Sponsors (13)
Introduced November 19, 2025 by Michael Dean Crapo · Last progress November 19, 2025
The bill dramatically increases transparency and gives families and researchers stronger tools and a centralized process to find missing military and civilian records, but doing so creates significant administrative costs and workload, raises national‑security and privacy risks, and concentrates discretion that could reduce judicial checks and invite politicization.
Families of missing service members and civilians will gain faster, clearer access to records and a formal process to learn the fate or status of loved ones (defined review deadlines, compelled searches, and public postings).
An independent Review Board with subpoena/compelled‑review powers, staffed with experts and backed by congressional oversight, will centralize authority to obtain, review, and push for disclosure of records.
The law presumes declassification and requires agencies to transmit covered records (subject to narrow exceptions), increasing government transparency and accelerating public access to historical files.
Taxpayers and federal agencies will face substantial new administrative costs and workloads to search, copy, review, redact, transfer, and manage large volumes of records and to staff and operate the Review Board.
Disclosure requirements and imperfect review processes risk exposing sensitive national‑security information, operational details, or sources/methods that could harm current missions or individuals.
Treating Board requests and certain procedural rules as overriding other protections could erode privacy, due‑process, and third‑party confidentiality (including reduced judicial oversight in some contexts).
Based on analysis of 15 sections of legislative text.
Creates a Review Board and a National Archives collection and requires federal offices to find, certify, transmit, and—unless narrowly exempted—publicly disclose records on missing U.S. Armed Forces and civilian personnel.
Creates an independent federal Review Board and a National Archives collection that will locate, preserve, and make public government records about missing U.S. Armed Forces and civilian personnel (covering cases from Dec. 7, 1941 through enactment), unless narrow, evidence-based national-security or privacy exceptions apply. The bill requires federal offices to search for, certify under penalty of perjury, and transmit records to the Archivist; gives the Review Board authority to direct public disclosure or postponement; authorizes the Attorney General to seek unsealing of grand-jury and other records; and sets deadlines, oversight, staffing, and funding authority to carry out the program.