S. citizens.”

Work for foreign governments was broadly defined in the law. Work for foreign governments is prohibited, as well as work that state-backed businesses receive significant investments or are controlled by them.

Glenn Gerstell was the former general counsel of the NSA. However, he said that while he generally supports restrictions, he feels this definition is too broad. This could prevent security specialists from taking important roles within the private sector.

“My concern is that it could inadvertently have an effect of making it a little harder for people even to work for companies that we would be perfectly delighted for them to work for,” Gerstell said.

In the past decade, countries around the globe have established investment funds to buy shares in private companies. This restriction could apply depending on the interpretation of the law as it enters into effect in six months.

Former spies can request an exemption under the law if they can prove that foreign work is crucial to U.S. National Security. Experts say Washington encouraged intelligence contractors from the United States to cooperate with allies when this was perceived as aiding America’s spying efforts.

Gerstell said he hoped the law wouldn’t hinder these kind of legitimate intelligence contracting arrangements. “We rely on our allies. There is nothing evil about working for a foreign government,” he said. “Sometimes it helps us.”