Thank you very much for joining us. Started. We get im Paul Saunders the executive for the of the Center National interest. Thank you very much all of you for joining us today for what we hope will be an informative and conversation about we ias information efforts called it in our invitation. I think weve got two really with differentrs backgrounds, ary both with extensive experience in the Intelligence Community. To my left our first speaker eric hazeltine, who is a, a neuroscientist but technology r chief officer at the National Security agen agency. Correct, i hope. Nd also a recipient of the National Intelligence , stinguished Service Medal someone with really very the sive experience at intersection of technology and intelligence intelligence, both in the in ate sector and also government. O my rate we have my new colleague george bebe the andctor of the intelligence National Security here. Career intelligence been an nal who has advisor to Vice President cheney and also on tters intelligence issues. After that, the director of at the Central Intelligence agency. After his time in Government Service also developing some sector t private experience related to technology nd how people influence one another on the internet, if i way. Put it that so, i would like to ask each of 10 speakers to speak for minutes to get us started secretary tillerson then we up for questions and discussion. R. Hazeltine, if we can start with you. I think i would like to start at 100,000 feet before getting details of the russian Information Operations in this country. Not too that it is much of a stretch to say that many ssians view us in senses as an adversary. It is also safe to say they have a different view of conflict than we do. Whereas we tend to think of it warfare, they f hink of it more broadly where they dont distinguish between conflict and not conflict. To remember what was said about war. It is the achievement of violence. Aims through and you have to keep that in front of you. Is political. Tive whether you get it through iolence or hacking or buying facebook ads as far as the russians are concerned the end is what they keep in mind. If you look at the economies of two countries, russias Gross Domestic Product is of texas. At if you do a thought experiment and imagine you are texas and rest of the adversary was not nited states and im saying anything negative about texas. Im using it as a texas. You think of the scale of things. Your adversary is the united economy d you have the of texas, what do you do . You start there. What you do is several things. You want to avoid conflict opponents strengths at all costs. They are going to beat you on conventional d in warfare you dont want to fight them. Avoid that while still achieving the political objective. Is if you do ng have to fight them you want to win and it is not a given that superior numbers and economy will win. Adversary is very clever about developing spikes of capability that exactly align weakness of a stronged a sir they will beat them. Arguet think anybody with that the great achilles heel of our military apparatus is the that we are so dependent on the network. So, the network goes down it is difficult for us to fight. It should come as no surprise no one better be in the world at Network Warfare russians. The reason is simple. That they have to be. It is important to have that 100,000foot view what is happening now, because i think it puts into context what we are seeing. If the russians view us as dversaries, then it is fair game to engage in what they call nformation confrontation without armed conflict. Because remember, they are rying to achieve political aims. So, now lets turn to some of more recent things that you have heard about with facebook for example in that context. A lot has been said about the activities in the 2016 election and how they were trying to favor one candidate over the other. But clearly that cant be the only story. For one thing the Facebook Campaign was continuing until year. T of this we know this. Facebook has acknowledged this. Of you look at the content the facebook, some of it advantaged one candidate but generally its aim was to divide our society often multiple levels. There were divisive statements gu guns. Energy, on about every late 10 crack pressure was applied surgically. Look at it from that point of view the larger aim was adversary by lightening existing internal dissension. Because a weakened adversary who is ight being themselves less likely to fight you. If they do fight you they wont same will. The war as also said the aim of is not to defeat a military but frommove the will to fight your adversary. That the key phrase, will to fight. Internal dissension ability to t and fight when they fight is less. Context in which i would put what has been happening. Think that the prediction of my point of view is that this is going to continue for the future. Ble i suspect the sanctions are not meaningful duce ovement in there this direction. One of reasons i believe that is im not going to say with russians that the wanted us to know that they were behind some of these things that were happening. That one thing we have to keep in mind is that it did, or at a hey minimum they were not too concerned about us learning it the d. N. C. Nd in hack, the facebook ads and in the other things that have been happening. Say why on earth would they about their ned handing found in this or want us to know or the rest of the world. That is a fascinating question. A policy retend to be person. Tph techno geek look at that possibility. It takes you in fascinating directions. Was this a deterrent . Of s well known principle deterrence that if you dont really have the weapon and you ant prove that it works, then deterrent. Was it show of force that if you mess with us we are going to mess with you. I dont know. But i think this is an aspect of this evolution that i suspect i will say this. The russians are very skilled in network operations. It is their intention to hide what they are doing i suspect they are about as good it as anybody. And when you look at the trade craft that is reported in the it doesnt, i think, live up to the standards of some things they are probably capable of. I think that is one kind of interesting dimension of this. Is there a meta message to us the world in these activities that have been going on. My ll turn it over to colleague, george. Thank you very much. Away. Orge, take it i would like to start out by doing something that i think is at events like this, nd that is to quote taylor swift, the popular singer. To make my 12yearold daughter very happy. Quoting is not why im taylor swift. The quote is, haters going to hate. Very well known expression. That . I raise because behind that thought is big idea. Fairly it is one that Graham Allison his study of cuban missile crisis, the model. Zational process it is the idea that sometimes when governments do things there is central direction, there is a nitary rational actor pursuing coherent strategic objectives, sometimes it is parts of that are operating according to their normal organizational processes. The things they are paid to tdo. Nd what we are seeing is not the product of an elaborate Strategic Plan but routine business as usual. That is very relevant to the question that we are facing today here. We have a fairly interesting often of what is going in the facebook and twitter dvertising purchases, messages that were targeted at very articular proportions of our population in very specific geographic areas. At this as part of a kremlin plan with very specific objectives toward the United States . This as the lowerlevel workinglevel activities among that is fairly routine . Between . Something in i would like to argue that it is between, omething in but i will caution that there is still a lot we dont know about careful we ought to be about drawing conclusions so early in this process. I would like to tell you why i think that is the case. I get into that i want to point out a common cognitive that we can all fall into as we address questions like this. Bias. S confirmation t is very easy to start with a hypothesis, an explanation for what is going on, then go out you o research to see if can find information that is consistent with that hypothesis and when you go about doing like that you usually find evidence that is consistent with your hypothesis. That you can run into is that you are not looking at that ative explanations are also consistent with that same evidence. In this case the hypothesis that an kremlin directed influence Operation Campaign in he United States designed to unitedsension within the states and ultimately as some phrased it to destroy our broader liberal international order. There is evidence that is with that. I would say that same evidence is consistent with other the nations including hate and going to influence models are going to influence. Explanations that fall between those two extremes. I want to offer an alternative at this, a little different paradigm just as a thought exercise. It goes like this. Deeperia sunk deeper and into political and economic and societal dysfunction during the 1990s, and as they watched nato oving eastward, russians began to think that maybe this wasnt an accident. Of american des experts that were coming over here providing advice on reforms that they ought to pursue actually wanted to see sink deeper and deeper into dysfunction. That this was a grand design on part to finish our enemy off. Unfinished the business of that cold war defeat. As time went by social became d the internet more and more influential we started having color revelations former soviet union, movements in the middle east, the socalled arab spring that to be very much related to social media messaging. Kremlin became worried that pointed toward a u. S. Directed regime change effort hat would prominently feature social media as well as other things and they started to take themselves. Fend you started seeing a lot of ctivity inside russia to get a handle on social media influe e influence, socalled troll were created where they employed thousands of out and post things in this medium. Postst on blogs and other online. Create advertising, message campaigns of their own. His became very, very common supp inside russia. A lot of people were employed and a lot of money was spent in this area. Inside ally moved from russia out into the world more broadly including into the United States. What years would you describe this process . The mid 2002s and on. The question here is, is what we seeing with these advertising purchases on product and twitter the of these troll factories going out there and doing what they years, en doing for business as usual . The ld point out that methodology that appears to be ad g used that links these buys to russians, much of it is linked to what we know about one these very prominent troll factories which has gone by a names but ifferent the most noteworthy the Internet Research agency which is st. Petersburg. E can trace some of these ad buys to people connected to that group. Trained not highly intelligence professionals. For the most part these are that need jobs that are eing paid on quota to post thin things. They are rewarded for high productivity in posting these things. They get some broad guidance as doing they ought to be but not a lot daytoday about the direction and what they are up to. Is we are seeing i think not inconsistent with the picture we are talking about. O i know for sure it is a and not b . No, i dont. But what i can say is both of these explanations for the in front of us fit with what we know so far. The best way it ensure that you ensure that you are not falling into the confirmation bias is to look for disconfirming evidence. Things that can rule out hypotheses. For example if your in belief is this is a kremlin directed undermine u. S. Democracy bringing about our adversary, what would you expect to see beyond far . Evidence we have so i would submit there that we dont have disconfirming that rule out s that hypothesis. But we are not seeing some to gs that we would expect see if the russians were really trying to bring our democracy down. For example, it is well within ussia agencies Cyber Capabilities to do things like turn out the lights at least parts of our count country, things that may not crippling arily a effect on our Business Operations but would have a profound psychological effect on sense of security. Wall street trading is another one. That is one that could be highly isruptive and not only psychologically there. And it is interesting we have not seen that. Elections, a lot has been made about the probes have gone on in state Electoral Systems there. Bit of a little confusion as to what actually occurred there and im not sure yet as to the facts what actually went on. But i think that theres a right now that they did not mess with the votes. Tallying of the and even if they didnt mess with the actual tallying of the fair to saynk it is they didnt do anything that try us into believing that vote system was mess with and even if you dont have the ability to change the vote counterthey certainly have the ability to deceive us into they did. So far we have not seen that, see ifou would expect to that hypothesis were what is russians. E do i have anything that rules ut organizational process explanation, haters going to hate theory . No. But i think that there is one test i would do that could it. I think right now it might be in the u. S. Interest to try to test it. If the russians are trying to do our things that would get attention that would cause us to say you know what, all the russians suspect we have been doing inside russia, supporting opposition trying to hasten reform this they find very alarming, if what they are is to show they can do things here to knock it off that proposition. Just this past week during his newly eeting with confirmed u. S. Ambassador to putin mentioned principles that he thought the bilateral relationship. One is mutual noninterference in internal affairs of the other side. We could look at that and say this is a bluff. Doesnt really mean that. But we could test it, too. See. Ould pursue that and if the russians goal is to ring down our democracy as opposed to get us to change our behavior toward them they should this. Te on they may play this out, play for a e but actually reaching deal we should not see if that hypothesis is true. We inking that is one that ought to investigate. Because personally i suspect that this is something that they in pursuing. Rested i will leave it at that. Thank you very much, george. May i respond . Please. The thing that i learned in intel business is when you see something bad happening you in attribute it to malice or competence and 99 of the time bet. Petence is a enter i wont say what george is saying about is it incompetent the russian information organs got a little ahead of the policy makers were . I think that is a possibility. Xcept in the case of the russians i dont think that is the case. A littleind of contest bit something that george said here are we looking for evidence that the russians are taoupdown or democracy . Training is a straw man that is too extreme. Think they k they are going to be able to do this. Much k they maybe have less Ambitious Goals which nonetheless would explain what we are seeing. Military affairs we have denial which is to deny us our democratic government, then is the notion of degradation. I think that the russians are know this h to extreme begets extreme. If they really did do as you take down our command and control of the infrastructure i think that would be viewed as something engender a kinetic response because that is a we say in the as military. Russiansew is that the have a kind of a degradation trategy and thats what we are seeing. And that, interestingly i will close my comment saying i our side when we have been incompetent and screwed up and we take a step at what we did we say yes we shouldnt have done do we we did it so how exploit it and i interpret some of the things on the other side context. Whether or not that was their original intent is where we have look on to and if you the world stage and say how does the rest of the world view what minimum you t a would have to say that they look at russia as punching above of this. Ght with all does that hurt russia . Ratherview is they would be feared than liked so it has served their interest. You want to response. A quick response, i think are views and mine on it not that far apart. We are in right now is that the public discussion of this has been extreme extreme. We are told that we are at war freeman le by morgan and company. That russia is in fact seeking destroy or democracy and ndermine the liberal national order. And that is actually something that we have been told by Intelligence Community analysis on this. Actually two ed contrasting explanations for what we have seen since election russians were trying to elect president trump, the other they were trying to si and e or definitely the broader international order. Reality of what we are dealing with is a little than that. D i think you have pointed out them. Of i dont really think this care that much whether we have a democracy or not. What they care about is are we going to mess with them the way ay and get in of their policy aims whatever our ideology. Quite agree. I think they are somewhat apolitical in that sense, that a larger agenda which is they more care about us from ideological w than view except as relates to their how they view and true democracy or no. Jurisdiction lets go first to center for t at the the national interest. I completely agree with eric, issue for the russians is probably not american democracy. Russians have good elations with good democracies such as india, brazil and i israel. Ay whatever differences the ussians have with israelis, so n syrian and lebanon not the quality of democracy. Think that george, paul and myself together with the delegation were just in russia officials o russian and had some very vigorous conversations about interference which my impression is seriously take seriously and do not understand be denials would not sufficient. I think that it is clear to most us, that bably all of there was russian interference episode acebook were trates the russians trying to create some element of destau destableation in american society. We dont know as george indicated why and what was the objective. But i have to question to both of you. Was it a surprise . Should it be a surprise . Felt that for a number of years it was in connection to would ble that russia retaliate in some way in terms in american ce Domestic Affairs because they were complaining that we were theirs. In of founding is one fathers of russian interference he was a airs because very strong spokesman. Energetic spokes plan for the United States doing more to change the russia. Al purpose of i want to go to what eric said. It is quite clear that you can case that it is ok for us to interfere with russian Domestic Affairs because we wanted to bring democrat is i to russia. It is not a case for them to affairs in american because they are messing with real democracy. Kind of aid we are in warfare business with russia and warfare business you have the rule that if you do something to them they will want something to us. And what is remarkable to us at east to what extent some starting with senator carden were not thinking about implications of their actions. Where am i wrong . Eric, phraelease. There is surprise and there is surprise. Those of us students of russian craft everyone we surprised that they did it and how . I would say no. Evenly for myself i was a little surprised that they were made their hand as as they did and that made me suspect there could be a quid pro quo. No point poking a finger in somebodys eyes when responding to them poking it into your eye if you it is you hem know poking. So a strong hypothesis there has but another at level strategically we have have shorter corporate memories than russians. Our administrations and policies continued to turn over more rapidly and they do forget where russia they dont. Back it are we at war with my view of the russians is that if they are oing to go to war they want to weaken the opponent long before. Distinction between warp and not is not the same as the we have. On george. I think it is never a wise he is tell your boss wrong. In this particular case i agree. I think there is not surprising what has gone on. It would be surprising were the to do things here that they believe we are doing there. I think eric is correct here, doing that point in looking to re not bargain at all. If you are not looking to change behavior then you do want to hide your hand and do things hasten our demise and ou want to cover your tracks precisely for the reason you highlighted which is it could kinetic evoke a response that russia doesnt want to get into. A fight they will come out well from. So those are reasons i suspect is a situation where the russians are looking to change our behavior. They dont like what we have been doing. They have been trying to argue into changing, pleading, lists ofng, delivering grievances for many years with not much to show for it. I think they have moved into a situation where they are strong nough and capable enough to push back in the hope that that will get our attention. And they have certainly gotten our attention. Theres no question. They xt question is have gotten the attention of a country that doesnt recognize nuances between war and peace. I think you are either a friend an enemy but the areas in between are difficult i think cope with and there is a danger that we could over rea as some regarding it sort of declaration of war, read that nto their intentions are there and find ourselves in a very dangerous situation as a result. Ambassador. We have a mic, yes. You. Hank interrelated two questions to ask both of us. That rst is, i understand in one way or another in ndertaking these various activities the russians have , en trying to send a message it is wedimitri argues can try to tamper with your forth. L politics and so but have they made do you think they have made a mistake by isunderstanding the kind of current selly hysterical nature american politics and theres been ferocious counterreaction this . It has breathed new life into the hawks on the republican side given the democrats a new ationale for going after the russia russians . Does it provide us an opportunity as george feels suggesting o was to work out a new understanding n g the lines of noninterference . Secondly, in terms of their activities, i guess the question i have is how did quickly, if you follow georges scenario, how they get so good at this . Hillary clinton in her her book now after has published even suggested to tune their ine information activities to target kind ofstates that were strategic in terms of the election, shes actually needed some sort of american political strategy on how to engage effectively along these lines. If george is right the people doing this stuff are sort peoplentially unemployed in st. Petersburg, that is not high price the washington lobbyist. Why have these activities on part apparently been pretty effective given the fact with st in my experience the russians understanding of rassroots american politics is not very acute. George, programs you first this time. Im not sure l, how effective the russian efforts actually have been. A very hard thinking to assess. Volume. Times you will get how many might have seen essaging then you end up with headlines like 10 Million People may have seen it, 100,000 worth ads. 10 million saw it potentially. Is oneblem with that, it thing to know somebody potentially cover seen something. Thing to know they actually looked at it and read are frequently out of line. It is another thing to know that affected the audience you are looking at. Harder to know. So i think we ought to be cautious about approaching the of how effective these things are. , e second question really is how sophisticated really was , and how much in depth of knowledge about the american political system is to do what they did . And obviously there are many that believe it was highly sophisticated and equired a very nuanced understanding of u. S. Politics to do. That is ersuaded that true. Microtargeting of audience, if to buy facebook nd twitter ads you have to mic microto target. When you boy something you have when you want to buy something you have to select ho you want to put them in front of. So it not only makes it easy to those platforms to work. Icrotargeting number two, it doesnt take a lot of depth of understanding of political system to identify swing states. States hin those swing it is not very hard to figure ut what the swing districts are. And i had heard it said that the russians couldnt possibly have known who to target within the swing states. All of that information is readily available. Of a n go to any one number of data brokers that are out there that sell this information information. Lists with all kinds of information of who, registered, all kind of demographic information that goes with it. Russians have purchased all of that or stolen readily from the companies that have it . Absolutely. It is not hard to do. Short summary of what george said who taught the facebook and divert with pulldown menus. That is the short answer to the question. The larger issue is was it effective. To ask who was the intended audience and what was the intended effect. Not talked much about the russian population which is something we should think about. All politics are electrical meaning when you local. When you look at a foreign you are seeing a change in behavior and aggressive behavior the first look at is what is going on inside that country hat might motivate a lean Forward Foreign policy. Part of audience for this is the population. And what effect do they want to them. On and what was the effect on them. I dont know a lot about that. In terms of i wake up in the morning. What is the first thing to think about. And the rest of the audience is the rest of the world. Navy does a show of force. He could view this as a cybershowing of the flag, to send a certain message about the navy in cyberspace. Susan. Ave the microphone is behind you. This is a fascinating presentation. I have one observation request. 100,000 as an advertisement bu dozens some like much moneyy. Campaignmpaign spent 90 billion on additional advertising. If the russians spent a hundred thousand dollars, were talking about small potatoes. I would be interested to know whether that might influence where in the food chain this might occur. Secondly, the fact that it was so obvious. Could there have been someone else attending to be russian pretending to to be russian . To we go to deeper levels figure out the answer . Been a falseave flag operation . Yes. I dont think it was. Any comment on the advertisement buys . Bet that it was a Training Exercise for new kids at the institute. Is i read that it was a Training Exercise for new kids at the institute. Good atians are very denial and distraction. Look over here, says the magician. While i am doing the real stuff. You have to entertain the that they may have spent millions in ways you do not know. I agree. That 100,000 is ,he limit of what we have spent and that is not a very significant amount relative to the amount spent on the campaign, it is enough to say these werent patriotic hackers. There that are very good at messing around are also very stingy about spending their money on stuff. Outink we can safely rule these were patriotic hackers. It has to be someone with connections to government money in some way. I think it is a legitimate point. False flag is always possible. Case, i doubtular that was what actually occurred. Ive been writing about some of this stuff. George may be questioning what seems like a fairly rational explanation for all of saw putins i blames demonstrations against him in 2011 on Hillary Clinton. I am worried about the nearabroad. Ukraine, georgia, estonia. I feel like that is my backyard and i should control it. By damaging the United States brand, by making the United States look like a very divided, place, all tangled up in all kinds of disputes over immigration, race, putin can effectively turn to russians or say,ians or georgians, and you may not like us, but that is not much of a model. This is fairly clever and effective. To exploit those divisions. I agree with you. Wants to take any kind of evidence of dysfunction worldsest and the showcase democracies and he that for internal propaganda. Use that for internal propaganda. No doubt. Where i might offer a more nuanced position would be on theythe russians think have to do to scope that dysfunction to serve that purpose. There is plenty of material for them to work with already. I cant add to that. [laughter] jacob. Thank you. My question is fairly simple. There has been talk about, who are the russians . Are we talking about the fsb . The military . Putin . His blesesing to this blessing to this . Can we get more specificity . There ist know anything i am allowed to say that would be constructive on this. [laughter] of stateink the organ security is doing things putin found out about afterthefact, you would be in error. His command of the military is good. Doesnt matter does it matter whether it was any of these institutes affiliated with the government . I am not sure it does. In america, we tend to clearly differentiate between the government and other nongovernmental things like organized crime. How people would say they are not as separate as they should be. They are. Not so much in russia. To what degree has organized crime in russia had a hand in this . What is that relationship . That is an interesting question. Not be the question you asked, but it is one i am answering. Maybe yes. Maybe no. When you are looking at russias cyber operations, you were looking at an officer conducting who are they working for . Mother russia. Their boss is going to get a cut of something. Loyalties and motivations may not be the same as the equivalent people we have doing these things. Against to guard intelligence, we have to guard against mirroring. They are just a different version of us. They are not, i am here to tell you. It gets to the intentions that might be behind him. Them. Ind how do you react . What kind of response to be have on our end . The russians may be kremlindirected, personally putindirected operation. He started a plan. This is what we want to do and here is the plan. You all go out and play your part. That is one possible explanation. Have brought it sets of instructions broad set of instructions out there. You have collection priorities, operation priorities. You know what you need to do. Go do it and report back to me. Folks at the working level can be somewhat entrepreneurial in these broad directives. I dont know what the plans of the Republican National committee are. I am going to go out and collect information and be rewarded for all of this. Let us go beyond that. Some of the folks doing that are not only government staff who wear badges all day long. But People Living in a gray world where they might be working a contract with the government. Are hackers and they have done some time at doing organized crime. They have some skills the government needs. The government has put them on contract to do some things. Maybe they wont prosecute them for old transgressions. Maybe they are trying to make some money to supplement their daytime activities during the evening. Collect valuable information out there and they want to sell it. Maybe wikileaks. I am not saying that is what happened, but the question you are getting to is a pretty important one. It does matter who the russians are and to what degree we are dealing with a complex and confusing world, where it is not very clear who is who. Let us go over here. Donald smith. Two questions. That russia has engaged in Information Warfare with us since back to world war ii. What is different about this time and how much more intense is this . Asked. Glad you i was hoping someone would ask that. The russians have been doing this kind of thing since well before world war ii. Era. Ng into the czarist we can see a long tradition of propaganda and misinformation. You can look at this and say, this is just a continuation of standard procedure. Case this isthe not just a continuation of things that have been long done it. There are new elements here that are important. The biggest new elements is technology. Never before could somebody pull down menus on social media to microtarget messaging the way they are doing now. We used to live in an information republic. Media was one where we had a handful of very prominent who decided what was newsworthy and what wasnt. What was true and not true. You could rely on the new york times, and the Washington Post to put in front of readers content they felt met certain standards. We are in more of an informational democracy, which might be eight or double description. Charitable description. Intermediaries who can sort out what is newsworthy and what is not. Environment, one of the big challenges we face is that anyone can do these sorts of things we are saying. We are seeing. It is hard for audiences to discern the difference between truth and fiction, what is attentionworthy and what is not. That is an element that matters a lot. It means the nature of what the russians are doing in the and the environment in which they are doing it has changed. I think we have had a paradigm shift. I have been reading a number of russian leading thinkers, and they translate this term to strategic task. Is achieving a major policy objective. Nato. Ample, to neuter saying,inkers have been we are now capable of achieving strategic tasks sowing misinformation. We required a culmination of information means and warfare. We can now achieve everything we want with just information. That is one thing addition different about us. Bits as to feel view intelligence. They feel view bullets as ideas. There are more sophisticated in their thinking on this subject. Because of the lower barrier to entry, which allows someone with the economy the size of texas to weight, they feel this is on the same level as other strategic weapons. I heard a lot of reasons why russia is doing this. I havent heard they want to get donald trump elected or not to get Hillary Clinton elected. Is there any element of truth to either one of those . I am happy to let george take that. [laughter] i am skeptical about the explanation the russians were looking to get donald trump elected or hurt Hillary Clinton. Know the russians i know the russians were not big fans of hillary. They looked at trump as something other than of an un known. They were encouraged by some of the things they had to say he had to say about wanting a different relationship with russia and rethinking approaches to international democratization. But he was very much an unpredictable element. The russians dont like unpredictability. I think some of the things that have been attributed to putin have been exaggerated. Aboutd one thing candidates drop. He said in response to a question at the end of a long press conference. It was not a prepared statement. His comments were mistranslated. Complemented trump;s trumps character, the brilliance of his character. Ius. then turned into gen [laughter] vastly overblown. You have to look at other elements of the recent campaign. Viewed in that context, it is hard to make that conclusion. We have entertained so many different hypotheses. I have rarely seen such a confused and chaotic response to what so many people say is an act of war. It is a baskety is a should of american democracy. Bastaasket is asian rdization of american democracy. People would be surprised by the coast guard would risk its reputational integrity. Then, we find out free agencies, a handful of people came to this conclusion. Chaos in been a lot of the way the american Intelligence Community has been looking at this. This an embarrassment, if people claim this is as serious as it is . There was a lot of soulsearching after the weapons of mass destruction in 2003. I dont see a lot of thats now. Of that now. There be a Major Overhaul of the u. S. Intelligence truly as if this is threatening as many people claim . I would like to entertain a number of thoughts. [laughter] disagree the Intelligence Community is in chaos. I have been inside the highest levels of the Intelligence Community. I was quite shocked at the unanimity on this issue. I dont ever recall seeing that level in my time there. I do not think there was chaos. There was consensus. Conflict likes to sow and chaos. Because it is newsworthy. But i dont think that is the case. Should this cause a reorganization of the Intelligence Community . I wouldnt think so. They rarely do any good. You dont have to worry. My old boss says, never throw away an old chart. They will all come back. I would certainly not want to use terms like embarrassing and chaotic. However, based on what i have read about the process, and i am relying largely on work that has been done in the washington times. Nd the new york the process done was not the normal approach. Normally we reach a National Intelligence judgment of some kind. There is a National Intelligence council under which that occurs. There is a process under which people reasonably have a role to play by virtue of their organizational responsibilities. It doesnt sound from the press reporting as if it was done that way. It sounds as if john kelly put together a task force of a small number of people from the they had tod that sign a nondisclosure agreement about the evidence they were shown. That evidence was not more widely disseminated throughout the broader Intelligence Community. That is a very unusual way to do this. The argument i have understood that was made, the sensitivity of the sources that were involved was so extraordinary that it required this. I am not aware of another topic that has been tackled in that way. When i look at this and want to be confident myself at the judgments that were being these were approached in a methodology methodological matter and through an organizational process. It looks like that wasnt the case. We talked about the russians being mad at us for interfering in their elections. I was under the impression those kind of tapered off. If there is a debate to be had, you want to mess with our internal affairs and we wont mess with yours . Can we get clarity on that . [laughter] thing i could say, and i havent looked at it closely, a lot of that went away. If we are talking about open , what most people are used to talking about and looking at, a lot of that would wait during the obama administration. Went away during the obama administration. We just had a conversation about what we see versus what we dont. I expect they have similar conversations in russia. We have to look at the broader effects. Who is taking the narrative . They have kind of taken the narrative. We are spending a tremendous amount of time on this we arent spending on other things. Tot is something important think about. I dont know if that is what is intended. But it is powerful. One question here. Thank you. Destabilization efforts in Eastern Europe rely on partners within countries. I wonder if we are having the right discussion about collusion. We are coming to a deeper understanding of what that looks like. But there is evidence the Russian Embassy was good at getting people within the trump government to compromise themselves. But there is evidence the Russian Embassy was good at getting people withindiscussiont discussion should we be having on collusion to better prevent people in the United States government from, arising themselves and then actively colluding from compromising themselves and then actively colluding . What should we be talking about when we talk about collusion . I dont feel qualified to answer that. I dont have any information. What is the useful definition . Where should be we begin to think about an offline conversation between two people . There is stuff that feels fruitful, and is stuff that feels malignant. Stuff that feels malignant. In a very abstract way. How should we be talking about collusion . I am not sure how to answer that. Is classic intelligence recruitment, where you are developing and ultimately paying a source to spy, to conduct classic espionage. We have a lot in the books about that already. These are quite adequate for dealing with that problem. A second category, you might call, unwitting agents. People are doing things the russians want them to do who are completely unaware of who might be on the other end that is helping them. That is in a gray area. I am not sure you can fruitfully that can things prevent that sort of thing from going on. Selfawareness are probably best handled there. An atmosphere in the country were people are afraid to talk to russians where people are afraid to talk to russians is something that is not in our international interest. We have to be careful when we talk about people doing putins bidding. What sort of education efforts, what form would that take, in terms of having people not being unwitting agents . You dont want to be highest level the highest level of government coming out and saying, dont be an unwitting agent. Have you drop that balance between helping people understand what that looks like how do you draw that balance between helping people understand what that looks like and not being an alarmist . This is nothing new. Guarding against foreign intelligence something we have been aware of for a long time. Those inside the system get lots of counseling and lots of feedback about constant context. There is nothing that is happened recently that would cause us to depart from common sense. People in positions to have Sensitive Information need to there is National Security at stake and they have to be careful. They have to keep in the back of their mind that interactions with foreign nationals may not be so innocent. I dont see a need for changing anything based on what is happened recently. Has happened recently. I was a political appointee at the state department during the bush administration. I went in for my first days, and there was a briefing on how to do this and that. And on security. It covered many of these issues. Those are things typically repeated by the government on a all of thesis, where employees who might have access to information that someone else might find desirable. Align with that. Would point out, on the question of foreign influence, we had outside the room have knowse the room, dimitri my favorite president is george washington. If you read the farewell address and the portion that deals with the question of foreign influence, it has two sides. One side, you have to be careful of allowing your affections for another country to drive you. That can distort policy. You have to be careful to not allow your antipathy toward another country to war your decisionmaking to warp your decisionmaking process. Reminder for us to think about this during this unusual time that we are in. Kgb was given an enormous was giving an enormous freedom of action to soviet agencies. They have spent a lot of time recruiting. Technologies have changed. Behind technologies, there are human beings. Maybe we should study history learn morexamine and about what kgb was doing, to learn their habits and skills and motivations. I agree. Thank you. Short answer. You both have said what happened was more or less predictable, given what the russians have been doing elsewhere. If you look at what happened in europe, it is happening on social media. Back to theelates question of, if you were united, if it was predictable, you move the platform it would be coming knew the platform it would be coming on, why did intel in Congress Seems so surprised . And what is the defense . What is being done to stop this . Given the fact you knew it was coming on social media, what is the defense . You opened a fascinating question. Should the government take in getting into what amounts to the private sector . Facebook is private sector. Twitter is private sector. There is some question about how much National Security should get involved regarding the i. T. Businesses, given that nationstates are going up against some of them, as happened in the sony case. Will see they you government lean forward and get into the private sector and that happenssaging in the private sector and be protecting the Cyber Security more than what Homeland Security and the fbi are already doing. It is a question about the differences in our society. That separation between the hybrid in public is not true in russia. Between the private and public is not true in russia. Is appropriatet for the government to get into the business of determining what messages are and are not put out there in public media. Were not talking about messages in any normal way. Were talking about as an instrument to do something that you have already discussed. It is achieving their political goals. We know it is driven by nationstates to do was harm to do us harm. I want to come back to something. Al qaeda cannot destroy america. Only we can do that. We have to look to ourselves, and how fractious we are. I look at it like a bee sting. Someone has an allergic reaction that tells them. It is what we do to ourselves. People look to the government to do things which it is not appropriate for them to do. Can we allow someone to do this to ourselves . It is how we react to this and how people vote based on this. I would turn the focus more to the American People than the government. I will second that. I think there is much we can do and should do to ensure the integrity of actual balloting in elections. That is something the government needs to be involved in. Mandatele thing is to the use of paper balloting. So we are all confidence that when we have an election, those vote tallies are accurate. Into relying only on electronic and only relying on electronic balltoing balloting is a bad idea. That is not a proper role for government. It is precarious for the government to get into the business of policing content. It is one where the russians have long and claiming that information itself long been claiming that information itself can be weaponize. Weaponized. N be our reaction is that information yearns to be free. We have started to say in the last year, maybe information can be dangerous. That is a dangerous thing for the government to be in that business. I think it would change the nature of who we are. Hackers are given 30 of the Voting Machines never used in the United States. They hacked all of them within 45 minutes. Let me follow up on this conversation. At our immediate envionment, our media networksif two big want to merge together, the government and the American People have an opinion. There is going to be a monopoly. You can have this much of a share. Our facebook and twitter to too bigbook and twitter , are they part of the problem . Are they sort of like monopolies . That is a challenging question. Technology moves faster than policy and law. Social media has created a new currency. Social information. Is like ancy commodity that can be monopolized. Internet, ino the the end, information wins out. Thee are so many ways barrier to entry has made anyone able to broadcast to a large number of people. Media is moving from one to many, to many to many. We are in any danger of how someone having someone to monopolize information. Everything is fast going in the opposite direction. So much for that idea. A question over here. What is the ultimate goal for the russians . This seems to be a thread they have been on since the soviet era. Is that what they want, some sort of noninterference pact . Interest are their goal . Ests yes. We have to call their bluff on that. And say ask if they are serious. It is in our interest to do that. It is not going to prevent messing in our political system. That is going to happen one way or the other. Dangers,inimize the and ensure this doesnt get out of hand. I will return to the domestic perspective inside russia. I have to believe near the top of their list is using this to consolidate their own stability. Sense, put them into his group may have done that putin and his group may have done that. We are talking about them. They have taken the narrative here. With ann say, we, economy the size of texas, are dominating the american discourse. That makes him pretty strong. That is something we need to keep in mind. He wakes up in russia. Words, strike at putin im not talking about a so much by not talking about tim so much talking about him so much. [laughter] that was our last question. Thank you all for joining us. Was a very enlightening conversation. Thank you. [applause] the Vice President is traveling to puerto rico to spearhead Hurricane Maria relief efforts. Going to the u. S. Virgin islands. He tweeted a picture of himself the healthtes into and Human Services secretary and the health and Human Services secretary. Congress will be taking up the fording bill for recovery recent hurricanes and wildfires. It also provides funding for the Flood Insurance program. There will be a negotiation with the senate on the Defense Program policy bill. We will have coverage on cspan. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979 as aeated Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you today your cable or satellite provider. By your cable or satellite provider. Now to a conversation on how the trump presidency