Lawmakers warned Wednesday of a growing threat of foreign interference in the 2024 election and questioned whether U.S. agencies — and technology companies — are sufficiently prepared to respond to the danger.
“We need to do a better job of ensuring that Americans of all political stripes understand what is very likely to come in the next… less than six months,” said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Senator Mark Warner. during a hearing with the head of US intelligence and other senior officials.
The Virginia Democrat warned that attempts by Russia and other adversaries to try to influence the 2024 election through propaganda and disinformation could be “more sophisticated and more aggressive in both scale and scope” than in previous years.
Warner said the threat has increased due to a combination of more advanced and available technology, aggressive foreign actors, a growing distrust of government among Americans, litigation that has made U.S. agencies reluctant to share threat information with social media companies, and a failure of technology companies to solve the problem decisively.
“Unfortunately, since 2022, we have also seen considerable disinvestment – and in certain cases, complete disinterest – in platform integrity efforts by major social media companies,” Warner said. The senator was referring to the fact that social media companies are cutting staff and reducing efforts to moderate content considered misinformation or hate speech.
The ranking Republican on the intelligence committee, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, said it was unclear which federal agency or official had the responsibility to respond if a foreign government spread falsehoods or published an AI-generated “deep fake” during the campaign. electoral.
“When that happens, if that happens, who is responsible for responding? Have we thought about the process of what we do when one of these scenarios occurs?” — asked Rubio. “Because I don’t think I have a clear understanding of who is in charge and how we would respond. Who would take the lead?”
The senator said there needs to be a coordinated plan on how to respond, rather than what he called the “ad hoc” approach that has been used in the past.
Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told senators that protecting the democratic process “from foreign influence or interference is an absolute priority for the intelligence community” and that the U.S. government “has never been better prepared to meet the challenge.”
Haines said his office may be tasked with issuing a warning about a foreign actor spreading disinformation during an election, but said there may be cases where local or state election officials may be in a better position to warn the public.
“The hesitation you hear from me is based on the fact that there may be certain circumstances in which, for example, a state or local official or other primarily public officials are in a better position to make the public statement initially and for the rest of we go back,” she said.
But Haines said she was prepared to immediately denounce false information spread by foreign countries, citing an example of what she said was a Russia-linked group releasing a video with false claims about a CIA plot to undermine Donald Trump’s white power bid. . Home. The baseless video claimed to describe an internet troll farm in Ukraine used by the CIA. The New York Times first reported on Russian disinformation.
“And I am here to say, categorically, that this patently false claim that no such thing exists. It’s misinformation, and that’s the kind of approach we will continue to take across the board,” Haines said.
The intelligence director said the video was likely the work of a Russia-affiliated group known as Storm-1516.
A CIA spokesman said the video was “patently false.”
“The CIA is a foreign-focused organization that takes very seriously our obligation not to get involved in American politics and elections,” said spokesman Walter Trosin.
The foreign interference threat picture is now more complex, Haines told lawmakers, because there are a growing number of governments or groups seeking to shape the outcome of elections and more commercial companies ready to help them with sophisticated tools that can hide the original instigator. .
“Russia continues to be the most active external threat to our elections,” Haines said.
The Russian government’s aim is to use information warfare to undermine faith in US democratic institutions, exacerbate divisions in the US and weaken Western support for Ukraine, she said.
While China seeks to promote support for Beijing’s political positions, it has not attempted to shape the outcome of the last presidential election and would likely maintain that approach as it is keen to avoid the consequences of being caught trying to interfere in the US election, according to Haines.
Iran, however, “is becoming increasingly aggressive in its efforts to fuel discord and undermine trust in our democratic institutions, as we have seen it do in previous election cycles,” she said.
Sen. Angus King of Maine said it was crucial that intelligence agencies act quickly to alert the public as soon as they identify false information and to avoid slow bureaucratic procedures that could play into the hands of those spreading disinformation.
King said that “if you have evidence that this is coming from a foreign source, let the public know so they can evaluate it.”
The Maine independent said he was concerned that cybersecurity officials would take an overly cautious approach to avoid being accused of trying to intervene in the election to help President Joe Biden get re-elected.
“I’m concerned that you may be overly concerned about appearing partisan and that this freezes you in terms of taking necessary action,” King said, and added: “Please speed up. We have about six months and… we know these adversaries will come at us.”
Officials and lawmakers have made a point of distinguishing between attempts by foreign actors to interfere with voting or vote counting through cyberattacks and separate efforts to influence attitudes and spread false information.
Despite revelations that Russia hacked American voter registrations in 2016, there is no indication that Moscow altered voter registrations or other electoral systems.
Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agencytold the hearing that federal and state election agencies have strengthened the security of election systems over the past eight years.
“There is no evidence that malicious actors changed, deleted or changed votes or had any material impact on the outcome of any of these elections,” she said. But Easterly added: “We cannot be complacent.”
Russia, China and Iran have repeatedly denied that they tried to interfere in the US elections through propaganda, dissemination of disinformation or cyberattacks.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
