Transcripts For CSPAN2 Hearing 20240703

Have access to fast, reliable internet. Cspan, howard my cable up next director of National Intelligence avril haines testifies about some of the potential foreign threats to the 2024 elections. She addresses why thesehr threas which could come from russia, china or iran have become more complex to manage. She is joined by other Security Officials including cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director jan easterly at the Senate Intelligence committee hearing. Im going to call this hearing to order at about welcome todays witnesses. What want them at the outset we are finishing up one vote. Photograph of another one, go to the process of people slipping in and out. I think you understand. Our Witnesses Today are outlays come director of National Intelligence, jan issue to come corrective subs get into for secretary zinke agency, cisa, and lisa knapp, assistant director for nationals could break at the fbi. Welcome to all of you. Todays hearing built on this committee is bipartisan effort since 2016 to educate the public on the intentions of foreign adversaries seeking to undermine the integrity of our democratic systems, and to ensure that u. S. Government is postured to protect our elections from those foreign threats. Interagency task force is tasked with protecting from to my forms of election interference weve seen since 2016. Interference efforts often cyber enabled that target election infrastructure, and separately, influence efforts that seek to affect elections through covert or other illegal tactics. Since 2016 2060 we have heh open and closed hearings ahead of each federal election. This is the first open hearing of this mobile becoming. Now i want to start by recalling the fact i fear times since 2016 sica was so long ago that the publicic perception past one election has to often address something that was trivial or not majorly. But as his committees exhausted bipartisan investigation into russias meddling in 2016 election showed, and as declassified intelligence assessment showed, foreign influenced efforts go well beyond simple online trolling or traditional propaganda. For an election efforts in the last eight years have among other things involved efforts to infiltrate both online and inperson a range of use organization on both sides of the political spectrum with the goal of stoking Political Polarization in the United States and promoting social and racial strife. Weve seen as both successful impersonations of youth political social with the russian i remember way back in 2016 having twitter and Facebook Accounts for the tennessee gop black lives matter both of those accounts were actually bigger than the real organizations. Weve seen harassment and sting operations against u. S. Candidates. Itwe saw last cycle with the prc influence operatives try to set up a a sting operation to buly and humiliate a congressional candidate of chinese heritage. We seen successful effort to actually organize realworld political rallies. Back in 2016 again. One almost come to realize violence. Russian efforts orchestrated simultaneous rallies in houston, one with an antimuslim event taking place at exactly the same time and place as a muslim cultural event. Likely Law Enforcement intervene. Weve also seen personalized emails sent in 2020 by iranian influence actors posing as proud boys which the Trump Administration leadership did a good job of pointing out. Globally, we have seen many of the same foreign influence actors aggressively meddling in the elections of our democratic allies. The prcs influence actors aggressively sought to shape the outcome of taiwans election earlier this year, including promoting narratives that election had been rigged as election day neared more recently, literally in the last few weeks, check in belgium officials have disclose effort of russianoo operatives to shape the outcome of junes eu elections with the goal of undermining european support for ukraine. And a wide range of me opensource research and other sources has similar pointed two russian influence operations in slovakia, when the cases that i find particularly interest to act country that would russia invaded said a person slovaks supported ukraine. A few years later, due to russian efforts, now a prorussian presence and bluetooth that 5 of the slovaks have told sankey think the United States started the war in ukraine. We seen recently as well deepfakes of the moldavian president heaven widely circulated. And fresh off the press just a couple hours amok when asked our witnesses to testify but a new russian effort geared at some are saying that zelensky and the cia are working on trying to undermine again our elections in this year. The barriers to entry for formal line influence of enforcer become incredibly small. Since 2016 weve seen declassified intelligence assessments made a whole host of influence actors who have engaged in at least p contemplad election influence and interference activities. Not only russia comes out on a van or prc also cuba, venezuela, pterosaur musicians like hezbollah and range of foreignnd hactivists and profit motivated ricyber criminals. One of the things and i think this hearing is important, in many ways our adversaries could be more sophisticated and aggressive in both scale and scope in this election even that in prior years. Let me tell you why i think thats the case. First, our adversaries are more incentivizes ever to intervene in our election. Because they can understand that it o could affect their particur national interest. In the case of russia, putin could he understands influencing Public Opinion and shaping elections in the United States is a cheap way to the road american and western support for ukraine. Similarly, weve seen the conflict between israel and hamas has been a Fertile Ground for disinformation since octobe. Second, the scale and sophistication of these sorts of attacks against our elections can now be accelerated by ai tools. The truth is, the kind of audio and videoeo manipulation that en as recently as four years ago and clearly pictures go was still a challenge. Now can happen at a f speed and scale due to ai tools that are unprecedented. And literally theres not a week oror month that goes by that the ai video and audio tools dont continue to improve. I just find a personal note i fear that caucuses inability to pass any new guardrails in the last 18 months congresses for ai mr. Verrilli could post acute problem. Weve seen fake video of President Trump embracing dr. Fauci. Weve seen adios of President Biden telling people to use different voting day in New Hampshire. The truth is these tools are out there and growing in their danger. Third, we seen unfortunately increasingly large numbers of americans of all political stripes across the political spectrum who simply dont trust u. S. Institutions from federal agencies and Law Enforcement to Mainstream Media who increasingly rely on the wildest conspiracy theories imaginable that pop up on the web. And forth, since 2022 weve two weve seen a concerted Litigation Campaign that assad undermine the federal governments ability to share on any kind of voluntary basis vital trait information with social media platforms. And, unfortunately, since 2022 weve seen from some of those same social media platforms considerable disinvestment and in certain cases utter disinterest and platform integrity by some of the social Media Companies. And an area where vice chairman and and i portray closer together we seen the rise of a down social media platform tiktok with ownership based in the country that is clearly adversarial in terms of their intense on our elections. It is these kinds of attempts by foreign actors and adversaries to sow so disinformation, uy covers in elections and seed this court that americans can expect their federal agencies, both Law Enforcement and intelligence, to help detect and defeat. Weve got to do a better job of making sure americans of all political stripes understand what is there a probably coming their way to open the next less than 16 months. Less than six months. I hope todays witnesses can provide a comprehensive overview of these and current threats and anything that may be emerging. And what we can do in a Collaborative Cooperative bipartisan way to make sure that the public is aware of this i think dramatic threat to our democracy. With that alternate the vice chairman. Thanks for calling this hearing and thank you for being here on this important topic. By the weights will will begin with is the next quarter century but its hopefully one we get to learn from experience on. I always seem to at the outset to sort of because i know this will be discussed as an election threats to the election is about topic and always, always bifurcated to things. Theres election interference which is trying to hack into the voter database for messing with the early reporting unofficial reporting system of the state, things of that nature. Thats more easilyy understood. And then there is the sole topic of influence is that just an election. Its also in other debates. With the elements of that during covid. We see during policy debates here on a range of topics. The propaganda has always been a weapon of war. I think today you can do it at scale faster more convincing and in ways w that spread very quicy and are difficult to contain. In particular, we seen this coldly. I mean weve seen increasing amount of damage thats been done to the reputation of the United States in parts of africa by very active effort to undermine, make life very difficult for our diplomats to serve in the region. Our military personnel andil soe of these countries where the russians have moved in and gained greater influence. So all that is happening at a globalal scale, and the chairman has already talked about some of the countries that effaced effort to meddle in their elections and try to influence and steer the outcome in some cases successfully. Today i thinkei the focus is gog on how this can be used in an election and the policy debates lets focus on elections for a moment. The reason why i want to really focus on that is i think will hear a lot about the tools available, the capabilities that someone has to put how to ai video to spread narratives that encircled to knock down and so the weaponization of this information. What i think i hope to learn more about is when this happens, if this happens, whos in charge of responding to it . Have we thought to the process of what do we do when one of the scenario occurs . I dont think ive question of whos in charge and have we would respond, who would take the leap ino know it hurricane s head towards the United States the National Hurricane center is going to put meteorologist on the air were going to describe to us this is eric encompasses what looks like him how strong is going to be what gets you can put up forecast issue warnings and republicans democrats will take the appropriate steps that Something Like that were headed toward her election i dont know whos in charge of putting it out there. More importantly, i think no matter who puts it out there, the candidate or issue on the other side of it, their followers are going to question whether its a government interfering in the election themselves and us not helpful as an. Example uses as an example because its a very recent one with a laptop situation happen, the hunter by laptop, a number of formerr intelligence officials, i get it, they perform, no longer employed beneath these agencies, but the title carries weight all signed a letter say this is all the hallmarks of a Russian Disinformation Campaign. We know that was not a Disinformation Campaign. I do i get it to the particulars of what was on. We just dont know it will start a Russian Disinformation Campaign but result of it was, social Media Companies would not allow anyone to post the articles and a was a media blackout. It could not be reported in any of it except one place. What happens as result whether o that influence or not, the result of net is we have some segment of the country who repeatedly says things like the Intelligence Community interfered even though these were formers but that title why that is relevant is because no matter who this Disinformation Campaign is geared after, the other side isr good to say the people issuing the warnings are people that are interfering in the elections on behalf of the candidate they favor. We are in a real quandary but i think where to begin by understanding it something would happen to come ifrr tomorrow the was a video very convincing the other candidate, lets not say president , lets the u. S. Senate or congress and the video comes out with 72 hours to go before election day of that candidate saying some racist comment or doing something horrifying, but its fake. Who is in charge of letting people know this thing is they . This thing is not real. So that we can have people who dont go to the ballot box believing something thats not real israel. Thats influence our election and asked myself what was in charge of the come when we can to protect the credibility of the entity that is, the web it is in charge of saying it so that the other side does not come out and say our own government is indifferent in the election . I think well can be struggled with this forhi a long time because the russians are the best ad, have been doing it a long time so they know and they perfected it, but every election cycle more and more cast of characters are joining the parade here in terms of getting into this business. I think in the years to come we will see more and more nationstates and maybe nonstate actors begin to not just come after us in our election in our political process with those of other countries as well. This issue is not going away anytime soon. Its only going to tell it, get worse and we need to begin to lay out some parameters about how regard respond tot the same in the coordinator when we know ahead of time as opposed to the ad hoc basis in which this has been handled in years past. In terms of responding to the disinformation piece of it. Its a tough one to handle but its one that a think where to get a handle on. I agree. Im not sure i think director haines going to lead us all. Sounds good. Thank you very much, chairman warner, Ranking Member rubio, and members of the committee. I really appreciate having the opportunity to briefed on the Intelligence Community elections pretty work alongside by colleagues at cisa and fbi who were leading efforts to take action to secure our elections alongside the exploding a state and local officials who on the front lines of this work. The u. S. Government efforts to protect our elections have improved significantly since the 2016 president ial election and even as the Threat Landscape is becoming increasingly complicated it is my view the u. S. Government has never been better prepared to address the challenge. Protecting our democratic processes from foreign influence or interference is an absolute priority for the Intelligence Community. Our effortse effectively organie by foreign maligned insulin citricic or fmi see which houses the election threats executive and election threats lead to coordinate and integrate the activities and initiatives and programs in this role. Ni fundamentally we support the federal government, particularly fifth amendment and the fbi at the work to secure our elections as well as state and local Election Officials across the country who action manage and secure the election infrastructure on a a daytoday basis. We do so by ensuring our resources online to promote collection and analysis so we we able to identify and mitigate foreign threats to our elections and communicate our assessments to our federal partners, to in congress, to state and local officials and to thehe American People. We also facilitate a notification framework that ensures with relevant intelligence is collected concerning a foreign influence operation aimed at our election appropriate notice is given to those are being targeted so they can take action. While most of these notifications are nonpublic the are as you both indicated sinners in which public notifications are appropriate and is doing so with render the foreign influence operation less effective and that is part of that mandate. Of course exposing a form factors effort is only one way in which we count election threats. We support Law Enforcement community as the addition of election influence operations through legal action including the disruption of Illicit Financial Networks and we also support cybercom as a convex range of Cyber Operation to ensure foreign adversaries cannot use our Digital Infrastructure to attack our elections. Using every tool we have iss critical as the challenge is expanded. Over the last several years we seenen really three trends that makes the Threat Landscape more diverse and more complex. First, there are an increasing number of foreign actors including nonstate entities who are looking to engage in election influence activities. Second, there are more commercial firms to which state actors are able to conduct election influence activities often increasing the sophistication of such activities while making it more challenging to track down the original instigator of the foreign influence efforts. And then third pretzels obviously relevant emerging technologies particularly genitive ai and Big Data Analytics arein increasing the threat by enabling the proliferation of influence actors who can conduct targeted campaigns reducing the number of relatively sophisticated influence operations and content and further complicating attribution. For example, innovations in and i have enabled foreign influence actors to produce seemingly authentic and tailored messaging more efficiently at greater scale, and with content adapted for different languages and cultures. In fact, weve seen genitive ai being used in the context of foreign elections. In september 2023, two days before the Parliament Elections in slovakia which chairman noted, a fake audio recording was released online and which one candidate discussed how to rig the upcoming election with journalists. The audio was quickly shown to be fake with signs of ai manipulation, and under slovakia law is a moratorium on campaigning and meaty cometary about the election for 48 hours before pollsth open, and since e deepfake was released in the window, news and government organizations struggle to expose the manipulation. The victim of the deepfake ended up losing in a very close election. To position the ic to dress genitive ai enabled foreign influence effort we have an icy group focused on multimedia authentication the leverages Forensic Technology among other tools and enables those in the ice you arere working on electin security to rapidly access media Forensic Experts to the state if indication a fourth suspect media related to the election. Members of this group engaged technical experts inside and outside of the government to ensure we are applying the latest techniques, and to state and local officials have concerns, for example, about needed that is expected to be synthetical manipulated and violates the law or start a foreign actor they can request authentication assistance to the fbi. And, of course, the most significant foreign actors who engage in foreign influence activity directed at the United States in relation to our elections are russia, the peoples republic of china, or prc, and iran. Specifically russia remained the most active foreign threat to our elections. Russian governments influence operations tend to include eroding trust in u. S. Democratic institutions, exacerbating social political divisions in the United States and degrading western support to ukraine. Russia relies on a vast multimedia influence apparatus which consist consists s Intelligence Services, cyber actors, state media proxies, and sociald media trolls. Moscow most likely views of such operations as ao means to tear down the United States as its perceived primary adversary, enabling russia to remote itself as a great power, whereas beijing seeks to promote support for chinas policy positions and perspectives including in the context ofte specific elections, portrayed the u. S. Democratic model asic chaotic, ineffective, unrepresentative, and magnify u. S. Societal divisions. The prc has a sophisticated influence apparatus to which they leverage emerging technologies including genitive ai and their growing increasingly confident in their ability to influence elections globally but remain concerned about the possible blowback in the event that efforts are disclosed. In 2020 we assess that china did not deploy influence effort intended to change the outcome of the president ial election, principal because of concerns regarding blowback if caught, and thus far with no information to suggest the prc will take more active roleke in this president ial election that it did in 2020 even as they continueo to engage in efforts o promote politicians at all levels who are taking positions favorable to china on key issues. Needless to say well continue to monitor their activities. Finally, i ran is becoming increasingly aggressive in their efforts seek due to stoke discord and an accomplice in a Democratic Institutions as weve seen them do it prior election cycles. They continue to adapt their cyber and influence activities using social media platforms, issuing threats, disseminating disinformation. And it is likely that well continue to rely on their Intelligence Services in these efforts and iranbased online influencers to promote their narrative. Weve absorbed other countries attempt to support our divine specific candidates that these efforts to be on a smaller scale. For instance, some of the countries do things like direct Campaign Contributions to candidates they believe would promote their interest if elected and seek to obscure their support. And briefed the election Threat Landscape is increasingly challenging but our capacity command the threat has alsoov improved as you will hear from colleagues. There is nothing more important for fundamental to our democracy than protecting our elections and i can tell you that a focused and ready to do our part. For your timeu and i look forward to your questions. Chairman, vicechairman, members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to discuss cisas efforts to protect and defend our nations election infrastructure. Since 2017 win election in for such was the same as critical and south meck was designated as the sector risk measure agency, south meck and her partners including Intelligence Community and the federal bureau of investigation have made significant progress increasing the security and resilience of the nations election infrastructure. Working to support state and local Election Officials who serve on the front lines of our democracy administering, managing and securing our elections. Ag election infrastructure has never been more secure and election Stakeholder Community has never been stronger. As a result these Election Officials ran secure elections in 2018 and 2020 and 2022 as you know. There is no evidence malicious actors change or altered votes or had any Material Impact on the outcome of any of these elections. This has been validated time and again, including multiple Court Challenges and in any race that was close in 2020 there were paper records that could be counted and recounted an audited to ensure accuracy. In this job ive had the privilege to spend time with chief Election Officials across the nation of both parties and the knowhow tirelessly they thy were to ensure that theiren citizens votes are counted as casper is its why i have confidence in the integrity of our elections and whyd the American People should as well. However, we cannot be complacen complacent. What election infrastructure is more secure than ever, as you just heard the threat environment is more complex than ever. We have seen as the dni noted that foreign adversaries remain a persistent threat to our election infrastructure aimingec to undermine american confidence in Election Integrity and our Democratic Institutions, and to so partisan discord. Are efforts which will be exacerbated by genitive ai capabilities. Perhaps more concerning are the continued physical threats to Election Officials which largely stem from unfounded claims that the results of the 2020 election dide not represent the will of the American People. Such claims are corrosive to the sacred foundations of our democracy and the alleged harassment and threats of violence against Election Officials ofe both parties and their families. As a result weve seen a wave of resignations with Election Officials taking operational experience and Institutional Knowledge with them, and some of those who remain are operating under difficult conditions. We had cisa are very proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with these Election Officials, these election heroes who were on the frontlines of our democracy. In fact, this is providing more services in more jurisdictions than ever before with training and resources featured on our protect 124 website. Since beginning of 2023 we provided over 340 cybersecurity assessments, 520 physical security assessments, 70 tabletop exercises, 220 training sessions that reach 9000 election stakeholders every week. We provide reportsts to nearly 1000 election entities with highlighting vulnerabilities so they can be immediately remediated. We provided and sponsored 230 security clearances for Election Officials and worked with Intelligence Community to provide classified briefings on foreign adversary threats and most recently weve hired ten dedicated Regional Election security advisers who bring a combined 210 years ive election expertise and experience to work on the front lines with Election Officials. Finally, we remain laser focus on the threat of foreign malign influence operation, providing guidance as recent as last month on the tactics of disinformation used by our foreign adversaries. We will continue to use our rumor versus reality website to provide Accurate Information aboutt election infrastructure security and perhaps most important we will amplify the voices of state and local Election Officials who are the true authoritative subject Matter Experts when it comes to elections. These Election Officials know that while elections areff political, Election Security is not. We at cisa are committed to keeping it that way and look for your leadership and support in helping us to do so. Iq. Its my understanding you are not going to do opening . Levy first of all thank the witnesses for the testimony and particularly acknowledge what generationally just said, is our Election Officials are our election heroes. Many of themhe gin easterly picked men who served diligently opening and closing pulser decades on and, the fact that they are under a level of harassment at this point really is one of serious effort i think to undermine our democracy consumer that maybe domestically generate the summit couldne also be enhanced by foreign interests. Let me direct the first question to director haines. Again i think there has been some rewriting post 2016 the sum of some of the activities in russian or even in 2020 with iran was kind of harmless trolling. Can you speak to the fact that literally the level of violence that was inside in cases or exacerbating racial strife, religious strife. These adversaries, these foreign adversariess are trying to pit s against each other at unprecedented levels literally leading to violence. Yeah, absolutely. I think it is very nice job in the opening of highlighting a number of such incidents. I will say that starting with iran, it is as independent opening statement, increasingly aggressive in the effort seeking to stoke this kind of discord and promote chaos and undermine confidence in the integrity of the process. They use social media platforms really to issue threats to disseminate disinformation. Andd we saw how they did that in 2020. Its when the incidence you identified where they attempted to incite violence and threaten voters by sendingrs spoofed emails designed to intimidate the voters, to incitee social unrest and distributing content basic including a video that implied individuals could cast fraudulent ballots even from overseas, all entirely false, called out by my predecessor, director ratcliffe at the time in 2020 and others in the Intelligence Community and Law Enforcement community. I think that is a a very good example. Weve also seen russian gauge in these type of tactics, particularly in the global efforts to influence elections, trying to effectively incite disorder in order to distract sometimes Law Enforcement from being able to manage an election or do other things in that respect as well. I live at that. I will just have a call that incident and again it was a little bit of senator rubio question about who announces there was a real sure force at that moment when we had the odni, we have the fbi director, we had the head of cisa, im not sure general nakasone but because her fear is who makes that message in a politicized environment it needs to be people are goings to be vieweds much as possible credibly by both sides. I think again in the case the Trump Administration did the rightid thing. Lots and lots of talk about ai, is not a week that goes by we dont see a new enhancement. In terms of either video or audio deepfake capabilities. I dont think even though we pass some Bipartisan Legislation out of the rules committee today, that will get to National Legislation on deepfakes. I would point out is about a dozen plusst states that are tan this on their own and they ranged from red states and blue states and everything in between. Those of us whove been pushing the Tech Companies to do more, there were 20 Tech Companies that came together what was called the munich record. This includes all ofhi the name, facebook, google, twitter, tiktok open ai promising they would have a commonality of watermarking so you can indicate if something has been altered. This is a in elections. A commitment to try to take that content down and to educate voters. This is not just geared at american half the world is going to elections this year. Right at india has got an election. Europeans will have their the parliamentary election shortly engine. I worry that after that muchpublicized announcement in february, to use the old political term, wheres the beef, i dont see that, watermarking standard emerging. Idol cds 20 Tech Companies moving aggressive nature that i would hope. Id like to briefly from each of the witnesses on how you think the state of the collaboration between Tech Companies onol makg sure ai is not misused. Thanks for the question, charlie. I saw the letter younk sent outo those companies yesterday which i think will be very helpful in getting specific answers. I will say we have been working with the Generative Ai Companies specifici about threats to elections and ensuring they are putting procedures and technology in place at many of them are part of whats called dccpa, the coalitions for contt provenance and authentication. In addition one of the very useful things theyre doing is if theres any questions about election that are driving people use that technology to sources like a a vote. Org, or trusted io 2024 which isor a national associational of secretaries of state information that provides verified information at the state and local level. Its a validation that theyre pushing people to those trusted sources. All that said, what were doing are providing guidance to state and local Election Officials on ai threats and ways we can igmitigate such threats to the election infrastructure. We put outwe something in januay and again in april about foreign malign influence. Ill just add to that by saying that absolutely support everything that gingers indicated. In addition i think we are seeing jin just indicated. Opportunity to provide detection tools can build a relationship with some of state and local partners and thats been a part of what i think is important to continue to encourage. Were still in the process of watching them build out a cinch of the capacity at efforts in this area. Things like your statement i think are helpful to channel that energy and to begin to push forward on it. Another thing we are doing is we been engaging within witr to make sure we understand the technologies they are bringr to make sure we are producing basically a state of basically the state of the art identification Authentication Services within the ic and also for state the local partners is this a request appropriate as indicated through the fbi. We are also promoting the adoption of darpa suite of technologies frankly in this area there was a allows users correct was falsifying media assets to defend in particular against largescale automated disinformation attacks to public authorities. And to thirdrd parties. All of that is mutually reinforcing in this area. Ms. Knapp . Thank you for the opportunity to respond. Obviously ai is concern to us as well. Whenever we get any sort of intelligence we do provide to the social Media Companies for action. Sorry. Can you hear me now . When we do get any sort of intel indicating the hand of a foreign adversary, that information provided to sociall media covers whether it is a simple as an internet protocol address, email address or phone number for them to take what actions deemed necessary. All right. And understand talk about protecting infrastructure is very important to focus on, largely base the scenario about al franken basis on cnn februara tabletop exercise. Basically describes the following tabletop exercise. China creates a fake aip additionally a senate candidateh destroying ballots, and they are able to identify, but that, that its ai, it is fake. So we have the ability to do that anything thats what you describe the dnis office is able to do to darpa i guess effort. The semantic Forensic Technology and all that. So we know its fake. What the article says and what i want to know, maybe the article is wrong and you could correct me come after in this tabletop exercise no oneta knew what happenedne next. They struggled on how come whats response should be. There was a struggle who would notify the public. According to this article, and the number two at the fbi number two at cia, number two at dhs was part of the tabletop to know would raise their heads as if we want to be the one in charge of notifying the public. That was real consternation in fact, this is being promoted through a cut out like maybe i imagine i can blog lets say theres a rightwing or leftwing blogger and thats when he released the video, now certain fear what is a decedent estate against is spreading it, people are going to say the government is interfering in our elections and then a real question about it come so Many Americans already dont trust the federal government or the intelligence agencies. How can we get them to trust us when this is not a real video . Heres what i want to ask. If, in fact, the scenario like this plays out, we do comes up, im not on the ballot measure so lets use me. The do comes out and its me and an audio recording date say im going to rig the election of going to steal a bunch about. Its fake. You know its fake. Ba what happens . I am now a week before the election, six days before the election. The summer notify me . Am i able to say that, will someone cannot say this is a real, he didnt say that . What happens . This article said it would be turned over to state and local officials. I o dont know what theyre supposed to do. No it will turn around and say yes dnis office or fbi or somebody told us this was fake. I dont mention what the process that would happen at that point is. Do have a process that would kick in in a situation like that that i just described . Absolutely. So first of all, i wasnt at the tabletop exercise so i dont know exactly what happened in that particular scenario but interest in thats not actually an accurate representation of what the discussion was. I would say in terms of what would happen yes, it would be a statement. The model that appointed to in 2020 is an appropriate model if there is basically a video for some fake or some deepfake or disinformation that is being promoted, it could be that we find out aboutit it through intelligence. It could be otherwise identified, and it would go through if its intelligence through the notification from her, a notification framework is an Interagency Group that basically indicates okay, we think this is something that is a speed i apologize. I do mean to interrupt. I wanted to ask for clarification. The video is clearly a fake. You be able come give me not be able to retrieve it to a foreign entity but alicia garza this is not real anday were working to e what came from. Maybe it was designed by some guy in the basement or maybe by a nationstate. At a minimum we have to see this thing is not real and it could be the work of a foreign adversary. I say we, but whom, would you be the one that would stand up . Is it dni . Is this the fbi . To withstand before the american hepeople and say were not interfering. We does want you to know that peter is not real. It would be in charge of that . I could be the person that goes out and make that determination and i just gave an example rankling one of the ones the chairman burgess mention from the smyrna, an article today about the fact there is a fake video that was basically promoted. We think by storm 1516, its a russian affiliated group basically, and that video purports to showw a whistleblowr in and the ukraine former employee of a made up cia supported troll form test with interfering in the upcoming president ial election. Cia came out with a statement that basically indicates and is reflected in the article that this is fake and im here to say categorically that this claim is patently false, that there is no such thing. It is disinformation. And that is a kind of approach we will continue to take across the board. Okay. What is that established. You say you could be the one. I guess my point is i do want them to be any great area lakes when its been charge of interfacing the American People and saying we will be responsible for notifying the American People. Hasnt been established . The old hesitation you did for mee is based on the fact the maybe certain circumstances in which for example, an state or local official or other basically Public Authority is in a better position to make the Public Statement initially, and for the rest of us to come back behind. K its just a question going through the process in determining what exactly is the issue thats been raised, whats the fakeat information is being put forward, whos going to be the best essentially official to mediate the come out. Who makes that decision . The notification framework. [phone ringing] i think its a very valid question and i would my colleagues and open hearings we go straight seniority. Senator wyden. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Its good to have all three of you here. Id like to start by saying i have long believed that you have to follow the money to understand election interference in america. And today i want to start with influence buying because i think one very effective way for a foreign adversary to interfere in an election is to compromise the candidate. The best we do that is with money. Nowy last year donald trump argued to a court that the valley of his assets could not be inflated because he could alwaysux find a buyer would payn price that he would suggest. The judge was just taken aback and he wrote in his opinion that the statement of the former president suggested, will, influence buying. So the question i would like to ask you, director haines, is lets set aside donald trump, okay, for purposes of this question. Is a Foreign Countries influence buying of a candidate in your view a counterintelligence concern and a form of interference . Absolutely, and its a tactic weve seen, for example, the chinese engage in quite regularly. Good. Then lets go to data purchases, something you and i talked about because one way for foreign adversary to tailor their influence is through the purchase of large amounts of American Private data. The executive order that President Biden side on februart bill included in the recent Foreign Military and supplemental, those welcome steps and i think you know ive indicated that, but under, unlike the bipartisan bill i have with vice chairman rubio, they only apply to a handful of countries, in my view they just dont get the job done. The question here is, director haines, couldnt the countries covered by the executive order in the riesling enacted data export legislation like china and russia, couldnt they just get the data from countries that are not covered either by taking advantage of week privacy laws or setting up Front Companies . I think its sort of fact specific and sarge make a broad generalization but theres no question both russia and china for example, look to obtain critical information including for example, pulling data that ultimately allows them to determine the targets of their influence campaigns including with respect to funding illicitly. So would you work with the vice chairman senator rubio and i to clean up these loopholes and pass effective legislation . Because it seems to me we can say that progress can no that, but you just going to have a lot of the peopleha were engaging in these corrupt activities just make the way to countries that are not covered, then the going to look at week privacy lawsva can lookt Front Companies and band, were off to the races again with more corruption of the election process. So i think when you have the bill that the vice chair and i put in to really close that loophole. And i gather adequate what are mad because you said you work with us. Absolutely, id work with you and any legislation and offer. Very good. With respectan to this election worker issue question for you, ms. Knapp, we got a lot of interest in this strong statement that director wray put out. Want to make sure we protect election workers from threats of violence. This is something ite hear from all of our county officials in my state. This is an obvious and ongoing threat to democracy here tell us if you would, ms. Knapp, what you are involved with in this area about the harassment of election workers, the general incitement of violence. What are your priorities industry . Thank you for that question. Obviously as you and said election workers are critical to our democratic process and they are the frontline of democracy. In terms ofra what were seeingn this space obvious election workers are being harassed the robocalls, white powder letters as follows swatted. We take all of those incidents very seriously. We work very closely with the department of justice Election Crimes Task force to date since its inception 2021 there have been 17 successful convictions as well as 13 sentencing we continuously work with state and local authorities on these matters to hold any and all individuals that of an identified accountable for those actions for my time is up. Im going to ask you a question for the record, ms. Knapp about this gentleman alexander smirnov. He was recently charged with lying to the bureau when he passed on disinformation about the biden family. Ill ask you for the record my time is up. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator risch. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I understand, i apologize i do Foreign Relations committee but i apologize that i think senator rubio made reference to the letter which he and i sent to you, director haines, regarding the 51 former Intelligence Community people who signed the letter regarding hunter biden doesnt ring a bell with you at all . Yes, sir. I deliver every detail. Ongoing help you out. Good deal, thank you. Its not a good deal. We asked six questions and only one of the six questions was answered. Some going ask you q here publicly. And by thehe way, let me tell yu how this fits in. Im as concerned with this sort of thing as i am with foreign interference on the election process here this was deplorable, these 51 people saying saying this was russian activity, we all know now that it wasnt. These are 51 people that had very significant influence in american society, andic the scet this letter saying that this was russian influence. Let me ask some questions you one of the questions were asked is how many of the 51 people currently hold a security clearance . And that was as of may 31, 2023. 2023. So let me ask it now. How many of those 51 people still hold a security clearance . I believe we provided you with an answer on that. I dont recall i thought we did. I like it if we didnt really get that to you shortly. We have that information. So how many of the appendix individual maintain business arrangements contracts or other consulting arrangement withins element of u. S. Intelligence community between october 12020 and october 31, the october 2020. The question was not answered. That question were still cant get an answer to. Youre still going to get an to it . Yes, sir. This is security clearance. As of october 2020 the charlotte you got a list of the people whether or not they have security clearance. We have a list of the people that had security clearance. As the said thats an answer that we provided or will provide that to you. On the contract thats a much more complicated question is that something we are looking to give you. How many of the appendix individuals come maintain business arrangements contracts or other consulting element of the use Intelligence Community . That was as of may 31, 2023. A move that forward to today both of those last two questions. How many of those people of those 51 had a rangers in october 2020 and and how many of them have any context today . Could you get that information for us . I dont have that information now but we look to provided to. So lets talk about this particular problem. Al senator rubio was asking the question about whos going to stand up and looked in the camera say this is baloney. Thats going to be you, i think you said that. High responsibility that you have. That was in the context of foreign interference in an election. What about this sort of thing where its domestic interference thats obviously false . Whos going to whos got the responsibility for stand up and looking in the camera and say folks, dont count on this, its not true . Is that going to be your responsibility . Sir, i think, look, my responsibility with respect to formers that speak out and provide the the wealth of ee and knowledge in such circumstances is not to determine what they should or shouldnt say but rather to ensure that the not disclosing classified information, that were protecting that an speed is what if it is false and using theird roads, they are having knowledge of Security Matters and Intelligence Matters and you know itss false . Is that do you just say no, im not going to get involved in that . I dont despairge because i think first of all i think they said that their experience makes them deeply suspicious of that activity, right . I wouldnt spitted it went a little farther than it i think but i will take your characterization of it. Okay. And if you know thats false and you come into information that its false, is it your obligation or not your obligation to stand up come look in the camera say folks, when youre voting, dont take this into account . Circumi dont think i could even frankly make sure that ive Read Everything that they form of my dissent or that anybody else on these issues. So no, i dont think its appropriate for me to be determining what is truth and what is false in such circumstances. But what if you know . I mean you are sitting here, youre the center of intelligence in america right there and this has, and you know its false. Whats your obligation or do you have an . I think my obligation is to ensure thatn the best intelligence is being provided to the president , to the federal government, to the congress and were possible to the American People through the classification which is not what we would do. Not comment someone who stands up and force of intelligence information that you know is false . Sir, if i were to come for savant not sure im the best arbiter of whatit is true and false. Secondly speeded lets say in a particular instance using the paper. You know its false. Lets take that instance. What do you do . I mean, it depends on paper talk about a fake video thats been put forward speeded thats what us that someone with intelligence stands up and says i know this, and intelligence standpoint and you know as the Director Director of National Intelligence that its false. No, i do not consider that to be part of my responsibility. If there is this information that is put forward, false information, right, then we have the capacity to authenticate it or to identify it as false. We will do so a sickly to our customers and we process by determinations may be to the public but it might be classified information. My be anything else. I dont know. My time is up. Im not making progress some, wn get back to you. We ought to continue to pursue this. My sense is that the public be the responsibility of the fbi if there was proven. Im not sure we want the director of National Intelligence commenting about a domestic statement made by an american, but i understand your point. I mean, i think thats the purpose of this hearing is to find out how American Voters are going to be it is although the purpose, our purview of these is focused on that foreign influence. But it understand your point. Senator kaine. Up on this, seems to me attention here is i dont want to use government to be the truth used or talk about whats true and whats not true in political advertising. You could can have 1000 pg that fulltime. 4 hours a day. Thats of the job of the Us Government. Itay strikes me the role you can play, however, is disclosure of sources. That if you know through your intelligence sources and your attribution that a particular piece of information true or not is coming from a foreign source. Thats the role where its important for you to notify the public so they note the source, not whether its true or not because i just think thats and a possible determination. But of these people should know the source. And in maine town meeting when so we sense up to talk you process not only what they say but who they are and youre not allowed to work the back of your head in the main town meeting. And so thats why think you have an Important Role to play. The thing that bothers me and worries me use the word notification framework. Ive seen that. Its a bureaucratic nightmare. I notification that comes in february after november election and any good. What it want to urge is disclosure of sources when youre aware of it immediately, immediately. Mark twain set it takes good news, bad news gets around the world before good news gets its shoes tied. So i hope that you can go back and look at this process and not make it bureaucratic but if you have evidence that this is coming from a foreign source, but the public know so they can assess that it is a something you can take back. Was yet absolutely. That is something we do is try to attribute where information is coming from essentially and working through the methodology on the. Realize the station framework may sound bureaucratic but really is a living thing. For example, they worked to a process where they could expedite their decisionmaking process within 48ki hours. Looking at speedy that should be the standard, 48 hours. Its that much longer than that. Having this information that it is foreign source within the Us Government doesnt do us any good if the election is five days away and you dont get that information. Absolutely. Whats going on here is our adversaries are using our strength against us. Its the kind of you political jujitsu. The strength of our society is openness, First Amendment, freedom of expression. They are using that in order to manipulate our most fundamental sacred rightht which is the rigt of an election. So we got to be alert to the as they say i disagree with my call it. I dont think youre in the truth tasha i think you in the disclosure intelligence business. I hope that something you can continue. Now, at cisa im worried that you may be overly concerned with appearing partisan and that that will freeze you in terms of taking the actions that are necessary. He gave a very impressive list of all the meetings and things you are doing, but im hearing from some Election Officials they dont feel cisa is out there with them. Theyre not getting the support they need. So i hope you are being very forward leaning about the work that you, the protection you can provide to state and local Election Officials. Thank you, senator action as a mitch and we providing more services in more jurisdictions than ever before. Weve enhanced our field force of cybersecurity advisors, physical security advisers, then Election Security advisers who are former secretaries of state or state election directors who are working hand in hand with secretaries of state and current state election directors. And im in touch withec chief Election Officials across the country to include secretary of state and others to ensure they are getting everything that they need to run safe and secure elections. Elections. That is not in any partisan way. We know these adversaries are coming at us. Final question we know in 2016 and i believe in 2018 the russians got into Something Like 35 States Election infrastructure. They didnt do anything with it. There was no effort to manipulate it but they were doing it for but they werent doing it for fun. Im weared worried this theyre still there and a person walking into a polling place in miami and their name isnt there. And i hope youre pursuing, those sleeper cells that may be there in state infrastructure. Ill just comment that since we have designated election infrastructure is critical. Theres been enormous progress in particular on raising the bar on Cyber Security. Not all voting equipment, vote tabulation and vote casting is not connected to the internet, just Election Night reporting. So the fact that its disconnected, its not exposed to the internet, thats a layer of security. There are multiple layers. And technological layers, procedural controls to assure that that election infrastructure is secure and resilient and the other thing to remember, senator, we have so much diversity across its a benefit. If youve seen one States Election, one States Election. The virtue, there are procedures and controls under the chief Election Officials that makes it secure. Having worked with secretary of state mclane in idaho, i know that all Election Officials are focused laserlike on this and they dont see voter security as a partisan issue, they see it as an issue ensuring they can enable every one of their citizens votes to be counted as cast. Final quick question, director haines did you hear about the three conspiracy theorists that walked into a bar. No. It wasnt a coincidence. Thats great. [laughter]. Well, thank you for the good news, director haines, you say youve never been better prepared and that our elections have never been more secure. I think thats gunz. All the campaigns ive been involved in in my career observed as a citizen has never been exemplars of truth telling, they are contest, political contests for the hearts and minds of the voters and hopefully the ballot cost by that voter. Now, i frankly dont think it makes a whole lot of difference if some message is generated by some computer code or algorithm or Artificial Intelligence or a human being, that is not telling the truth, or some third party like these 51 intelligence officials who basically shared in the lie attributing certain information in election to russian disinformation. I actually found, also, miss easterly, i found this statement in your statement to be reassuring. You said our election infrastructure is diverse, managed locally, by state and local government offices to meet their unique jurisdictional requirements and involves in depth layers of defense and redundancy and resilience. Its because of these efforts and election workers across the country that the American People can have confidence in the security of our elections process. Again, more good news. As i read that though, it seems to suggest that the distributed nature of our election system is actually a strength against the attempts to disrupt our election process. Is that correct . Yes, sir. So, any attempt by federal officials here in washington d. C. To centralize or concentrate that Election Authority would seem to me to run counter to that distributed structure, which is providing some defense against attempts to disrupt or interfere with our elections, thats my observation, not necessarily yours. So, i was very encouraged to see that the work youve done with chief Election Officials in places like texas and elsewhere, the training the assessments, the resources you provided have been successful and led you to believe that we have never been more secure. Let me ask you, maybe miss knapp, i dont know who should take this question, but one of the Biggest Challenges weve had when it comes to elections or cyber attacks, basically, have been attribution. How do we know what the source of some of this disinformation or cyber attacks, how do we know who it is . Thank you for that question, sir. I can certainly start and then im sure my colleagues would love to jump in. As you mentioned, sir, attribution is a difficult thing, but its not something that is impossible and it takes time. So, for us from a fbi perspective, you know, that would involve us tracing the origin, we would gather all available intelligence, serve Legal Process and its a itratie process. Thats not something you could do to a date . It would depend on attribution and what sort of intelligence out there to drive to whatever conclusion. I dont know if any of my colleagues want to jump in on this. And mr. Haines, does the u. S. Government do anything to impose costs against those who engage in this misconduct . I mean, obviously, thats a policy question. Yes, there have been actions that have been taken. It may be a policy question about you you would know . Fair enough. You know, i think that sanctions are an example of the kinds of actions that have been taken, pnging, other actions depending on the scenario and weve been helping europe look at russian efforts to influence the Parliament Elections and influence operations. So i think there are, in fact, other tools that can be used. I just have 17 seconds left. Let me change the subject a little bit. Weve talked about virtual threats to Election Integrity, but not physical threats from terrorist groups. Director haines, you said in your annual threat assessment youre willing to access that exceptions for immigration policies have been driving record numbers of Illegal Immigrants across your borders. Director haines talked about the isis affiliated individuals or facilitating the passage of migrants from the u. S. Mexico border in the United States. Can you tell us how many have ties to isis operatives and how many individuals have entered through the southern border as director wray has testified. And i can support to what director wray has testified to, and i cant in open session. You cant tell us what hes told us is that isis facilitators have managed to deliver people to the southern border and they are likely been released into the United States . There is a Facilitation Network that we have been monitoring, obviously, that has some links to isis and that is something that we have been managing, but i cant go further into detail on that without being in closed session, sir. Well, i think were looking at a matter of when, if not if were going to have to live with the consequences of that. Two quick comments before we go to senator, one, i do think as policy makers and times in the past when we have punched back against some of those who try to interfere and i think we ought to do more of that and try to urge as policy makers that action and im going to say im going to commend some of this and about the decentralized nature and applaud texas which in an overwhelming way, almost unanimous in your state house and 75 , i think in your state Senate Approved legislation that Governor Abbott signed of deep fakes of political candidates. I think that makes sense. Senator. Thanks, mr. Chairman, thanks for holding this hearing. Its tough issues because we live in a free society. Were all one way or another, i think were all trying to help strengthen this democracy, help strengthen the values that we all that we share and were under assault, you know, in a way that weve never been before from our adversaries and weve got competing values at stake here. You know, the First Amendment on the one hand, protecting our National Security on the other hand. I was reading director haines, the piece in wired last week about the Russian Disinformation Campaign, the doppleganger operation, the kremlinbacked operation that promote add fake Washington Post article that said that billionaire soros was hiring people at 30 for antisemitism and this site looked just like the Washington Post, you know, and the people in this country that were having protests in the United States were basically being attacked, in a sense, by this propaganda, by this effort to divide us. And and these guys, i think, working with the russians, fabricated articles from oman and fox news as well, and i just wonder if you could talk a little about the speed and thats not an election issue, thats a democracy issue, this is a debate thats going on in the streets of this country and the streets of free countries all over the world, that are totalitarian adversaries are using to try to incite division, to cite discord, to take the temperature up based on information that isnt true, and somehow we have to find a way as a free society to respond to that and it seems to me that the first part of that is to notify people in real time when this is happening and when the country as a whole is subject to the intentional misinformation that were seeing, frankly, throughout europe, throughout. Weve seen it in the most devastating way myanmar, people were killed as a result of content that was purposely disseminated over social media platforms there. And i think we would be naive to think that that level of Political Violence couldnt also occur here as well. So, i guess the first question id ask is what are we going to do about it . Well, i do think that one aspect of what you do about it is basically expose what the tactics are and what were seeing and then address specific issues as they come up, just as youve been saying, and we have been looking increasingly working with partners and allies, frankly, around the world to do exactly that because its better to do it in numbers, in effect, and to really get the message out in ways that people find increasingly credible in targeting that disinformation. Theres also going after, and this is part of, i think, what you were describing, theres going after the sort of the platforms that get used in this context. So, you know, russia has been pretty extraordinary in terms of the platform that theyve built for their work. They essentially have a staterun propaganda machine, right, thats comprised of domestic media apparatus, audiences targeting global audiences and rt and sputnik, and quasi government controls that are used and over the years the apparatus has grown and broadening the array of influence actors, tactics that they use for covert and deniable operations and trying as you indicated to shape u. S. Political discourse to reduce support for ukraine and part of what were seeing is their capacity to use some of the platforms that theyve chosen are getting harder as were Getting Better disclosing how the platforms are used and how countries are taking action to pull broadcasting licenses, other things along those lines in order to actually make it more challenging. They obviously look for other opportunities and can get around these things, but thats among some of the, you know, sort of opportunities for battling for others, yeah. I might just add something to your question in so far as it relates directly to elections and we have a great relationship with secretary of state griswold and the judge, your election director who are very, very focused on this issue. But if you look at two very powerful examples, again at the state level where this might happen. One focused on being prepared and the other focused on an effective response. So in arizona, secretary of state Adrian Fontes has been working with his local Election Officials to do a series of table top exercises with deep fakes of him in the day before the election, to prepare them to be able to respond and to be able to communicate and hes brought in local media and the community to help them understand these kind of threats and to lay the ground to inoculate them from being influenced because those can be amplified by foreign malign influence actors. The other very good example, i think, was the robo call that happened in New Hampshire two days before the primary election. When that happened, the attorney general, john for mella came out with a very clear statement saying that its likely criminal behavior. Saying its being investigated and ignored as an example of repression of the vote and then the secretary of state, dave scanlon came out and he amplified that on a whole bunch of media platforms to get that message out to the constituents and said the end of the day, the turnout was actually higher than expected. So Election Officials who are the ones running and securing these elections are out there ensuring that they can prepare and i think we have good examples of how theyre actually able to react to it, sir. Thank you very much and thank you both for your testimony. I know im out of time, mr. Chairman, but if i could finish with one thought. Those are two great examples in arizona and New Hampshire where local elected officials who swore an oath to the constitution are fulfilling that oath. Director haines had good examples of what were doing with trying to deal with foreign actors associated with the kremlin. Thats good, too. Mr. Chairman, we have our own platforms, the platforms in the United States of america who have not taken the kind of responsibility they need to be able to deal with these challenges as well, who have not kept on the people that in theory they hired to do the content moderation work that they were going to do, who not been willing to think about slowing down the degree to with i information is shared across the planet earth, that goes through their network, so, i just think that weve got a responsibility of our own here in terms of oversight to make sure that what is required. And we will have that kind of hearing with the social media to the ever patient and seven minute time, senator lankford. Ill take that. Thank you all for your testimony. You were just speaking to senator bennett about russia and some of the influence they have targeted and the ways that theyre doing it. Can we switch side and actually talk about china. What is china currently doing to try an influence Public Opinion . Yeah, if its all right with you, sir, ill just mention what theyre doing here and also what theyre doing it abroad on a broad range of things. Theyre growing increasingly confident in their ability to influence elections, but remain concerned about the possibility of blowback should they be discovered. And the prt has made improvements to its influence operation tools using Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics. Their tactics globally include bank rolling candidates they prefer using deep fake technologies for content, polling targets for them, conducting social media influence operations. The pla will take over social media accounts on a number of platforms and we look to disclose that and Tell Companies about that when it happens. To promote disinformation across the board, and they also target their diasporas. Weve seen that seek to influence elections not only in the United States in the context of congressional candidates, generally this high school been one of the things in a different level and spaces and also elections in taiwan, in australia, and in canada. So, a pretty significant portion. How do we expose that and put the word out attributions and challengers already once it starts to get out there on social media and other places, how is that exposed most effectively if its discovered on the federal side . Start, but i think my colleagues may wish to amplify certain aspects of this. We obviously put in our annual threat assessment, the prc engage in in terms of influencing operations in these spaces and when we get intelligence that the prc, for example, is taking on social media accounts and things like that in the platform and we pass that information through the fbi, theyre able to provide that to the companies to take action. A general statement if theyre going to do it is different than an example to say here is an example of a post we know whats created by or amplified by china, russia, iran, whatever it may be. 2016 and 2017 we were able to pull examples and to be able to list them, post them and say, this was russian created. Here is where it started and here is where it came from and expose it. And how do we do that now . And we will do just that. The same play book in the sense that we are identifying specific credible intelligence and passing that to the company or exposing it publicly as the case may determine. And ive got seven months. And since we have the vote act. Theres perpetual funding sent out to multiple states to be able to improve their systems. Its interesting, i pulled new numbers because every state says we cant improve our elections systems and dont have enough money so we pulled the recent spending what people have and havent spent already. Colorado, my colleague senator bennett just left, has received 15 million, has only spent 27 of that money. Hawaii has received 8 million, spent 26 of it. Louisiana received 14 1 2 Million Dollars and spent zero of it far. Minnesota 16 million. And oklahoma spent 23 . Other states spent more, but the money has been spent for years. It was not allocated three months ago. Quite a bit of this funding was allocated three years ago and they have not spent it. So my question is, essentially on this, how do we encourage states to up their games learning the lesson of the unofficial results in their websites and how to protect the systems, thats an obvious area of creating distrust on Election Night, if those are actually interfered with. The second is old school paper ballot backups if theres a problem with the machine, everybody can verify with a piece of paper when we have states that have literally millions of dollars sitting there saying we dont have enough to be able to do this when most of them do. How do we advance that . Thanks for the question, senator. I cant speak to those statistics and im happy to follow up on that and i will say what we provide as the sector of Management Agency no Cost Services and no cost training. So many of the states, in fact, thousands of jurisdictions take advantage of the Cyber Security assessments, the free cyber hygiene scanning we provide, the end point detection and response at that we have, the malicious domain blocking so all of that is in place across the country, so i know theyre taking advantage of that and that has significantly raised the bar from a Cyber Security perspective. I think your points about Election Night reporting are very good ones. One of the things that i think is really important for everyone to remember is that those are all unofficial results, right. Right. They need to be canvassed and need to be certified which takes days to weeks, so but if its announced on Election Night who won and then a week later, the state announces, oops, no, a different person won, that Shows Incredible distrust. I agree. Where now no one trusts the Election Results anymore and while the Election Results were unofficial, if those are interfered with, thats a real vulnerability to Building Trust among the American People. I agree with that, sir. As i said in my opening statement, you know, these systems are more secure than ever before and Election Officials, including your state election director are terrific, working incredibly hard to make sure every one of their citizens votes, are counted as cast and i think its really important that we focus on them because theyre the true election experts and we listen to their voices and what they say. So i would hope that anybody who is providing unofficial results would make sure that that state election director gets a voice in that to say its not canvassed, its not certified yet so lets wait until its certified. The followup question and then its done. As far as the fbi and u. S. Attorneys offices and following up on a criminal offense voting if youre not legally present in the country and voting in a federal election, thats a federal crime. Id love to be able to know and ive not gotten the statistic on it, how many prosecutions do we have across the country for a federal election crime. Is that followed up on and do we have a good number of charges being filed and actual prosecutions on that for a federal election crime . I know we talk in my state and what our district attorneys are doing in the state if someone votes twice or whatever it may be, the prosecution is there and they have a good history on that. I dont know on the history side. Can you provide that to me . Thanks for the question. What i have in front of me right now, how many cases have been charged through the department of Justice Task Force on Election Security. What i dont have is that second part. But i can at least give you a General Number right now. So right now the task force, with 13 convictions with respect to your subset question im happy to take that back to my team and get you a more complete answer. Yu. I think those numbers are pretty remarkable. Im glad you shared those. Some states have spent 70, 80 of them, quite a few of our states spent 50 or less. And these are the most recent from a couple of months ago. Thats a very fair question. I think your question how many federal violations i thought there was, i mean, something in that range, i thought after the 2000 election i thought there was a canvass of that had a relatively small, small number, but i think that might haven about state and federal. Let me move to a slightly, just related to this. As i think, you know, were talking about ai being all the buzz at this point. But i think the nefarious nature of some of our adversaries of using a series of technology platforms, you know, the independent entities, and both companies that are committees are very familiar with and that weve used have reported that there are some of these gig employment companies, freelancer and fiver are two that their reports indicated where foreign governments are actually hiring unwittingly, citizens in those countries, targeted countries, and then in effect, paying them to be influence operators. And even more specifically, cameo, which i think, goes after celebrities, depending, im not sure whether theyre a, b or c list, has gone out and unwittingly enlisted celebrities to help on antiukraine messaging. As we think about malicious use by foreign actors, a couple of years ago we would not have thought that a gig platform would be a tool for that kind of foreign influence. Anybody on the panel want to take that one . Do you want it . Go ahead. All right, ill start and well play in, but i think, first of all, youre absolutely right. I think one of the key trends that i identify with, the use of commercial firms and some of them are witting and some unwitting in this space. Its marketing firms, Public Relations firms, management firms, its across the board and increasingly being relied on to sort of lawned covertly, and this complicates attribution and were trying to get better at in a faster way. Part of the reason theyre doing this, they tend to be more numble than their government apparatus before taking action and frequently more sophisticated in their capacity to actually promote influence campaigns. And so, this is one of the things that were watching and in 2020, just to give you a sense of the scale of this, these types of firms we judge were involved in information manipulation in at least 48 countries by our country so its becoming increasingly widespread and were trying to manage. Go ahead. I would only add just last month, we actually worked with fbi and dni to put out an advisory that very specifically highlights these tactics, using lawned dering pr, wittingly or unwittingly and mitigation how to do this and training as well. Part of this is the awareness of it at the election official level and what they need to do to mitigate it and separately the platforms are issues that obviously need to be addressed directly. Thank you for the opportunity. Were obviously, like my colleagues, absolutely concerned with any sort of technology that our adversary uses. What i can say in the setting when we have specific information on a particular company we will directly engage with them, however, in absence of that, partnering with key partners like cisa and putting out the general awareness piece and allowing them to be more and more informed so they can mitigate that and thought it was in their own systems. One. Things that i would just suggest and that in this committee, senator rubio and i have done fairly effectively was doing a series of classified briefs by industry sector around the challenges of the prc. This is more specific, but i would hope that the fbi or doj might update their fara, Foreign Agent entities that makes all of this activity illegal. That that guidance ought to be updated and i would strongly encourage, you know some level of convening in these platforms, where do you draw the line, but if we have an open source documentation from graphic that these platforms are being used and citizens are being unwittingly used. Now, whether the platforms are unwitting or not may be an open question, but if they realize that if they were wittingly helping Foreign Agents interfere that that would be a violation of the law, i think that that would be a helpful process. Thoughts on that . My main thought is one of the really great things in 2020 thats different now, chairman, is we have the estimate which we didnt have before which allows for the classified briefings. Ill deter to avril, but i think thats very much added value. I would say i very much support getting the sector together and see whether we can get out to everybody on these issues, so absolutely. One thing im going to make sure do you want to go . All right. One thing i am concerned about, because i appreciate all of these comments of the outrich that cisa has done, but you know, how do we in an appropriately nonpartisan way, ive heard some reports that there are not many, but a certain number of counties that are actually opting out of some of the voluntary tools that cisa used in the past where einstein where i thought for long time that we had literally a level of Cyber Protection down to county levels, but for whatever reasons counties are opting out. I heard washington state. Is that kind of a oneoff . I would hate as we get closer to the election, if the distrust of the federal government that people are literally turning away voluntary cyber and other educational protections. The good news, chairman, is that thats not accurate. The trend is actually states and local jurisdictions, continue to take advantage of the no cost voluntary services with respect to the albert centers in particular, there is albert and einstein easily confused, theres 1,083 sensors across the country have not renew their contract and thats opting to use Different Technology for intrusion detection. We look at this closely and i have no concerns. At the end of the day, as you know, chairman, cisa is a nonpartisan, nonpolitical agency and we cannot be effective unless we can work with Election Officials at the state and local level of both parties, so im very atuned to that and i have not seen any significant changes in our ability to provide no Cost Services information and no cost voluntary training to election jurisdictions across the nation. Well, i am again, turn to senator rubio for his closing comments and ill make one or two quick comments. I just, i think we the whole system was shocked by 2016 and again, i think a lot of good work by this committee to point out the level of russia interference and i still remember some of the Tech Companies were refusing to believe it. I think we then took action in 2018. I think, and again, i have repeatedly said i think under the Trump Administration we were very wellprepared in 2020 because there was Effective Communication and a team that were working well together. I worry at times that in 2024, because of increasing distrust of any governmental entity, i worry in terms of social media platforms that dont seem to even try to have their users adhere to their own standards, these are not government standards, to their own standards. I worry in terms of some of these new ai tools that can operate at speed and scale, thats unprecedented. And the fact that weve kind of all become a little bit, almost immune to misstatements, mistruths, falsehoods. I share some of the concerns raised by a number of the members, director haines, that we do need a pre assigned process, the last days before the election, who would report. And appropriate to the cia itself responded, but as we get into the final days and weeks and having an approach and again, citing the 2020 example, in effect, everyone across the board came out and called out the iranians for their action. We need to not be game time thinking that through with all of the potential forces coming to bear potentially on this election. Senator rubio . Well, just to wrap this up. First of all, its not i havent focused as much on the cisa role, because to me, the technical aspects, its not that its easier technically, protecting elections from people that are professional hackers constantly trying to get into everything from Water Systems to election systems, to hospital systems, these people, this is what they do all day. I am pointing out its not technical, a red state, a blue state, and congressional and even local level. The reason why i focus on election interference or influence, and the threats, i dont know where it comes from, i think its one of the yeah, the assessments for foreign threats of 22. You go through this and one of the things thank you see it points out, you see to this day, some of these operators are focused on amplifying, what are beliefs in american politics and people believe these things and one of the things they do, they simply amplify things are already saying. Whats the risk there . If you say, the iranians, russia, if i believe in something i food for for a long time, all of a sudden now im a chinese agent or a russian agent because im saying things on the campaign trail . So you see it, for example, and its also, you know, iran proposed helping nationalist groups inside the u. S. And iranian officials Covert Social media to pit groups agains each other, this was written in 2022 and were now in 24, thats an effort to make america fight and make us look weak internally. In october of 22, they were operating on the platform, left leaning politicians, house and Senate Candidates and according to many industry reports, espoused propalestinian sentiments and positive to progressive candidates. You flip to the russians, tried to denigrate the Democratic Party and undermine confidence in the election most likely to weaken support for the ukraine. And they denigrated the Democratic Party and amplified whether u. S. Aid to ukraine would continue, balance of power in congress shifted and their intent is not that theyre democrats, that theyre republicans, but they denigrate the Democratic Party and our willingness to committedness to helping ukraine and the russians blaming multiculturalism and ideals essentially driving the u. S. Into crisis. There are a lot of people that hold that view irrespective of what the rushes russians have, and unique cases and this one in particular strikes home because i think i know who theyre talking about, that cuba attempted to undermine the process of u. S. Congressional politician in 2022 they perceive as hostile and focused operations on denigrating benefit candidates in florida. Although, in an attempt to shape the impression of other politicians as well because they view cubanamericans in miami having outsized influence on u. S. Policy with regards to cuba. So and they also cultivated members of the u. S. Media who held critical views of that member of congress. I probably know who theyre talking about, but the point, obviously, it was in 22, so, where i happen to be on the ballot, among others, but the point being, thats a very specific aim. My whole point in all of this, you have the example that ive used about the fake ai video, okay, and thats almost, i dont see its an easy question, but a more obvious one. Its clearly a fake video and i think what we want to know, do we have a formalized process to act quickly to say this thing is fake. Even if we cant attribute it. You dont need to attribute it to be able in the last days of a campaign to at least protect the American People and has to be done in a way, the other side who maybe hopes it real, doesnt feel like youre tipping the scales in favor of your preferred candidate, right . To be blunt lets say a video comes out thats fake about trump and the dni comes out and says, this video, it not a fake or do the reverse, a video at that comes out about biden, and the dni, yourself or whoever is in charge of coming out with this says this video is a fake. I can see where people on the trump side would say youre trying to help biden, its probably a real video and the different would be true in a different scenario and someone has to be coming forward and thats the obvious one. This one, about amplifying voices and the narrative. Thats tougher. I think the most we can say in that regard, look, we know that these countries are doing this, theyre not doing it because theyre democrats or republican, it serves some purpose, influencing cuba policy, make america look chaotic and the fights against each other and let people make judgments how they take the narratives. Its tough. I dont have an easy answer how to fix it or in terms of notifying people. This is getting more complex and i predict wont just be elections, but realtime. Should we have tariffs, should we ban tik tok, you name it, on a weekly basis, whatever the issue is here, i can see this becoming part of influence, even in our daily political debates and we need a handle on it and its a tough one, its going to get far worse and more sophisticated with many more players and i think that impose a grave danger at some point turning into something at that we havent fully anticipated and so i hope we can continue to work on finding a way forward because im sure they will be talking about it at this dias after were both gone. This will be a factor. I agree with senator rubio, i think these are challenges, but the only thing that i would, i think, i would hope we both agree on is that, yeah, americans have got plenty of differences between them, but if that amplification can literally be traced back to the cuban spy services and it is appearing that millions of floridians are saying what theyre not really saying, i think the floridians ought to know that that is not the case, that we can trace it back to the cuban services or that we can trace it back that these individuals who are posting things are actually being paid by russia, if that proof is there, some of these things would violate, i think the upgrading of the bill, and there are restrictions against Foreign Agents taking these kinds of actions. This is a challenge and technology will make it that much harder. It wont be the last time we deal with this and please for all the folks in the roles supporting you and importantly back at your respective agencies, were going to count on you. Politicians say, particularly when theyre up, this the most important election ever even though neither one of us are up this time, this is the most important election ever. Were adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] cspan is your unfiltered view of government who are funded by these Television Companies and more, including sparklight. The greatest town on earth is the place you call home. At sparklight, its our home, too. And right now were facing our greatest challenge. Thats why sparklight is doing our part so its easier for you to do yours. Sparklight supports cspan as a Public Service along with other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. 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