{"id":27319,"date":"2024-05-17T04:47:17","date_gmt":"2024-05-17T09:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=27319"},"modified":"2024-05-17T04:47:24","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T09:47:24","slug":"senators-question-whether-the-u-s-is-ready-to-fight-foreign-interference-in-the-2024-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=27319","title":{"rendered":"Senators question whether the U.S. is ready to fight foreign interference in the 2024 election"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lawmakers on Wednesday warned of a growing threat of foreign interference<\/a> in the 2024 election<\/a> and questioned whether U.S. agencies \u2014 and tech companies \u2014 are sufficiently prepared to respond to the danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to do a better job of making sure Americans of all political stripes understand what is very probably coming their way over the next \u2026 less than six months,\u201d said Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Sen. Mark Warner during a hearing with the head of U.S. intelligence and other senior officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Virginia Democrat warned that attempts by Russia and other adversaries to try to influence the 2024 election through propaganda and disinformation could be \u201cmore sophisticated and more aggressive in both scale and scope\u201d than in previous years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Warner said the threat had increased due to a combination of more advanced and available technology, aggressive foreign actors, a growing distrust of government among Americans, litigation that has made U.S. agencies reluctant to share threat information with social media companies and a failure by tech firms to decisively tackle the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSadly, since 2022, we\u2019ve also seen considerable disinvestment \u2014 and in certain cases, utter disinterest \u2014 in platform integrity efforts by leading social media companies,\u201d Warner said. The senator was referring to social media firms cutting staff and scaling back efforts to moderate content deemed to be disinformation or hate speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ranking Republican on the intelligence committee, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, said it was unclear what federal agency or official had the responsibility to respond if a foreign government spread falsehoods or posted an AI-generated \u201cdeep fake<\/a>\u201d during the election campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen this happens, if this happens, who\u2019s in charge of responding to it? Have we thought through the process of what do we do when one of these scenarios occurs?\u201d Rubio asked. \u201cBecause I don\u2019t think I have a clear understanding of who\u2019s in charge and how we would respond. Who would take the lead?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The senator said there needed to be a coordinated plan for how to respond instead of what he called an \u201cad hoc\u201d approach that has been used in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told senators that protecting the democratic process \u201cfrom foreign influence or interference is an absolute priority for the intelligence community\u201d and that the U.S. government \u201chas never been better prepared to address the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haines said her office might have the role of issuing a warning about a foreign actor spreading disinformation during an election, but she said there might be instances where local or state election officials might be better placed to warn the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe hesitation that you hear from me is based on the fact that there may be certain circumstances in which, for example, a state or local official or other basically public authorities are in a better position to make the public statement initially and for the rest of us to come back behind,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Haines said she was prepared to promptly call out false information put out by foreign states, citing an example of what she said was a Russian-linked group putting out a video with false claims about a CIA plot to undermine Donald Trump\u2019s bid for the White House. The baseless video claimed to describe an internet troll farm in Ukraine used by the CIA. The New York Times first reported on the Russian disinformation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd I am here to say, categorically, that this claim is patently false that there is no such thing. It is disinformation, and that is the kind of approach that we\u2019ll continue to take across the board,\u201d Haines said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The intelligence director said the video was probably the work of a Russian-affiliated group known as Storm-1516.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A CIA spokesperson said the video was \u201cpatently false.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCIA is a foreign-focused organization that takes our obligation to remain uninvolved in American politics and elections very seriously,\u201d spokesperson Walter Trosin said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The threat picture for foreign interference is now more complex, Haines told lawmakers, because there are an increasing number of governments or groups seeking to shape the election outcome and more commercial firms ready to help them with sophisticated tools that can hide the original instigator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRussia remains the most active foreign threat to our elections,\u201d Haines said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Russian government\u2019s objective is to use information warfare to undermine faith in America\u2019s democratic institutions, exacerbate divisions in the U.S. and weaken Western support for Ukraine, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although China seeks to promote support for Beijing\u2019s policy stances, it did not try to shape the outcome of the last presidential election and would likely retain that approach as it is keen to avoid the fallout from being caught trying to meddle in a U.S. election, according to Haines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran, however, \u201cis becoming increasingly aggressive in their efforts seeking to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions as we\u2019ve seen them do in prior election cycles,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Angus King of Maine said it was crucial that intelligence agencies move quickly to alert the public as soon as they identify a false piece of information, and to avoid slow-moving bureaucratic procedures that could play into the hands of those spreading disinformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King said that \u201cif you have evidence that this is coming from a foreign source, let the public know so they can assess that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Maine independent said he was concerned that cybersecurity officials might take an overly cautious approach to avoid being accused of trying to intervene in the election to help President Joe Biden get re-elected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m worried that you may be overly concerned with appearing partisan and that that will freeze you in terms of taking the actions that are necessary,\u201d King said, and added: \u201cPlease ramp it up. We\u2019ve got about six months and … we know that these adversaries are going to be coming at us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials and lawmakers made a point of distinguishing between attempts by foreign actors to tamper with voting or ballot counting through cyberattacks, and separate efforts to influence attitudes and spread false information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite revelations that Russia broke into American voter registration rolls in 2016, there is no indication that Moscow altered the registration records or other electoral systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency<\/a>, told the hearing that federal and state election agencies have bolstered the security of election systems<\/a> over the past eight years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is no evidence that malicious actors changed, deleted or altered votes or had any material impact on the outcome of any of these elections,\u201d she said. But Easterly added: \u201cWe cannot be complacent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia, China and Iran have repeatedly denied they have tried to interfere in U.S. elections through propaganda, spreading disinformation or cyberattacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawmakers on Wednesday warned of a growing threat of foreign interference in the 2024 election and questioned whether U.S. agencies \u2014 and tech companies \u2014 are sufficiently prepared to respond to the danger. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to do a better job of making sure Americans of all political stripes understand what is very probably coming their way over the next […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":27320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[24139,2923,2904,28441,1770,1541,28440],"class_list":["post-27319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-ballots","tag-elections","tag-hearings","tag-jen-easterly","tag-russia","tag-senators","tag-us-cybersecurity-and-infrastructure-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27321,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27319\/revisions\/27321"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}