Thats important to all of us that are here and so many of our colleagues. Information is power today, and we see it all over the globe when its used improperly it is used as a weapon. Democracy requires wellinformed electorate to function properly but to undermine the principle through socalled Disinformation Campaigns designed to mislead voters and in doing so delegitimize the democratic elections. Actors like russia systematically exploit the media and to distort the truth to an unsuspecting populace with regards to the coronavirus and this information is being spread is a high degree and anonymous and again if left unchecked it could be devastatingly effective. I established this organization it could help lead to the global disinformation effort and work with International Partners. The Bipartisan Legislation within the state department is now the law and to get it up and going we will hear more about that today but we are pleased that we are making progress. They lead, synchronize and coordinate efforts in countering the states and nonstate propaganda and disinformation efforts. So, it is a broad and in work and mandate. Its a central message to create this issue against the falsehoods that affect the integrity of other democracies. We are pleased to have Peter Gabriel as our first witness. A former human intelligence Operations Officer for the Liaison Officer in the navy program director. Shes done all that within her short life so its very impressive that she is well experienced. We look forward to the assessment and budgetary requirements moving forward. I think its critical that we resource this important mission. We will have poly, im going to try this again i always call her alena. From the center of european policy analysis and Dan Blumenthal from the institute is at the expert witnesses as we have a serious discussion. Theyve testified before other hearings and today we will examine the democracies to put intentional sponsored information there are examples of this happening we have extensive documentation that russia conducted a coordinated campaign in the 2016 elections ukraine has been the subject in response to its efforts to break free we see the rise from the indo pacific and europe. This is a global problem and that requires a response. The security conference with some of my colleagues here we have a robust discussion about this and about the partnership in fighting disinformation. Today i want to dig deeper into the subject as well. With regard to the Indo Pacific Region it is a model for others to follow and how they manipulate or block information doesnt feed the desired narrative. Last i think its important that the u. S. Continue to be a world leader to combat this disinformation. To the other agencies weve established a close and effective relationship with our counterparts and the joint effort to gain traction elsewhere. The topic of disinformation is now a topic of discussion across the globe as they solve the conference in munich. To continue the leadership on this issue, we have to have effective organizations to coordinate the response this hearing will address so we can understand better and also make the gc even more effective. The problems caused by the deliberate statesponsored information are going to be here for a long time. They are not leaving. Tactics are inexpensive, effective and its critical that we understand the dangers and the best way to seize the initiative. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses in a moment and from the members of the committee, i now turn to the Ranking Member senator volker for his opening remarks. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. You can only get a hearing done that you and senator murphy and your extraordinary leadership in drafting the legislation that authorized if i understand correctly the executive order as to something that was established and i want to thank senator murphy for the leadership in many ways as a more Junior Member on the committee. This is a very bipartisan hearing. The concern in the mission is is organizations aorganization bute department refused to provide the committee with the witnesses requested and that is unacceptable to me. Its not the way we should be doing business. We have shared values and a shared understanding of the growing more sophisticated threats it is just unacceptable to me it isnt helping us to do the business of the people at protecting us and keeping us safe. And that brings me to where my thoughts are for the moment which is the aftermath of september 11 with the goal of reducing the influence and effectiveness of extremist groups that were seeking to harm americans. Today the scope of this work is incredible to me the scope beyond violent extremist groups and statesponsored propaganda is going to be an incredibly Critical Mission given the complex challenges. And as we are sitting here in this hearing there is widespread concern regarding the coronavirus at the time when people are worried in a vulnerable and we understand that in the context of this it is very profound. We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and that the additional threat of fear. The Washington Post has been reporting on the scott talking about the use of social media and the Conspiracy Theory put us out of danger. Its a coordinated activities responsible for pushing these dangerous falsehoods. One Conspiracy Theory is to attack people in this country to blame them bill and melinda gates. About this thread they find these lies is put out more danger and so this intentional desire to model the fact to undermine the security and safety to make us doubt the institutions. Ticket to the bottom of this information is exactly why it was created by congress but i have some questions about why go so far refused to comment about the report and other reliable news outlets are seeking to expose this so i hope to have that conversation as this goes on. Im also hoping to get to the bottom of the information that theyve uncovered about those that are spreading the falsehoods and what purpose and effect its already having. Russian interference demonstrate the dangers posed and we now know that the russians and other countries are trying to get better and better and more sophisticated at what they are doing. They are targeting democracies showing the sport through misinformation and attempting to weaken relationships between allies. Theres no reason to believe they are not going to continue to employ this playbook to get better at it than to seize any opportunities that the coronavirus to undermine the safety, security and our very bond here in the United States of america. While they dont have the authority over the homeland through the data and analysis collected on the techniques and practices, we know a lot more about what they do and to meet a lot of the challenges they present. I want to know how this is being shared with agencies including the department of homeland security, fbi and more. And while the u. S. Recently has began to see these threats, the neighbors have had the attempts to reverse the gains for years. We also know these efforts are not limited to europe and the United States. They are seeing this growing in africa. Moscows engagement fosters corruption especially in an already fragile african country. We know the activities are defined as part to weaken the u. S. Leadership in the region, but to undermine the very ideals of our democracy and others. Last year facebook identified accounts targeting eight african countries saying although the people behind these networks attempted to conceal the identity and coordination, our r investigation connected these two entities associated with a specific russian oligarchs who was described as the architect of russians interference in the 2016 election. China also has rapidly increased the use of influence tactics in the information space. It is clearly playing out in the misinformation space as well and so to me the task is considerable to lead efforts to counter propaganda from other organizations and countries. I look forward to hearing from both panels about how we as congress can continue to strengthen our work to make sure they are meeting what i believe is a growing threat tactic and techniques being used to undermine this country as well as critical allies and the stability and strength of people all around the country. Thank you again for being here and mr. Chairman, i turn it back to you you. Thank you. I appreciate those statements and we will get into more of the issues as we go forward. The first is mr ms. Gabriel, coordinator of the Global Engagement center for the department of state and all of your written record will be put in its entirety into the record. We ask that you limit your remarks this morning to five minutes coming up we look forward to your testimony, and then to asking questions. So, ms. Gabrielle, your Opening Statement. Thank you for inviting me to testify before you today. Im pleased to talk about the Global Engagement center. This is an important topic with serious implications for u. S. National security adviser she at the subcommittesheetthe subcomms time to it. We are dedicated to the mission of leading and coordinating the u. S. Government efforts to decisively exposed and counter before in state and nonstate disinformation propaganda. Secretary pompeo has called upon to employ a broad suite of tools to stop americas adversaries from organizing information and using propaganda to undermine the free society. Capabilities globally to ingest foreign propaganda. I worked to ensure mikey enter team has the necessary tools and resources by congress. At the state department chief conference, i spoke with the u. S. Ambassador who represents us around the world. I shared on threat assessment on this information propaganda and listen to their perspective on how developments are playing out on the ground. We at the gec recognize the crucial role that our missions and officers play on the front lines of the information battleground. My teams are working with embassies overseas and with the Department Regional bureau daily to execute and corny activities. Today i will outline how we view the disinformation of the kremlin and the Chinese Communist party are propagating. What were doing to counter each in the role that data and analytics play in our work. I will also describe the gecs role in court needed the government effort to respond to foreign propaganda in this information. I am also available to answer any questions about how the gec uses propaganda from terrorist organizations like isis as well as disinformation from the iranian regime. Lets start with the kremlin. The intent scope and style of this information propaganda spread by the kremlin and the Chinese Communist party are distinct from one another. The kremlin swamp the media environment with the tsunami of lies. Outside of russia the kremlin seeks to weaken adversaries by manipulating the environment and the various ways by polarizing political conversations. And attempting to destroy the publics fate in good government, independent media and democratic principles. To counter the kremlins disinformation, the gec is creating Strategic Partnership with Foreign Government to enable information sharing in the coronation that allows us to get ahead of the russian government Information Operation. The gec is providing support to our Mission Abroad and International Partners for wide range of efforts to counter the comments disinformation. This includes Civil Society groups in central and Eastern Europe that build resiliency in the communities. In running joint communication campaigns with allies to counter russian historical revisionism and to empower Fact Checkers in latin america to stem the surge of information in that region. With increased funding, we intend to provide more of this type of support to additional allies and partners globally so they can increase their own ability to resist the russian tactics. The investments we have made have also allowed us to expose elements of the russian government Information Operation ecosystem. This exposure inoculates audiences against the threat in critical. While moscow wants to rip enter disrupt the current order, the communist party seeks to shape it to beijings exampl advantag. Theyre pursuing a comprehensive court needed comprehensive campaign to advance interest and undermine the United States. But when you take a closer look, it is clear that many of the ccps action in the economic, security and human rights base our bill propaganda. The gec program is focused on puncturing the falseness. Our efforts to counter ccc propaganda to increase aspects of the belton road initiative. Increasing awareness of the problematic aspects of human rights abuses and elsewhere in china. As well as beijings abuse of open research and academic environment to achieve the military objective we also have programs to build global resilience to disinformation through Media Training and support investigative journalist and to map prc influence in the number information for future purchase. Beijing also wants to shape third country perspective of the u. S. Foreign policy. In order to restrict the space, wherccp up again it can take the route, oversees an effort to provide Accurate Information about u. S. Policies and the contribution of u. S. Businesses to the local communities. All of this our success depends on leveraging analytical tools as well as network, credible partners and local voices overseas and capabilities we are refining and expanding each day. My team and i are committed to the commission at Congress Task to the gec. In the modern age, the russian government, prc and other adversaries have clearly found ways to leverage new technologies to deepen and accelerate the impact this information propaganda can have. As always been the case, free nations must unite and Work Together to defeat the threat. I am here today that we are making progress. We are building up the gecs capability, crafting strategies tailored to the specific approaches of adversaries and most important link we are regaining the initiative. I thank you very much for the opportunity to testify today, i truly appreciate the subcommittee support for the gecs omission and look forward to answering your questions. Thank you and i appreciate your opportunity to share with us in more details in your Opening Statement. I got three colleagues who have scheduling conflicts and a couple republicans who will come back. Im going to take a minute now and ask questions after have a chance for the have to leave and what i want to talk about is coronavirus which is such a hot topic. In this very room we had a hearing earlier today, everything i guess you would call it was some of the nations experts on the issue, there has been some discussion in her Opening Statement about the fact there is information out there including groundless conspiracy theories being promoted and theres an analysis i saw that you believe there is evidence of an authentic incarnated activity concerning social media post in tweets, can you talk about the work they have done on this already in the disinformation on the coronavirus and the conclusions regarding the role of state actors in the falsehoods. Absolutely, thank you for raising this important issue. The coronavirus is an example of where we seen adversaries take advantage of a Health Crisis where people are terrified worldwide to try to advance their priorities. The gec has a robust analytics and Research Capability and we work with partners so we can use the highest Level Technology and the latest data science tools to assess the environment. We are watching the narratives that are being pushed out, false narratives around coronavirus. Unfortunately, weve been able to assess the account tied to russia, the entire ecosystem of this disinformation has been engaged in the midst of the world Health Crisis. One of the best practices encountering propaganda and disinformation is exposing it. So decreasing the vulnerability and audiences that are targeted and increasing resilience requires exposing disinformati disinformation, this is an example where the gec works with Public Diplomacy and affairs at the state department so we can get the word out and engage with the Media Organization to share some analysis that we had on what we see in terms of coronavirus. We sell the entire ecosystem at play. Russian state proxy website, official state media as well as swarms of online false personas personal false narrative. Exposing it by working with the media has built awareness around the issue so theres a lot of disinformation and right now i hope all actors will act in the most responsible manner to support people that are scared around the midst of this crisis. Exposing it is obviously critical in providing the counter narrative which is the factual narrative in the scientific narratives. We will have more time to talk about that and other issues. Im gonna do for to senator murphy again and i express my gratitude for his leadership on this and look forward to hearing his line of question. Thank you very much. Thank you to you for this hearing and thank you ms. Gabriel for what is been great leadership and i congratulate you with a fairly skimpy budget having extended the reach of the gec substantially during your time. We have been complaining forever about the fact we are fighting asymmetric wars all over the world, predominantly with russia, thats where you hear the term used the most but would china as well. And asymmetry is a choice, its not inevitability, we made a choice over the years to not equip our forces and our foreignpolicy Infrastructure Overseas with the capacity they need to compete. In the gec and attempt to fill a vacuum on our side of the ledger with respect to the ability to fight in combat disinformation. And yet, the reach of the gec is frankly negr eager to what is ot there now. I am hopeful that we can get out there. Ms. Gabriel, with respect to funding, i think its important to note and you can tell me if im wrong, the president s budget request is requesting funding within the state department for the gec. At the very beginning we were forced to do a transfer fun from the dod to state department to get the gec up and running but that is a cumbersome process, unnecessary given the fact that we agree on the efficacy of your work. Can you speak to the importance of having the gec funded through the state Department Rather to transfer funds . Yes senator murphy and thank you for raising this important issue. The gec is focused on our mission of disinformation. What we are requesting and reflected in the president s request to congress is an increase to allow to expand the scope and scale of activities for disinformation. And to bring all the tools to bear. And to focus our team on the Mission Rather than on process. We truly appreciate the work from congress on finding mechanisms to assist in providing funding for the gec in the past and over the past year we have seen the process of trying to obtain funding from a Different Agency to be extremely commerce him although we work closely with commands and built very strong relationships with the dod, we do assess that the best practice and process would be directed funding for the gec and state department. So your report on coronavirus and this information has gotten a lot of attention. Im glad you produced it. Tell us about your ability to be able to communicate with the social Media Companies that are transiting a lot of this information whether you have the capacity today or something you envision being able to do more but robustly and effectively with Additional Resources. I think its important to understand that what we are seeing is the ecosystem where this information and propaganda is being pushed out across platforms. The relationships are very important and were working to build relationships, we have an alanon from the gec in Silicon Valley and were doing a lot of outreach with Tech Companies to understand the technology being developed to counter disinformation but also to be able to have open minds of communications. I want to be clear, the gec works for the American People, social Media Companies are companies so the gec is going to be focused on best practices to serve the American People encountering form propaganda and disinformation. Sometimes that means sharing information, sometimes it means exposure through the media, that relationship is important but i will focus on the best practices and not looking at any specific individual account but rather the principle of what is happening and how we can counter it. I also have a question and maybe im leading into the question about what lanes different parts of the federal government occupy and maybe your giving me an answer to this question. There is an important question of identifying sources of propaganda, identifying foreign actors that are putting propaganda online, there is Platform Companies more willing to take those actors off the platform, theres others that are not as discriminating. Are you saying that is not primarily your role to identify the sources and have that communication with the pop from companies that there are other elements in the federal government that are better suited to do that . I think social Media Companies have a tremendous challenge with protecting their consumers in terms of what is happening on their platforms but the point im trying to make is not just about the individual platforms, its a big picture we see develop and how adversaries are using the social media landscape to push out false narrative. So we focus on theres a misunderstanding about how to counter this information, theres a misunderstanding just taken down specific personas online or point and counterpoint, that is not best practices predict gec put a lot of focus on working with our partners in the inner agency, Intelligence Community and partners worldwide, working with the Academic Community to understand how you do this and its about sensitizing audience, its getting out in front of the problem rather than reacting. Also trying to focus on sources rather than specific content. It is hard to chase one lie after another, you actually have to go after the source and expose the source as illegitimate or untrustworthy. That is correct. Lastly, tell me about the relationship with a different state department post, you have embassies all over the world that have political officers working on this question of disinformation with local objective journalists who are trying to do the right thing, i imagine the current level its hard to be able to have a hand in all the embassies and the places that we care about on china and russia, is that something you can do more of with Additional Resources . There is so much we can do more of with Additional Resources. As my team has said, we really like to get the g in the gec gaining the global. We are critical working with bureaus and weve been doing a good job with that. Just to give you an understanding of how the gec is broken down, disinformation of propaganda is the undermining the u. S. Security in the alleys and partners worldwide everyday all the time. We have to focus our resources on the adversaries having those effects. Thats why we broken it down so far. We divide into threat teams, russia, china and iran and we focus on the violent extremist threat. We also have a cross functional team, Tech Engagement Team working with Tech Companies to identify the best technology being developed in the space to counter the information and what is very critical, we have analytic and Research Team that supports all teams, this is where we can put a lot of resources to make sure were staying up with the latest technology so we can do the assessments of the environment and a apply best practices. Our analyst team has 25 data scientists who are experts and add text, natural language processing, social media and traditional media monitoring, they have all the tools and they know how to use that are available on the market, they wrote their own algorithms and codes so they can build programs we can share with their partners and allies, another thing we built the first of its kind, i think that noise might be my mic to faraway Something Different okay. I want to talk about disinformation sharing platform that the team has developed in the first of a kind and sharing these tools in the capabilities to do in alexa and research with our partners worldwide, not just so they can see our analysis and our tools but so they can be force multiplier and do their own assessment and provide and feed back in. The large coronation is a big part of what were doing, resources will help and we need to take the issue global. I am grateful to do this work with senator portman. Thank you for his leadership in being here with the leadership. We look forward to continuing this conversation but there really important points that you raise. Thank you very much. I went to get a better understanding of how much work you doing inhouse and how much are contracting out, you have an employee equivalents or funding that goes outside or inside or so forth. Try to get a picture of how your structure. At the gec we have 118 people as of today, that the 42 increase since we received fy 17. But with this global problem that we are facing, i think its clear itll be enforceable supplier. Since ive been on board, ive been very focused on building a team with expertise that we need, regional expertise, analytics and expertise of people who understand Information Operation and coming from an advertising background. In building the team has been critical. I focused on making sure the team has resources that they need to execute on this and weve been very focused on building a strategy. Our strategy really has three main lines of effort, the first is to lead and execute, countering propaganda in the campaigns. Thats bringing into alignment what were learning from the experts, what were doing with the inner agency, when we coordinate from a policy perspective another policy guidance and what we quorum it with their International Partners soberly being a force multiplier in taking propaganda globally. The other thing that we have been doing, having the opportunity to put Program Funding where they can have highimpact solutions and in building the big picture essentially to what everybody else is doing in space incarnating and bringing it to a strategic alignment, we can see where theres opportunity to have highimpact and thats where we can work with thirdparty implementers who have unique expertise, ability and no different parts of the world. I think to give you a picture, we see ourselves as a datadriven Mission Center that should be entered rising the Network World writing of partners and alleys for the information. My question was pretty simple, what portion of your operation is inhouse and what is outside. And you have not answered that prayer can you give me an answer. Is difficult to do apples topless comparison. We have 118 people with a worldwide problem. We are force multiplier, the work that were doing worldwide in working with our allies and partners is much greater in some of its parts. Your inhouse spending, is it ballpark, 20 of your budget, is 80 of your budget, just getting a basic understanding. The inhouse spending, i want to get back with the exact number but its around 75 , maybe 70 but i have to make sure you understand, big portion is creating the analects and research capabilities, we are datadriven. But we dont want to use antidotal evidence to attract the problem, to recognize understanding expose encounter start to data and starts of having to write experts inhouse and having those capabilities to drive impartial solutions. If i go back two years ago, it was reported that the inhouse team working on russian propaganda did not have russian speakers, im guessing by now that is completely been corrected. Yes, it has. How many russian speakers do you have now . I want to make sure i get you a correct number and we will report back but that is my deputy as a russian speaker. Are they all russian speakers . No they are not all russian teachers and a former human intelligence operator oftentimes when youre working in different environments you use others to help you understand the information environment. But youre able to get the talent that unique, youre pretty satisfied yes okay. Ill let you followup and give me details if you would. In 2019, i was asking about how much is done out of house, once you contract outside of groups, sometimes its hard to keep control of exactly what they are doing. We had one case where i think things got out of hand with the ironic disinformation project in which they were putting out essentially disinformation rather than being counter disinformation including attacking and smearing u. S. Citizens and i know you cut funding to them or your predecessor did, im not sure if this is when you came in, can you fill us in on that and how your developing strategies so there are funding groups actually are engaged in this information rather than countering the information. Thank you for raising the important issue. I was a special envoy in coordinator when the issue arose and i will tell you within hours of learning about the fact that one of her implementers had gone outside of the scope of their agreement, it was never intended for them to readdressing u. S. Domestic audience, as soon as we found out that they went outside the scope of the agreement i immediately suspended that particular project. Then we conducted an internal review and decided to in that contract. And to in the agreement. We did have some Lessons Learned from that. We had teams monitoring social media over implementers. I have been very focused on implementing measures of effectiveness in Monitoring Evaluation and all of our programs, we follow the latest research as we approach these problems so we can make sure we are using respected organizations that are vetted, we have a vetting process at the state department and we have regular oversight as well as reporting from all of the organizations so we have a very robust effort to put in place and make sure any implementers are staying within the scope of work improperly spending taxpayer dollars, that is critical. Thank you. Im down to 30 seconds, i want to ask in regard to specific efforts of russia to spread the disinformation on u. S. Regarding the coronavirus that came out of the lab, you mustnt enter mentioned there was a lot of being generated you mentioned a lot of people and buildings to treat, how much messages are being generated. What are the terms of the technology they are employing . What we are seeing as i mentioned as an entire ecosystem. If you look at the spectrum it looks that russian statefunded media, official accounts, proxy news sites that have been conspiracy theories under journalism and legions of false social media persona. Many of those were not bots. We saw thousands pushing out false information. Thousands of people not bots, people generated . So were seen more reliance on human operations than on bots in this regard . It continues to be a mix. Thinking. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman, first of all, thank you, i cannot express the patriotic duty you are doing in our country, and this whole area was not imaginable ten years ago. I am very understanding that this is something there were all continuing to learn, my friends founded some of these companies are working closely with and a lot of things are moving fast and the challenges are oncoming developing the like in your presence and leadership and dedication and commitment is incredible. I want to get to some specific understanding, the report that you have on the coronavirus specifically, you did not make the public, is a classified data in there . Is that concern . We have done a number of reports and coronavirus that are intended to inform our partners and allies both inside the interagency as well as our partners worldwide on what were seen around false narratives, sometimes it makes sense to share those reports and sometimes it does not. It goes back to best practices, a report that you have been referencing, some have been out in the press and there was one report that allegedly that was leaked to the media, i have not seen what it is that theyre talking about but it does talk about some of what weve been seen, the reporting i have seen accurately depicts what weve been seen and we did share one of our analysis with Media Organization specifically around russian disinformation in the narratives that we have seen. That was specifically to address our best practices encountering disinformation which is exposing it. That is my point, if were trying to expose this, wouldnt you make sense for all the reports unless theres classified information to train to protect sources et cetera. Why not get that information out there, doesnt help discredit the activities themselves . What is important is exposing and showing enough supported analysis to expose the problem. But what we do not want to do we dont want to share our tradecraft with our adversary. So youre saying the reports you and i are talking about that are not public and not intentionally public have tradecraft in them that we want to protect . That is true. Im not saying its classified tradecraft, its methodology weve been developing and we intentionally made a lot of these reports and unclassified levels so we can share with our partners and allies which is important in exposing. The zeros and ones of how were doing the work, that is not prudent in terms of best practice in disinformation and exposure were trying to do. We dont want to give our adversaries opportunity. I respect that. And so do you see a part of your mission in releasing information that you are trying to dispel it, undercut it, kneecap what is going on out there . Best practices are not counterpart, its rather to decrease vulnerability and increase resilience, by exposin forgive me for interrupting, i get that. I guess also with a specific challenge of the coronavirus. There could be the dual purpose. Best practices, helping to empower the folks but when you are exposing this, it diffuses the strength of the disinformation as well. Am i correct . That is correct and thats why we did it. Thank you. To the extent that you see this, you said here which is one of my first questions, specifically the russians and their sophisticated networks are trying to put out disinformation about the coronavirus and our country and our people at risk. Is that definitively correct . We saw the entire russian ecosystem of disinformation pushing out false narrative around coronavirus. That is correct. You release that in the reports that you released . We have shared the analysis of one of the reports with the Media Organization who accurately reported on that, we have answered questions that were provided to us through Public Diplomacy and public affairs, its wellknown at this point that there are false narratives out there around coronavirus and its very helpful for people who are scared in the midst of the crisis to understand that they need to go to accurate sources of information like the World Health Organization in the cdc for active information on how to protect themselves. I guess this is a big frustration for what i have, we still have people in positions of authority in our country that are denying the growing sophistication of the russians in their ecosystem as you call it which seems to give strength to them and if we in ourselves are denying that the russians are doing this kind of activity, is my concern that government officials would be denying the strength sophistication, the ecosystem as you put it that the russians are using to undermine whether its this or election security, isnt that problematic as the goal is to diffuse this by exposing it to have counter narratives coming from positions of authority, denying that the russians are even doing this activity, doesnt that make us more vulnerable and mockup the water so to speak with our ability to expose and diffuse those very russian activities . I can only speak to what ive seen in the support i have received come ive seen. Or from this administration to the Global Engagement center and propaganda and disinformation reflected in the 138 milliondollar budget request to congress which i truly hope they will support. I appreciate that clearly representative in this i dont expect you to state specifically, i was saying to talk about the administration specifically allows me too do that no problem, i just think of you as an actor. It is problematic if positions of authority are undercutting the very point that you made which is that this is a threat to the United States and the russians are growing in sophistication and have established ecosystem, that in itself an academic way is a simple yes, sir no question, its very problematic, yes, sir no if we as a country are speaking with multiple voices and some say this is not a problem that they are not doing this and only give strength to the russians themselves, is that correct . The kremlins goal is to separate and divide us, is classic sir version, the more we can Work Together bipartisan, nonpartisan on working on disinformation we will be better as a country. Hallie lew leone, amen. Thats exactly what their tactic is to divide us and undermine our trust of our agencies, our trust of our intelligence apparatus to directly purchase and its very frustrating to me when you see folks that should work in tandem publicly giving the same message, undermining the truth in the simple truth you are putting forward and i appreciate that response and i will yield to my chairman who has a much better haircut than me. First of all it was dark hair before i got involved in this issue. I used to have a big afro and i was saying earlier behind the. I am very encouraged and i want to thank you for coming, i want to follow up on a few issues, senator brooker is correct that the more information is better in the context of coronavirus as to what some of the false narratives are in the exposure is part of it and best prac by the way, we have done is this morning. What you said this morning is powerful. Youve not provided specific examples. There was a mention of bill gates, i will give you a chance to play out one or 2 of these false narratives so people can be aware of it. I want to be careful with my words. Repeating false narratives reinforces them. We learned from social science that often people believe the first version of the story they here and it is an uphill battle to undo that. If you would like me to identify certain disinformation narratives i can, i prefer not to. Since it was mentioned earlier, somehow bill gates and some lab started the coronavirus, and absolute falsehood, no basis for it. Since it was mentioned earlier i wanted to clarify that. That is an example of the kind of thing that a person watching today who is not an expert on what disinformation and propaganda means that is an example of something meant to divide us, you mentioned polarization, we are a polarized country in so many respects and to further polarize us and distrust in our institutions in a democracy like ours. That is so important. Your role is incredibly important. We talked a lot about the budget. My understanding is you requested 76 million and were appropriated 60 million through this fiscal year and are asking 138 million, more than double what you are currently receiving. Fiscal discipline is important but when you look at the importance of this mission, increasingly, as a military officer yourself our battle is not kinetic, it is hybrid, specifically battling disinformation. My hope is we can support the mission more strongly and make sure it is spend wisely. Senator merkleys question is important to ensure we dont have contractors who are misrepresenting and ask quickly with regard to the iranian issue. If you could talk about our new approach. The dod transferred you to get up and going to kickstart. I agree with what you have said and what was implied by what senator murphy said that that was not a successful endeavor, took too much of your time to make through the bureaucracy and red tape despite the fact the secretaries of defense were always supportive when they talked to me at least. And also your secretary of state, secretary pompeo and his previous deputy, secretary sullivan, very supportive and you see bigger numbers being requested. We dont want to go back to the dod focus but we want to justify the budget increase you are asking for. What would you say is the best way to do that . Foreign service officers, contractors, some folks who understand interagency details, technical experts who can do these algorithms, highly paid individuals, you cant compete on a monetary basis. How would you what would you think is the main reason we need to more than double the budget . Theres a simple answer. We need more to execute on the scale. You want specific examples of initiatives. We need to focus on the continent of africa and shifts in focus, we are seeing russian Disinformation Campaigns, and chinese malign influence, programs to build capacity that work with local leaders across the board. We dont have resources to do that. We need to stay ahead in terms of capabilities of the tech industry. Some examples of initiatives we have, we plan and implement coordinated campaigns, sending people to travel, Building Partnerships with other countries, sometimes means bringing funding to the table and leading on the initiatives, we could share. I mentioned this online information sharing platform we are sharing with partners worldwide. We have analysis to Craft Solutions to be datadriven in this approach that takes money, analyzing the attempts of adversaries, Tech Solutions take money and another place it is important, supporting nonus government efforts on the ground who have to meet expertise in their regions to understand the problem and push back with effective solutions, it all takes money. We have to put the g back in the gec and make it global. It is helpful to have that list of specific priorities and initiatives that require resources. When i will add that you mentioned earlier is to be proactive. This is something that will require some resources and also listing our allies and partners, we talked about journalists and objective professional journalists. Getting ahead of the curve is more important than ever. A trade agreement with kenya keeping some troops, theres a lot we can do with what is clearly a target for other actors including russia and china. My final question has to do with keeping up to speed. A briefing conducted with Congressional Staff in this is an opportunity for you to brief us. We would like to do more of that. They didnt have the personnel and it takes a while to get the organization going. We have an interest in going further but when you commit to continue to appear on a more regular basis. My staff enjoyed the opportunity to brief, we are proud of the work we are doing was a wonderful opportunity to interact and highlight the leadership and thinking that is coming from the mobile engagement center. Just your general strategic approach, the need for more resources and from what i have been reading, the attempts of chinese and russians to engage, so can you just give more description of your strategic approach to that problem . I can tell you this is an example of resources. We are launching a program, Networks International china experts with local African Voices to Exchange Insights and better understanding, we emphasize technologies so we are sending a team to kenya in a couple months for what we call a tech challenge, convening tech experts, ngos and members of the team to look at and assess technologies being developed in the continent. It serves to provide an opportunity to provide funding for companies that are trying to make their technologies work but more importantly it is important in building resiliency and decreasing vulnerability by bringing them together as a community of interest, but so much more that we could be doing. That is why it is really important we have the funding, the direct funding we are requesting. There are other powers at work. We can never take our eye off of Violent Extremist Organizations and the terrorist threat. One of the ways they have been executing the mission is in the ct space. Im a cold lead on the comedic asians working group to defeat isis and my team built a Resiliency Campaign to counter isis ideology in the core, we work through the interagency, supported by the nfc and we have taken it to the Global Coalition to sensitize 82 members of the coalition on this campaign to bring us into strategic alignment. It can be applied to places in africa we are seeing the ct threat become more hot. There is a number of threats, china and russia at the top and the Violent Extremist Organization threat. The power of diversity i have seen in the senate. We have talked a lot about diversity in general but as you build up your team, gender and Race Diversity in your department and i know from watching folks try to deal with this on social media, they are targeting certain groups that have endeavors staff can notice things others cant. I agree that diversity is very important, bringing a number of different ideas and expertise, backgrounds, this is critical. Different levels of expertise we have i made the gec more diverse as its leader. To get a picture of where you are, on race, gender diversity in your agency and religious diversity as well. We would be happy to share that information. Appreciate you being here today. It was reassuring to me. One of the challenges is you have a very broad mandate and the mission is critical, resources are limited, understanding what the mission is is important. I will not ask you to give specific measures of effectiveness but that is something i would like to follow up on and be helpful to you including if we need to do anything on the legislative side in terms of reauthorization, how can we focus on what is essential given the broad mandate. We will stay in touch. I want to echo you are doing a startup operation. Im grateful for your commitment to country and the patriotism you have shown. Im proud of my team and the work they are doing and thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. We will go ahead with our second panel now, two experts will join us. I will let them come up to the front. First, Mister Daniel blumenthal, director of Asian Studies and resident of the American Enterprise institute who testified before this topic, and doctor polyakova from the Center Policy and analysis, an expert in this area, see her in action at the munich security conference, with her today is her mother, irina. I want to recognize you as well. You must be very proud. Senator booker will join us. He has seen the testimony. I will ask you to go ahead. Your written testimony will be printed in its entirety. I ask you to keep your testimony under five minutes and some give and take, i will ask Mister Blumenthal if you will go first. Thank you. When he comes back from holding this important hearing, as you heard, disinformation, censorship and propaganda threat is one of the greatest challenges when talking about the Chinese Communist party you put it under the rubric of china committing and engaged in Political Warfare against us, disinformation and censorship, the key warfare, we have been doing so for many years and just started to engage that fight, to undermine our position in the world, our alliances, our democratic system through all means other than military warfare. As i outlined in my written testimony, there are an unbelievable number of organizations involved in propaganda, harassment of media, western and internal, ten that i mentioned and more than that. It is a feature of the Chinese Communist party system, not a bug. The system is built on lies and is afraid of the truth so the truth even when it comes to the coronavirus, part of the reason we are facing a greater virus is there was a coverup in china for a matter of two months and as we now know people who try to tell the truth in china, doctors and journalists and so on were punished, detained and arrested. China goes after these people, they cannot live with exposure of any mismanagement or corruption or injustice, but the entire panoply of chinese activities in the censorship spaces humongous. Going after western media, take the wall street journal, journalists who because of an oped they didnt like, on the wall street journal opinion page, they arrested the hong kong tycoon Freedom Fighter jimmy line because of the oped he wrote in the wall street journal, this one wasnt, that is in the media. In my testimony i say china has innovative strategy, to cut down the free speech of westerners, if you look at the case of hollywood, there are six organizations in china that censor content from hollywood. Americans probably know they have never seen a chinese billing, hollywood movie, always decadent and cowardly, the chinese are brave and so forth, probably 16 organizations go through the content before they are allowed to be shown. They block access to the market and to say things like we support the hong kong protests. As i say in my testimony taiwan has been ground 0 in terms of election, attempted election interference but taiwan fought back and gives us good lessons, working with social media, sending humorous members to combat the disinformation they were putting out. Tonys people went to the polls and voted for the party china did not want to elected. In terms of what we should do about this, i would add we need to be more on offense. We need to continue doing what were doing and treating Chinese Media personas at foreign agents, there is no free media, they are for an agent of the chinese, just party. We need to put caps on them and make them register as foreign agents but we could do more offensively in terms of going in with mandarin speakers, telling our story, telling the story of successful places like taiwan that are Chinese Labor speaking and cultures that are democratic, putting china on defense because the people of china are from what we know extremely fed up with the role of the chinese, just party, engaging in Political Warfare in a more robust fashion. I would love to see us go back to some organization the gc could lead like the usia, that creates a cadre of information warriors whose job it is, the entire network, entire career path is in this space and engaging the fight against china and russia and other places and see their career paths developing into information warriors, information operators, taking out the role of the military and putting it at the state department. Following up on all of that. Thank you. For hosting this important hearing. I want to thank you, senator portman and senator murphy who couldnt stay through the majority of the hearing, clear bipartisan research on this issue. Without your efforts expanding the role thank you for that. An honor and privilege to address you here today. Before i begin the substantive issues i want to acknowledge the president and ceo of the center of european policy analysis which is a nonprofit nonpartisan independent Foreign Policy think tank in washington, my views are my own and dont represent those of the organization which takes no institutional position. A putin wheatons western governments, creating a post truth world. First and foremost russian disinformation, to undermine us leadership across the world. You only have to watch a few minutes of russian language statesponsored media to understand the level of animosity, sees itself locked in a battle of dominance with the United States. I want to make clear these campaigns, in elections. Any destructive world event, is ample opportunity and fertile ground, spreading this kind of disinformation influence operations. The spread of disinformation is one part of a Political Tool as my colleague Mister Blumenthal mentioned, a lot of similarity in how disinformation fits into this broader Foreign Policy objective of russia and china. It is not new. Working on russian disinformation before it became the issue do sure. Ukraine, georgia, the Baltic States have been the testing grounds and test labs for russian Disinformation Campaigns for quite some time. As a result they are for more resilient than us. The United States and western europe work up late to the challenge but in the good news of the wakeup call we have moved from admiring the problem to entering a new trial and error stage where we are trying new efforts including policy, social media activities and research to counter and build resilience to this threat. Three incites that emerge, one is there is no Silver Bullet for addressing this problem. Second, as we, meaning democratic governments, have companies and Civil Societies responded since 2016, these tactics would you fall. Keeping up the adversarial sweater. Details that quite at length but the stringent three ways the russian Information Operations have evolved, the russian Information Operations of gone global, not only because of its scope but interests of how other countries are copying this playbook. The russian playbook is global, the russian information has gone global to africa and south america. The russian influence operation, fullspectrum ecosystem approach operating across multiple platforms, they operate across multiple media platforms, not just social media platforms and in direct concert and focus with other tools of Political Warfare including paramilitary groups which use our recently. Russia is engaged in Information Warfare by proxy. This is important because they are using local groups and individuals at local servers to mask their origins. That means exposure while incredibly important is quickly becoming difficult if not impossible and what we will see today is the line between authentic domestic voices which are protected in most democracies by freespeech rights, and in authentic behavior formed this information we are talking about. This line is essentially disappeared. To get ahead of this threat instead of reacting to disparate attacks we have to build longterm societal resistance at the same time it is going to deter future disInformation Operations of this nature. Our response must be calibrated to these challenges as state actors continue to use multifaceted influence operations undermine us credibility and global leadership. I could go into a few details but in the interest of time i will stop here. You have given us lots to chew on and we dont have time for every detail but we appreciate your constant help on the legislation. Both of you were helpful in developing it and we appreciate the continued briefings, we have to be nimble and change our strategies. Lets talk about money for a second. What should the budget be . 130 million, can you put that in context . Chinese state media, you talked in the past about the amount that russia is spending on media here in the United States and within the district of columbia. Can you give us a sense what that would be compared to the 160 million we are talking about . I will start on the russia question. Not such a straightforward question but we dont know how much they are spending on covert operations and most of what theyre doing in the Digital Domain is covert, it is obvious station, what we know, the russians do not publish the budgetary information as we do, the estimate of a global foreignlanguage meaning english and other Languages Network around 300 million but that number is several years old and we have no updates, doesnt include a whole swath of other media outlets. And so some estimates put the number well over 1 billion but this is an estimate. Russian language media, they spent 3 billion in us dollars. On the whole it is difficult to judge covert ops but most experts say it is upwards of 3 billion a year. I heard the 1. 3 billion number, it seems a conservative estimate given so much activity is covert. Lets compare that Mister Blumenthal, thoughts about that . Chinese numbers are so lopez, you cant trust a lot of the numbers. In the unclassified realm, china spends more on internal security, they spends 130 billion on external missions. It is in the billions if not over 100 billion. How much goes to censorship, propaganda, disinformation is tougher. I could name some organizations that to get moving into china, to get movie content you have to go through not just the normal organizations like the administration of radio and television and information, you have to go through the state Ethnic Affairs and public security, the bureau of religious affairs, ministry of education, ministry of justice and other bureaucratic entities so i would say we are looking at billions and billions of dollars spent on censoring content. The Chinese People themselves to absorb and for the world to absorb and money spent and internal security, money spent on keeping out journalists and what could be helpful for congress to do is get the Intelligence Community to map out state media. Who is behind what we consider a publicly traded tech company, funds a lot of the state media which are actually agents of the government in the United States, europe and other places pushing the party line. The money is gigantic and there is how do you calculate the money, if they dont to the party line in china . It is staggering. What we are doing pales in comparison. However it is about exposing it is not about disinformation but i think it was helpful to put that in context, ukraine in particular, we talked a lot about ukraine. You are an expert of what happened. It might be interesting to talk about the focused disinformation efforts that continue. Since the revolution of dignity that russia has been very active. Along with senator murphy and others who have been involved in these ukraine issues, one thing is disinformation. Can you talk about what russians are doing ukraine to so confusion about the us role and what we can do in this disinformation battle . Thank you for that question. Ukraine is victim number one and target number one of russian disinformation in the local warfare effort and it doesnt stop with disinformation, they have been the target of damaging cyberattacks in recent years. What we have learned in this country is what happens, all these tactics come to us and our other allies in western europe in the nato alliance. What we have seen the last few years is the proxy Information Warfare was first tested in ukraine, first instance we learned about open source coming in the ukrainian parliamentary elections, ukraine intelligence agencies arrests an individual who confessed to being a russian Intelligence Office and ukraine to convince the mystic ukrainians to sell or rent out their Facebook Accounts which they would use a zombie account to propagate all kinds of political disinformation and post different ads. We saw them deploy that in africa in the fall. You see a short timeline from the test you see in the ukraine in may, we carry out proxy warfare at a large scale across a dozen african countries facebook identifies. In the coronavirus case, your discussing russian disinformation in this country, they worked with media to expose. In ukraine we know the russian language media has been trying to so chaos and propagate attacks on asian minorities in ukraine and a few instances of attacks, people of east asian origin and this kind of narrative has been propagated. The other narrative, covert offer pushing out the coronavirus invented by the cia, this is a pattern we saw in the soviet area that we continue to see today, that happens on ukrainian soil. Senator booker. Thank you so much. You can kick the tires a little bit of the gec. There is a bunch of stove piping going on, you have agencies, other intel agencies to deal with the problem of disinformation. There seems to be very centralized and highly resourced state actors we are going up against, dont match tank for tang, Aircraft Carrier for Aircraft Carrier, this is one of the main ways to undermine western democracy and just tell me as an outsider do you believe the structure the we have set up here is this the most effective way to counter this massive statesponsored undermining of western democracy that i have never seen in my lifetime, the suspicion that americans have now for institutions, how lies and conspiracy theories take root in our culture, this is to come together, 18,000 miles of highspeed rail, from boston to washington dc, one is half an hour slower because we cant get together anymore to Work Together and meet our common threat. I want you from outsiders tell us the best way to match the thread that is growing in influence and strength. I have been at this for a while. We never should have gotten rid of the usia as an independent agency which wasnt seated in anyone department, could coordinate with some real power across the cia and across dod and not only stop active measures that we succumb from the soviet union but take active measures inside the soviet bloc. The short answer to your question is no. We are where we are and if the gec is properly funded, doesnt have to fight with special forces command and others, they should be in the lead. Special forces command is a war fighting command on the china issue which is Strategic National level issue, the kind of things im talking about is kicking out of us media to control the content, to stop freespeech rights going after our allies, countries who want to win over in africa. It should not be a military leader by any stretch. If they had given proper authorities and coordinate interagency action and have the power and authority to do so, have of chinese linguists who know the culture well and not only to know the information environment in china as well and identify disinformation and these socalled media people in the United States and kick them out under the authority they have can going to china and tell our story or tell the truth. I think it will be better than we have had over the last few years. The challenge i have is i understand china propaganda machine, they are affecting the company or the business, undermining the economy and so forth but that is different to me. Efforts to understand our democracy, offensive efforts. Can you help me understand the distinction and i get confused when youre talking about disney. I have talked to people in those industries, if you want a lackluster global film you no longer have a chinese villain. That is different from the chinese insinuating fear around the coronavirus or interfering in our elections. Let me connect to the two. I believe once you start affecting the way hollywood or the National Basketball association does its content, it feeds back into the United States and without noticing at the American People are all of a sudden getting movies like top gun this summer that are affected by what the chinese think and what we think, but i understand your point. That is a point. Getting nba stars to kowtow on the hong kong issue, that is different from russia. Trying to affect our freespeech rights. The ways they do it which is different from russia is we have tolerated the global times and the confucius institutes and the reason i am conflating them always they all work for the same organizations and that is to be here posing as News Reporters but really pick up your newspaper, the Washington Post, propagating the chinese line about their ideological worldview, authoritarian worldview, a deceitful worldview, has no business being a credential as media in the United States. The difference between russia and china is resources. The chinese have a far greater ability to not just play at the margins which is relatively speak, it is cheap to have an army or to control accounts etc. The chinese have been doing another part of the world is actually coopting local Media Organizations that are then putting out local languages, a positive take on china and that insidious process is a longterm strategy the russians are playing a short or mediumterm strategy. I agree with my colleague that we dismantled our ability to message and reach vulnerable populations, we still have vr a but these entities are set up to fight 20thcentury information wars. We are not in the Twentieth Century anymore. We may want to consider something, usia has to be a digital usia. The place we are falling behind is in the digital space. We dont have clear coordination as we heard earlier between Tech Companies. At the end of the date is not just about content but the Distribution System that enables amplification and magnification of that content, that is the beast we have to fight. Back to the chairman. Not your ideal way, it is important, doing important tasks but given the looming threat, not fully equipped to deal with the modern crisis. It is a good start but we need to do more. First and foremost is a funding question and second a political mandate question. There needs to be an undersecretary position for this problem. Until we have that i dont think we will get the interagency government response we are looking for. I am reassured by what miss gabriel has done, with her ambitious plans. It is somewhat personality driven, getting things done at a higher level. I dont disagree that having someone that has the ability to work at the interagency level because they have responsibility and authority, kicking it to a higher level. In the case of the secretary of state he testified in this room about this topic and was very supportive, that is one of the reasons he has been successful but that may not be the case in the future. It is fascinating what you are saying about different approaches. One story i heard recently that may be disinformation regarding chinese activities we talked about earlier. This is one reason im encouraged they want to get more involved in africa but on your question about media, buying or acquiring Media Companies and providing for people of these 4 countries in network, nightly news, morning news, noon news that they didnt otherwise have but it was all based on chinas interest in their own narrative. Media infrastructure but not disinformation as opposed to russia which is not that long view but taking the coronavirus and creating disinformation around that. It is true and even worse than that. Countries like the global times are other Chinese Companies that we now here have Training Programs for african journalists and sometimes are the only source of information even though it is disinformation in these countries they are going out and the entire spectrum being able to propagate the chinese line, becoming more prevalent, they are purchasing other companies where they are providing or maintaining a presence in the countries you are talking about, supposedly training journalists, and how to censor content. This is a huge challenge. The network is set up and it is more partnering with those countries and regional organizations to understand what the threat is and provide assistance so they dont have to rely on that. Is that where the state department functions . Partly. We have great ngos who have been ahead of the curve, human rights watch, Freedom House, they are the ones who came out with the first reports and analysis on the chinese power of these countries that identified what i have identified which is training generations of africans and others to toe the Chinese Communist party line and or to support dictatorships in their own countries so the National Endowment for democracy has a role, Freedom House has a role, state department has a role. If we can get the American People could get a real sort of network map of which Chinese Party organization, this level of transparency to see the scope. That is the broader issue we are dealing with with china including with regard to confucius institutes and programs we have heard a lot about. On the ngo issue you are very involved with the Ngo Community and Civil Society more broadly and the socalled Fact Checkers which i agree if we can support those organizations some of whom may not be precisely aligned on the way to approach this but they are out there that we cant afford to and state actors themselves, the small country can play a big role here. Talk about how we can leverage that in smaller democracies to get them to be more effective. One of the elements we have to discuss is the funding capabilities to local organizations. That has been critical in jumpstarting quite a bit of work especially over the Baltic States, the balkans and elsewhere to give these small groups that dont have funding otherwise to carry out this important work in this signals the advantage we have with democracy. Look at russia and china their approach is topdown to any problem. Our approach will never be that way. We have to line the bottom up structure, empower local organizations, organic but decentralized, they know their local context better than they do, give them the running room, independence to do their work or the ability to fund those organizations should be maintained and increased in the next budgetary request. It is critical in creating this organic response especially in the central or Eastern Europe. I mentioned earlier these countries are the target of these attacks especially ukraine and the Baltic States have built better resilience against them in the nordic states, they tried and failed for a reason, nobody took it seriously because there is a high level of Public Awareness that this was a russian funded media outlet. That kind of resistance is something we can learn from, something western European Countries can learn from. I would not just look at that is a place to support and fund, we should be looking at it as a way to take lessons home. We didnt talk about that earlier in terms of what they are doing with screenings and providing help to ngos. We will leave here, and are you concerned, worried or alarm at american responses to what china, russia, other foreign nationals, you said the russian playbook is not just worrisome, but also because it was being copied by other countries. I want you to know if you have a moment on the record to say you are concerned given all we are doing or worried or just sound the alarm, modern day paul revere, the chinese are coming, the russians are coming, wake up because you are not doing enough, where are you guys . If we talk about worry and concern and alarm scale i would say i am between concerned and alarmed. I dont think we should panic. We have the greatest economy in the world, the greatest Alliance Structure in the world, we are capable of responding. The reason im concerned is not because a and ability to respond, we are very capable of responding. I am concerned there is such a partisan issue that we havent been able to get what we need to be able to respond the way we should so i would say my concern is less about russia destroy our democracy, i dont want us to go to panic alarm mode. My concern is we need to get our act together at home to respond effectively. It is a concern, sometimes alarm. When i wake up in the morning and read that we are tapping Chinese State media from being in the United States or using Foreign Missions to kick them out of the United States i am less alarmed. I see the fbi is in the justice departments initiative, going after both political influencers and espionage but the scope i described is alarming also and the idea that china is engaged not china as a whole, the Chinese Communist party is engaged in this comprehensive effort to undermine our position in the world and undermine democracy. And train others to be dictatorships and authoritarian and toe their line. The Nineteenth Party Congress report to say they want a different world order based on chinese values is alarming and we are Getting Started but you look at even elite Public Awareness, concerted effort to undermine content, to undermine freespeech, basic values. It is fascinating to me. I know my history of the cold war, we took it seriously, a whole nationstate Bipartisan Commission to stopping the spread of the soviet unions influence but it is a different day. Jeff flake, we are flying over because coons was on the trip, Bipartisan Group ready to put sanctions and have free, fair elections, to honor democratic principles and ideals, hes coming from china and their message was we dont care what you do. Im alarmed, to be frank, that the chinese are looking at this is a 25, 50 year process. We are seeing this in election cycles, the breadth and depth of the problem. We are dealing with this, stove piping but the planet earth is in a battle between authoritarian governments and free democracies and what is our scorecard in the last we 10 years . I could go through hungary, i could name countries that are shifting towards authoritarianism. Elections are being challenged from brexit elections to eu elections, at home, madagascar are. I dont know if our sophistication and capabilities match what the threat is. I have the privilege in this committee. From what i witnessed with my own eyes when i visited africa, i am concerned about our ability to keep up and it seems even though great patriot in the administration and committed folks we are not taking this thread as seriously as we should. Unless you want to comment on my one minute and 40 seconds. I agree with all that and it is even worse because the chinese have been doing this since the end of the cold war. Since they identified us as the main threat to the regime this has been going on an extremely long time. The one positive note is the taiwanese fought back successfully on a massive Disinformation Campaign working with twitter, google and facebook as we helped them, they are still on the streets protesting. The closer they are to china the more they dislike the ccp. Very briefly, i agree as well as the combination of russian and chinese activities across the world is a cause for alarm. In the longterm health of democracies speaks to the point why every country matters and why we have to be there and we are losing ground, we are not identifying vulnerable areas, forming a strategy to reach Vulnerable Countries and it is not just about ukraine but a variety of countries across the world but countries like ukraine matter a lot, countries like taiwan matter and deserve continued support on a strategic level. It is important to hold for all history to come she came here, she brought her mother to back her up. This was so important, generational strength, can you say her name for the record . This is my mom and she brought me here from the soviet union and i am grateful for that. A great immigrant american story, thank you very much. Thank you for some helpful, insightful testimony. A more positive note, i look around the world and i see all the nongenetic activities and Disinformation Campaigns and they are troubling, but the point about democracies, we have an ultimate weapon which is the strength of people and voices being heard, bottomup rather than topdown and i look at what is happening in ukraine in the last five years, places like bolivia or macedonia despite efforts, there are Success Stories and we should learn from those. Not the we are done in any of those countries, we have lots of work to do but we have to figure out how to better organize ourselves. It will not solve all the problems, there is no one solution but your testimony has been helpful to get a better feel for that. When issue we did not address in response to questions i hope we will have with regard to social media platforms. Google and facebook and others have been helpful but also played a role, we have to work to push back and ensure the right information is out there to promote more freedom and democracy. Thank you for being here today. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] cspan, your unfiltered view of government created by cable in 1979 and brought to you by your television provider. Now, live to london for british prime ministers question time. Each week thousand commons is in session we bring you Boris Johnson taking questions from members of the house of commons on cspan2. We invite your participation via twitter using the hashtag pmq. Part question time members are finishing up other business. Now live to the floor of the british house of commons. Question number one, mr. Speaker. This this morning i had meetl colleagues and others, and in addition to my duties in this house, i shall have further such meetings later today. Mr. Speaker, we need to build more homes on brownville sites but we also need to make sure the houses weve got our of a decent