In July, the Pentagon announced that it had paid nearly $3 million to personnel affected by Havana Syndrome and renamed its investigating team the Directed Energy Bio-Effects Cross-Functional Team . The government is spending money, organizing research, and treating directed energy as a security concern.

The American public deserves protection and answers regarding Havana Syndrome and the use of this class of weapons, and the gaps in enforceable oversight from the UN to Washington should raise an eyebrow. I raised this concern in March in Weapons That Target the Mind : “The question is not whether this conversation should happen. The question is who benefits from it not happening.”

Technologies that alter nervous system activity are already studied and used in medicine. The 2020 National Academies report identified directed, pulsed RF energy as the most plausible cause of the syndrome, especially for cases with distinctive early symptoms. According to a 2024 Government Accountability Office report, 334 Americans have qualified for treatment within the military health system. As many as 1,500 people on six continents have suffered symptoms consistent with Havana Syndrome.

In March, CBS reported that U.S. agents acquired a suspected microwave weapon from a Russian criminal network and that animal testing produced injuries resembling those reported in people. Its joint investigation with The Insider traced Russian operatives’ travel and communications, and obtained an emailed document linking a Unit 29155 officer’s payment to research on “non-lethal acoustic weapons.” Stanford physician David Relman , who led two government-requested scientific investigations, told CBS that their work was “not only downplayed but dismissed, in some cases, buried.”

If scientific findings were buried while Americans were asking for care, who answers for that? At what point does burying evidence undermine the American public’s interest in legal protection?

Michigan’s legislature has already shown how to write a specific prohibition. Its law prohibits manufacturing, possessing, or using harmful electronic or electromagnetic devices for unlawful purposes. The definition includes pulses, beams, signals, and microwaves intended to harm people. The basic offense carries up to 15 years, with higher penalties for injury. This gives Congress a model to examine. But someone still needs to investigate, obtain evidence, and identify an operator, and the relevant records may be sitting inside a classified program.

A 2024 House Intelligence subcommittee report accused the intelligence community of thwarting its investigation “at every turn.” On June 11, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard recalled two intelligence assessments discounting foreign involvement. Chairman Rick Crawford called them “fraudulent and manufactured.”

Three former officers told the reporting team that investigators dismissed a CIA cable corroborating a suspected Russian operative’s travel during the relevant period in Tbilisi, Georgia when the wife of a U.S. attaché suffered symptoms consistent with Havana Syndrome. Former director William Burns denied a cover-up by the agency .

Think about who benefits from keeping this conversation stalled. What incentives are in place not to pursue legal protections for the American people? Since the Havana incidents, there is a need to examine how existing law defines harm involving this technology, and where those protections need to expand, and where the scientific research needs funding to study the impact on victims.

Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) pushed for care and oversight back in February 2026. Shaheen’s committee-approved defense bill provisions address military care and attribution research, which gives Congress somewhere to move from. The civilian population deserves equally explicit protection. Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Ed Markey (D-MA) proposed the MIND Act to study neural data governance. A study is certainly good, but who will take responsibility for providing the necessary protections?

A global response is needed in this case because borders do little for accountability when the operator and the person harmed may be in different nations. Chile’s constitutional protections led to a court order deleting a user’s brain-activity data. The UN privacy rapporteur has called for a model law ; UNESCO’s recommendation addresses consent and malicious use. So, there is already work to build on. Governments in the United States and Europe should put enforceable protections behind these commitments, including scrutiny of classified operations.

The ACLU and other civil liberties organizations should be looking to expand the laws on harm. Advocates including Len Ber have pressed for civilian research and care, while Rafael Yuste and Jared Genser already pursue mental integrity through the Neurorights Foundation. Now it’s the turn of governments to explain what they’re willing to cover.

Legislation should cover deliberate harmful neural intervention without consent. It should apply to narrowly defined lawful authority, including officials and contractors, and provide for both criminal penalties and compensation. This is not about exposing classified intel. This is about establishing laws to define harm for a new class of technology. It is time for Congress, the leadership of intelligence agencies, and civil liberties organizations to step up to the plate and close the gap between governance and technology.

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