c-span is yr unfiltered view of government funded by these television companies and more nxding comcast, you think this t a community center no it is way more than that. >> comcast is partnering with a thousand community centers to create wi-fi list so students from low income families get tool they need to be ready for anything. comcast supports c-span as a puic service. along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. up next intelligence and cybersecurity leaders identify to the 2024 elections. director of national intelligence avril haines says most significant targeting include china, iran and most notably russia that remains most active threat. this senate intelligence committee hearing an hour and 45 minutes.

[silence] i'm going to call this hearing this order and welcome today witnesses and warn them that outset we have finished up one vote and we'll have another one and work through that process. but people are slipping in and out, i think you understand. our witnesses today are director of national intention jen easterly cybersecurity and agency and assistant director of the national security branch at

the fbi. welcome to all of you. today's hearing build on this committee's bipartisans efforts since 2016. to educate the public on the heintentions of foreign adversaries seeking to undermine the integrity of our democracy systems. and to ensure that u.s. government is postured to protect our elections from those foreign threats. abroad inner agency task force tasked from protecting from two forms of election interference we've seen since 2016 interference efforts often cyberenabled that target election infrastructure, and separately, influence efforts that seek to affect elections through covert or other illegal tactics. since 2016, we have held both open and closed hearings ahead of each federal election, featuring testimonies from u.s. officials social media executives and open source research executives. this isor the first open hearing

of this campaign season. but more will be coming. now, i want to start by recalling the fact that i fear at times since particularly 2016 cycle was so long ago that the public perception passed foreign election meddling has too often been treated as something that was trivial or not of major league. but as this committee is exhausted bipartisan investigation into russian meddling in 2016 election showed, and as declassified community activity showed foreign influence, foreign influence effortses go well beyond simple online trolling for traditional propaganda. for an election efforts in the last eight years, have among other things involved. effortsed to infiltrate both online and in person a range of u.s. organizations on both side toto the political spectrum with

promoting social and rainfall strife. we've seen this as well successful impersonation of political and u.s. organizations. with the russian ira memorably back in 2016 with twitter and facebook accounts for the tennessee gop and black livings matter both of those accounts were actually bigger than the real organizations. we've seen harassment and sting operations against u.s. candidates. particularly when we saw just last cycle prn influence operatives bully and humiliate a congressional candidate of chinese heritage we've seen successful efforts to actually organize real world political rallies. back in 2016 again, with one almost coming to real life violence russian had simultaneous rallies in houston one with anti-muslim event

taking place at the same time and place as a muslim cultural events roughly law enforcement intervened. we haveti also seen personalized e-mails sent in 2020 by iranian influence actors posing as proud boys which trump administration leadership did a good job of pointing out globally many of the same foreign influence actors aggress evely meddling in the election of our democracy allies. the prc influence actors aggressively sought to shape the outcome of taiwan election earlier this year. includingm promoting narratives that thelu election has been rigged as election day neared. more recently literally last few weeks, czech and belgium officials have operaive its to shape outcome of june's eu elections with the goal of undermining european support for ukraine.or and a wide range of media open source research and other

sources as similarly pointed to russianco influence operations d one of theco cases i think thats particularly interesting a country that when russia invaded 25% plus supported ukraine. a few years later, due to russian efforts, now has a -- prorussian present in literally 55% have been told saying they think that the united states started the war in ukraine. we've seen recently as well deep of the president have been widely circulating, and fresh off the presses just a couple of hours i'm not going to ask our witnesses to testify. but a -- new russian effort geared at somehow saying that zelenskyy and cia are working to undermine all elections in this year. the barriers to entry for influence have unfortunately become incredibly small. since 2016 we've seen

declassified intelligence assessments name a whole host of influence actors who have engaged in or at least contemplated election influence and interference activities. not only russia not only iran or prc but also cuba venezuela terrorist organizations like hezbollah and range of foreign activist and profit motivated cybercriminals. one of the things why i think this hearing is so important -- in many ways our adversaries could be more sophisticated and aggressive in both scale and scope and this election even than in prior years let me tell you why i think that's the case. first our adversaries are more incentivized than ever to intervene in all elections because they can understand that it could affect their particular national interest. inis the case of russia, putin clearly understands that influencing public opinion and shaping elections in the united states is a cheap way to erode

american and western support for ukraine. similarly, we have seen the conflict between israel and hamas has been fertile ground for disinformation since october 7th. second, the scale and sophistication of these sorts of attacks against our elections can now be accelerated by a.i. tools. the truth is the kind of audio and video manipulation that even as recently as four years ago and clearly eight years ago still a challenge now can happen at a speed and scale due to a.i. tool that's unprecedented literally not a week or month that goes by that a.i. video and audio tools don't continue to improve. and i just on a personal note i feel that congress inability to pass any new guardrails in the last 18 months for a.i. enabled mischief could pose a huge problem. we've seen fake video president

trumple, embracing dr. fauci seen audios of president biden telling people to use a dirchts voting day in new hampshire truth is these tools are out there and growing in their danger. third, we seen unfortunately increasingly large number of all americans of political stripes across the political spectrum who don't trust u.s. institutions from federal agency and to here to main mainstream media rely on those that pop up on the web and since 2022 there's a litigation campaign that is sought to undermine the federal government's ability to share on any kind of voluntary basis vital threat information, with social media platforms. unfortunately since 2022, we've seen from some of the same social media platforms

considerable disinvestment and certain cases utter disinterest iny platform integrity by some f those social media companies. and area where the vice-chairman have worked close together we've seen the rise of a dominant 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 sew disinformation undermine confidence in election and feed discord that americans can expects their -- federal agencies both law enforcement and intelligence to help defect -- detect and defeat. we've got to do a better job of making suree americans of all political stripes understand what is very probably coming their way over the next less than 16 months less than 16

months i hope today witnesses can provide 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 public is aware of this i think dramatic threat to our democracy with that i'll turn it over to vice-chairman. >> funk for calling this hearing and thank you for being here on this important topic and for the next quarter century but it is hopefully one we get to learn from experience on. i think it is important that the outset because i know this will be -- discussed as a -- election threat to the election and the broad topic and bifurcated in hacking into the voter database or messing with early voting unofficial reporting system of a state things of that nature that's more easily understood. and then there's this whole topic of influence. and it is not just an election but also in our debates, i mean,

we saw elements of that during covid and during policy debates here. on a range of topics, the propaganda has been always a weapon of war i think you can do it at scale more convincing in ways that it is spread in our difficult to contain in particular and we've seen this globally. we've seen increasing amount of damage that's being done to the reputation of the united states and parts of africa. byre very active effort to undermine make life very difficult if our diplomats to serve and russians have moved in and gained greater influence so all of that is -- happening at a global scale and the chairman has talked about some of the countries that are faced efforts to meddle in their election and steer outcome in somer cases successfully. but today i think the focus is going to be on how this could be used in a election and focus on elections for a moment, and the reason why, i want to really focussen that i think we'll hear

a lot about the tools that are available. the --at capabilities that someone has to put out a.i. video to -- to spread narratives that are difficult to knock down and so forth. the weaponization of the information, what i think i hope toth learn a little bit more abt is -- when this happens, if this happens, who is in charge of responding to it? have we fought through the process of whatt do we do and oe of the h scenarios occurs becaue i don't think eve a clear understanding of who is in charge and how we would respond who would take the lead? i know if a hurricane is headed to the united states and national hurricane center, is going to put meteorologist on the air who are going to describe to us this is a hurricane. this is what it looks like this is how strong it's going to be when it gets here and put out forecast. it is beginning to issue warnings and people republicans democrats and vote for are going to take the appropriate steps if something like that were headed towards our election i don't know who is 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 request whether it is goth interfering in election themselves and it is not helpful and i use this as an example because it is recent when whole laptop situation happened and hunter biden laptop a number of former intelligence officials i get former no longer employee ofel any of the agencis but that title carries weight all signed a letter saying this is all of the hall marks of russian disinformation campaign. we know now that it was not a disinformation campaign. i want to get into the particulars of what was on. i'm saying we know that it was not a russian disinformation campaign. but the result of it was. that social media companies wouldci not allow anyone to post the articles and there was a media blocker couldn't be reported in except for one place. so what happens as a result of that whether influence on election or not result of this is a segment of the country who repeatedly says thing like the intelligence community interfered etch though formers. but that title so why that is relevant here is because, no

matter who the disinformation campaign is geared after. the other side is going to say, the people issuing the warnings are people that are interfering in the elections on behalf of the candidate they favor. so we're in a but we have to understand if something were to happen if tomorrow that was a video ---- very convincing video of a candidatelet not say president but let's say u.s. senate or congress and video comes out with 72 hours to go before election day,, of that candidate saying some racist comment or doing something horrifying. but it is fake. whong is in charge of letting people know this thing is fake? this thing is not real. so that -- we can have people go to the ballot box believing something that's not real is real that's influencing our election. especially a close one and i ask myself whoever is in charge of it what are we doing protect credibility of the entity what is whoever it is in charge of saying it so that the other side

does not cool out and say, our own government is interfering in the election. so -- i think we're going to be struggling with this for a very long time because russians are best at it and doing it a long time so they know and perfected it. but every election cycle more and more cast a characters are joining the parade here in terms of getting intore this business. and thing in the years to come we're going tong see more and me nation states and maybe nonstate actors begin to not just come after us in our elections and our political process. but those of other countries as well so -- this issueue is not going away y time soon but only going to accelerate and get worse and we really need to begin to lay out parameters aboutce how we're gog to respond to these things in a coordinated way that we know aheaded of time opposed to -- the basis in which this has been handled in years past in terms of responding to the disinformation piece of it. so it is a tough one to handle but one thing we have to get a

handle on. >> i agree. try to doctor you're going lead us off. >> sounds good thank you ranking member wariner, rubio members of the committee i really appreciate having the opportunity to brief you on the intelligence community election security work alongside my colleagues. significant fbi leading efforts to secure actions to secure elections alongside extraordinary state and local officials who are on the frontlines of this work. the u.s. government's efforts to protect our elections have improved significantly since the 2016 presidential election. and even as a threat landscape is becoming increasingly complicated, it is my view a tht the u.s. government has never been better prepared to address the challenge. protecting our democracy processes from foreign influence or interference is an absolute priority foror the intelligence community. our efforts are effectively organizedor by foreign malign influence center or fmic which houses election threats

executives, and the election threats executive leads coordinate and integrates the activities initiatives and programs in this realm and fundamentally we support the federal government particularly fbi as they work secure our elections as well as state and local election officials across the country who actually manage and secure the election infrastructure on a day-to-day basis. we do so by ensuring that our resources are aligned to promote collection and analysis so that we're going to able to mitigate elections and mitigate to our federal partners to you in congress, to state and local officials and to the american people. we also facilitate a notification framework that ensure when is relevant intelligence is collected concerning foreign influence operation aimed at our election, appropriate notice is given to those who are being targeted. so that they can take action. and while most of the notifications are nonpublic already as you both indicated scenarios in which public notifications are appropriate

and doing so would render less effective that is part that have mandate. of course, exposing a foreign actors efforts is only one way in which we counter election threats we support the law enforcement community as they disrupt election influence operations. through legal action including the disruption of elicit financial networking and we also support cybercom as it conducts range of cyberoperations to ensure that foreign adversaries not use our digital infrastructure to attack our elections. using every tool we have is critical as the challenge is expanding. over the last several years we've seen really three trends that make the threat landscape more diverse and more complex. first there are increasing number of foreign actors including nonstate entities looking to engage in election influence activities. second, there are more commercial firms through which state actors are able to conduct election influence activities often increasing the sophistication of such activities making it more

challenging to track down the original incity and third most relevant technology general areb ative a.i. and big data analytics enabling proliferation of influence actors who can conduct target campaigns reducing number of relatively sophisticated influence operations, and content and further complicating and with content adapted for other cultures and, in fact, seen generative a.i. used in context of foreign elections in september 2023 two day before the parliamentary elections which chairman youay noted, a fe audio recording was releetsed online in which one candidate discussed how to rig upcoming election with journalist. the audio was quickly shown to be fake. with signs of a.i. manipulation

under civil vok ya law there was commentary for election 48 hours before polls open and since the deepep fake released in that window news and government organizations struggled to expose the manipulation and victim of the deep fake ended up losing in a very close election. to position to address generative a.i. enabled foreign efforts we have a group focused onei multimedia that leverages forensic technology. among other tools, and enables those in the ic working on election security to wrappedly access forensic experts to facilitate the authentication of foreign suspect media related to the u.s. election. members this have groupec regularly engage technical experts inside and outside of the government to ensure we're applying the latest techniques and if state and local officials have concerns for example about media that is suspected to be --

synthetic and violates law or tied to foreign actor they can request assistance through 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, are people public of, china prc and iran. specifically russia remains most active foreign threat r to our elections. the russian government's goals and such influence operations tend to include eroding trust in u.s. democracy institutions, exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the united states and degrading western support to ukraine. russia wee lies on a vast apparatus that consist of its intelligence services, cyberactors state media proxy and social media trolls. moscow views such operations as a means to tear down the united states as its perceived primary adversary enabling russia to promote itself as a great power and whereas beijing seeks to

promote for perspective including in the context of specific elections portray the u.s. democracy model as chaotic effective unrepresentative and prc has a sophisticated influence apparatus through which they leverage emerging technologiesst including generative a.i. growing increasingly confident in their ability to influence elections globallyin but remain concerned about the possible blowback in the event their efforts are disclosed. in t fact, in 2020 we assess cha did not deploy influence efforts to change outcome of the u.s. presidentialha election. principally because of t concers regarding blowback if caught, and thus far we have no information to suggest that the prc will take a more active role in this presidential election than it did in 2020 even as they continue to engage in efforts to promote politicians at all levels who are taking positions favorable to china on key issues. needless to say we will continue to monitor their activities.

finally iran is becoming increasingly aggressive in their efforts seeking to stoke discord undermine confidence in our democratic institutions as we have seen them do in prior elections cycles. they continue to adapt their cyberand influence activitieses using social media platforms, issuing threats, disseminating disinformation and likelyin they will continue to relies on their intelligence services in these efforts and iran based online influencers to promote their narratives. also observed other countries to support or undermine candidates but on a smaller scale for instance some other country dos things like direct campaign contributions to candidates. they believe what promote and i seek their support and belief land scape is increasingly challenging but our capacity to manage threat has also improved as you'll hear from colleagues. there's nothing more important or fundamental than protecting

our elections i can tell you we are focused ready to do our part and i thank you for your time and i look forward to your questions. >> chairman vice-chairman members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to discuss efforts to protect and defend ourth nation's election infrastructure. since 2017 when election infrastructure designated as critical and a risk management agency since then partners and intelligence community and the federal bureau of investigation have made significant progress increasing the security and resilience of the nation election infrastructure. working to support state and local election officials who serve ond the frontlines of our democracy administering with manage and securing our elections. election infrastructure has never been more secure and the election stakeholder community has never been stronger. as a result, these election officials ran secure elections in 2018 and 2020, and in 2022 as

you know there's no evidence that actors change deleted or altered votes or had any material impact on the outcome of any of these elections this is, of course, been validated time and again including in multiple court challenges and in any race that was closed in 2020 there were paper records that could be counted and recounted and audited to ensure accuracy in thisto job i've had the privilege to spend time with chief election officials across the nation. of both parties and i know how tirelessly they work to ensure that their citizens votes are counted as cast. it is why i have confidence in the integrity of our elections. and why the american people should as well. however, we cannot be complaisant while election infrastructure is more secure than ever, as you just heard the threat environment is more complex. than ever -- we have seen as a dni noted that

foreign adversaries remain persistent threat to our election infrastructure aiming to undermine american confidence in election integrity and our democracy institutions and to sew partisan discord these are efforts that will be exacerbated by a.i. 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 did not represent the will of the american people. such claims are corrosive and they have led to harassment and threats of violence against election officials of both parties and their families. as a result, we've seen a wave of resignations with election officials takings operational experienceng and institutional knowledge with them and some of those who remain are operating under difficult conditions.

we are very proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with election officials, these electionld heros, who are on the frontline of our democracy, in fact, this isre providing more services and more jurisdictions than ever before. f with m training and resources featured on our protect 2024 website, since the beginning of 2023 we have provided over 340 cybersecurity assessments, 520 physicalov security assessments, 70 table top exercises, 220 training sessions that reach 9,000 e election stakeholders every week we provide reports to nearly a thousand election entities with10 highlighting vulnerabilities so they can be immediately remediated and we've provided responsed 230 security clearances for p election officials, and work the intelligence community to provide classified briefings on foreign adversary threats and most recently we hired ten dedicated regional election security advisors who bring a

combined 210 years of election expertise and experience to work on the frontlines with election officials. finally, we remain lay discoure focused on the threat of foreign malign influence operations, providing guidance as recent as last month on the tactics of disinformation used by our foreign adversaries and continue to use our room versus reality website to provide accurate information about election infrastructure security and perhaps most importantly, we will amplify the voices of state, local election officials who are the true authoritative subject matter experts when it comest to elections these know while elections are political election security is not. and we are committed to keeping it that way and look for your leadership and support in helping us do so. thank you. >> and my understanding you're not going to do opening right? let me first of all thank witnesses for their testimony and particularly acknowledge --

what said is -- is election officials are election heros. and many of them who serve diligently opening and closing polls for decades on end the fact that they are under a level of harassment at this point really is one of the most serious efforts i think to undermine our democracy. some of that may be domestically generated but could be enhanced -- enhanced by foreign, foreign interest. let me direct my first question to director hanes, you know, again, i think there's been some rewriting post 2016 somehow that some of the activities in russia or even in 2024 with iran, it was kind of -- harmless trolling. can you speak to the fact that literally the level of violence that was insighted in cases

or -- exacerbating racial strife religious strife these adversaries foreign adversaries are trying to -- put us against each other unprecedented levels literally leaving the violence. >> yeah. absolutely. i mean, i think you did a very nice job in the opening of highlighting a number of such incidents. i will say starting with iran it is as i noted increasingly aggressive seeking to seek disconsidered and promote chaos and integrity of the process and they use social media platforms really to issue threats to disseminate disinformation and we've seen how they did that in 2020 that's one of the incidents that you identified where they attempted to insight violence threaten voters by sending spoof e-mails designed to intimidate voters to insight social unrest, and districting content basically including a video that

imply that individuals could cast frawjts ballots even from overseas entirely false kowled out by my predecessor director radcliffe and others in the intelligence community and law enforcement communities. so i think that is -- a very good example. we've also seen russia engage in these type of tack techs particularly in global efforts to influence elections. trying to effectively insight disorder in order to distract sometimes law enforcement from being ableso to manage an electn or do other things in that respect as well. leave it at that. >> i'll just say i recall that distinct and a little bit of what senator rubio question about -- who announces that there was a real show of force at that moment. when we had the odni and fbi director and we had head of sisa i believe not sure but it was -- my fear is, who makes that message in a politicalized

environment it needs to be people who are going to be viewed as much as possible credibility bybl both sides i think again in that case trump administration did the right thing. lots and lots of talk about a.i. not a week that goes by that we don't see new enhancement. in terms of either video or audio. deep they tape capabilities. i don't think even though we pass some bipartisan legislation out of the rules committee today, that will get to national legislation on deep fakes i would point out there's about a -- dozen plus states that have taken this on on their own and range from statesve to blue stas and everything in between. so those of us qhob questioning tech companies to do more there were 20 tech companies that came together and whator was called munich accord that includes the facebook, google, it is also -- twitter, tiktok, and open a.i., promising that they would have a

commonality of water marking so you can indicate if something has been altered. this is a.i. in elections. commitment to try to take that content down and to educate voters. this was not just geared at america half the world is going to elections this year right now -- and in the election -- the europeans will have their parliamentary election shortly in june. i worry and i'm -- that after that much publicized announcement, in february to use the old political term where's the beef? i i don't see that common water marking standard emerging and 20 tech companies moves in the aggressive nature that i would say hope i would like to hear on witnesses how you think the state of the corroboration between tech companies on -- making sure a.i. is not misused. >> thanks for the question chairman.in i tell the letter that you sent to those companies yesterday which i think will be very

helpful in gets specific answers i will say we've been working with the generative a. iment companies specifically about threats to elections and ensuring that they are putting procedures and technology in place many of them are part of what's called ccpa coalition for content and authentication in addition one of the very useful things that they're doing is if there's any questions about elections they're actually driving people who use that technology to sources like can i vote.org? or trust info 2024 national association of secretary state information that provides verified information of the state local level. so it is really a validation that they are pushing people to those trusted sources. all of that said, what we are doing are providing guidance to state, local election officials on a.i. threats and ways that they can mitigate such threats to their election infrastructure

we put out something in january and april about foreign align influence. yeah i will say everything jen supported in addition i think we're seeing -- both the opportunities for them to continue to provide detection tools building relationships with some of the state and local partners and that's been a part of what i think is important to continuear to encourage. i think we're still in the process of watching them build out essentially their capacity in efforts in this area so, things like your statement i think are helpful to sort of channel and push in on that. thing we're, obviously, doing is engaging with them in order to make sure that we understand technologies they're bringing to bare to make sure we're producing basically state of the art authentication within the i.c. state and local partners they request appropriately as i indicated through the fbi and we're also promoting the adoption of sweet

of technologies frankly in the area that allow users to detect falsify media, assets to defend in particular against large scale automated disinformation attacks to public authorities web and to third party. i think all of that is reenforcing in this area. >> thank you sir -- thank you sir for the opportunity to respond a.i. is a 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 get any sort of intel indicating that hand of a foreign adversary that information is provided to social media companies whether as simple as the protocol e-mail address or phone number for them toto take whatever action deemed necessary. >> i understand that talk about protecting the infrastructure that is very important. but i want to focus on and largelyot based on scenario to

outline base it on cnn february 9th exclusive about a table top exercise and basically describe following tape l top exercise china creates fake a.i. vote showing senate candidate destroying ballots. and they're able to identify but that it is a.i. that it is fake so we have the ability to do that. and i think that's what you've described that office is able to do through that -- was it the through darpa i guess the effort the forensic technology so we know that it is fake. what the article say what is i want to know maybe article is wrong you can correct me is after that in the table top exercise, no one knew what happened next. there was -- they struggled to on how what the response should be. there was a struggle who would notify the public. according to the article, no in

the number two with the fbi and cia and number two dhs part of the table top nobody says we will do and we want to be in charge of notifying the public. theree was real consternation through a cutout like a blogger like left or right wing blogger they release a video that was a fear that we would say this video is fake and person is spreading it people are going to say they were interfering in our elections and then a real question about it so many americans already don't trust the froth or the intelligence agencies. how can we get them to trust us that this is not a real video. so -- here's what i want to ask. even fact of the scenario this plays out video comes out i'm not -- on the ballot so let's use me video comes out it is me in an audio recording fake saying i'm going to rig the election and i'm going to steal a bunch of ballots it is fake, you know it is fake. what happens at that point? i'm now a week before the

election six days before the election does someone notify me and can i say that and someone will say this is not real you really didn't say that? what happens because this article said turned oaf to state and local officials. i don't know what state and local official supposed to do. they're going to turn around say yes, dni office or fbi somebody told us this was fake. i don't understand what the process that would happen s at that point is. do we have a process that would kick in in a situation like that one that i just described? >> yeah. absolutely. first of all, i wasn't at the table top exercise so i don't know what happened in that particular scenario i understand that is not a accurate operation in terms of what happened happen yeah there would be a statement. so i think -- the model that i pointed to in 2020 is appropriate model if there is -- basically a video or some fake,

deep fake or disinformation that's being promoted -- it could be that we find out about it through intelligence it could be otherwise identified and it would go through if it's thelligence through notification framework. the notification framework is an inneret agency group that basically indicates okay we think this is something that deserves our -- >> to interrupt you but i want to ask you for clarification so video clearly fake you'll be able to -- may not be able to attribute it but at least able to say this is not real and working to see where it came from maybe it was designed from a guy in a basement but maybe by a nation state but at a minimum we have to say this is not real and it could be work of a foreign adversary and who would be the -- would you be one to stand up? if the dni, fbi, who would be the person that would stand before the american people and say we're not interfering in the election we w want you to know that video is is not real? who would be inn charge of that? >> i would be the person who

makes that determination and give you an example one of the ones that the chairman just mentioned from this morning an article today about the fact that, there's a fake video that was basically promoted with by storm 15, 16 russian affiliated group and that video proports to show a whistle-blower in a ukraine former employee of troll farm tasked with interfering in the upcoming presidential election. ciaen immediately came out witha statement that basically indicates and reflected in the article that this is fake. and i am here to say, categorially, that this claim is patently false that there is no such thing. it is disinformation. and that is the kind of approach that we'll continue to take across the board. >> okay but is that established like who was -- i guess my point no gray area and somebody needs to be in

echarge ultimately saying we wil be spoj for noifg the american people. has that been established? >> only hesitation based on the fact there may be certain circumstances state or localal 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. so it is just a question going through the process and determining what exactly is the issue that is being raised what's the fake -- information that's being put forward. who is going to be the best essentially official to immediately cool -- come out. >> for example that's the notification framework. >> i think it is a very valid question. i'll remind colleagues in open hearings we go straight seniority. senator wyden. >> thank you mr. chairman, and good to have all three of you here, and i would like to start by saying i've 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 foreign adversary to compromise is a can't and that way is with money. last year donald trump argued to a court that the value of his assets could not be inflated because he could always find a saudi buyer would pay any 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, quote, influence buying. so the question i would like ask you, director hanes is let's set aside donald trump. okay, for purposes of this question. is the foreign country's influence buying of a candidate

in your view a counterintelligence concern and ao form of interference? >> absolutely. and it is a tactic for for example the chinese engage in quite regularly. >> good. >> let's go to data purchases something you and i i have talkd about because one way for foreign adversary to tailor their influence is through the purchase of large amounts of americans private data. executive order that president biden signed on february 28th and data export bill included in the recent foreign military and supplemental those were welcomed steps and i think you know i've indicated that. but under -- june like t the bipartisan billi have with vice-chairman rubio, they only apply to a handful of countries. which in my view means they just don't really get the job done. so the question here, director hanes is, couldn't the country's covered by the executive order

and recently enabouted data export legislation like china and russia couldn't they just get the data from countries that aren't covered either by taking advantage of weak privacy law or setting up friend companies? >> i think it is sort of -- facts specific and it is hard for me to make a generallyization butd china and russia for example, look to obtain critical information including for example, polling data thatrm ultimately allows tm to determine the targets of their influence campaigns including with respect to funding elicitly. >> so would you work with the chairman vice chair rubio to clean up law school hopes and pass effective legislation? because it just seems to me we can say there's progress. no question about that.

but you're just going to have a lot of the people who are engaging in these corrupt activities just -- make their way to countries that aren't covered. then they're going to look at weak privacy laws and front companies bam off to the races again. with more corruption of the election process. so i think we need to have the bill that the vice chair and i put in to really close that loophole p i gather i ought to quit while i'm ahead because you said you'll work with us. >> absolutely i would work with you on any legislation you have to offer so -- [laughter] >> very good. >> with respect to this election, worker issue question for -- you ms. knapp, we got a lot of interest in this strong statement that director ray put out. i wanted to make sure we protect election workers from threats of violence something i hear from all of our county officials in my state.so

this is a obvious and ongoing threat to democracy, tell us if you would ms. knapp what you are involved with in this area about the harassment of election workers, general insightment of violence. what area your priorities in ths area? >> thank you foran that question sir. as you said election workers election workers are critical to democratic process and they are the frontline of democracy. in terms of what we're seeing in this space is, obviously, election workers areoc being harassed to be a robo call and white powder level and we take all of those incidents very seriously. we work very closely with the department of justices election tech crimes task force to date since inception in 2021 there been 17 successful convictions as well as -- 13 sentencing we work with state and local authorities on these matters to hold any and all -- individuals that have been identified accountable for those

actions. >> my tile is up i'm going ask you a question for the record ms. knapp about this -- gentlemen alexander and he was recently charged with lying to the bureau as you know when he passed on disinformation about the biden family i'll ask you for the record my time is up. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you. mr. chairman i understand foreign relation meeting but i apologize senator rubio made reference to the letter which -- ethe and i sent to you director hanes, regarding the 51 former intelligence community people signed law regarding hunter biden does that ring a bell with you at all? >> i don't remember -- i remember the letter. >> it isn't a good deal but i'll help you out. [laughter] >> we asked six questions and only one of those six questions was answered so i'm going to ask

you here o publicly. and by the way, let me tell you how this fits in. i'm as concerned with this sort of f thing as i am with foreign interference. on the election process, and this was deplorable these 51 people saying this was russian activity. when we all know now that it wasn't. these were 51 people that have significant influence in the -- in american society. and they sent this letter saying that this was russian influence so let me ask some questions here. one of the questions we asked is how many of those 51 people currently hold security clearance? and that was as of may 31st of 2023. so let me ask you now how many of 51 people still hold a security clearance? >> i believe we provided you with an answer on that. i don't recall the -- >> i thought we did. if we did not we will get that surely we have that information. >> hold up of the appendix e

have consulting arrangements with the intelligence community between october 1, 2021, and october of 2020 that question was not answered. >> yes, sir. that question we're still trying to get an answer to. >> you're still trying to get an answer to it? >> yes, sir. >> this is security clearance as of october of 2020. surely you have a list of these people whether or not they have security clearance or not -- >> we have a list of the people at security c clearances that'sn answer that i thought we provided we will provide that to you on the contracts that's a much more complicated question something we're looking to give you.e >> how many of the individuals currently maintain business arrangements contracts or other consults element of the u.s. intelligence committee that was as of may 31, 2023 move that through today both of the two last questions how many of the 51 had the --

arrangements in october of 2020, and homing of them have any contacts today? could you get that information for us? >> i don't have it now but look to provide it to you. >> let's talk about this particular problem. senator rubio was asking the question about -- who is beginning to stand up to look in the camera say this was bologna that is going to be you. that is higher responsibility that you have. and we -- that was in the context of foreign interference in an election. what about this sort of thing where it is domestic inperns -- interference that is false who has the responsibility looking in the cram saying folks don't count on this. this is 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 wealth of their experience and knowledge in such circumstances is not to -- determine what they should or shouldn't say but rather to ensure they are not disclosing classifieded information we are protecting that and -- it is not -- yeah. >> what it is false and they're using their world of their -- having knowledge of security mattersf and -- intelligence matters. and you know it is false. is that your responsibility? do you just say not going get involved in that? >> i don't understand because i think -- first of all, i think they said that their experience makes them deeply suspicious of that activity.ri right? and i wouldn't -- >> further than that but i'll take your characterization of it. >> if you come into that that is false is it your obligation or

not your obligation to say when you're voting no don't take this into account? >> sir i don't think i could even frankly make sure that i have read everything that a former might have said or that anybody else has on these issues so no. i don't think that it is appropriate for me to be -- determining what is truth and what is false in such circumstances. >> what if you know. you're sitting here you're the senator of intelligence of america and this come out you know it is false. what's your obligation or do you have any? >> i think my obligation is to ensure that -- the best intelligence is being provided to the president, to the federal government, to the congress, and where possible to the american people through declassification. which we would do -- >> not calling out someone who stands up and proports to have intelligence information that you know is false. >> sir, if i were to, official i'm not sure i'm the best

arbiter of what is true and false -- >> in a particular instance, you've seen the paper. you know it is false. let's attack that instance what do you do? >> it depends on the situation if we're talking ab fake video that's been put forward then -- >> credential says i know this and you know as the director of national intelligence that it is false. now -- what do you do? >> i do not consider that to be part of my information false information right, then we have the capacity to authenticate it or identify it as false. we will do so, basically to our customers and there will be a process where by determines made and it may not be -- it may be to the public but -- might be classifieded information might be anything else. i don't know. what are circumstances too much -- >> going to give it back to you.

>> to pursue my sense that would be -- to responsibility of the fbi if there was proven. not sure we want the director of national o intelligence commentg about a -- a domestic statement made by an american. but i understand your point i think that -- >> that's the purpose of this hearing is to -- find out how american vote reverse going to be -- >> but what's true and what's false. >> but the purpose of our purview isur at least -- focused on that foreign influence. but i understand your point. senator cain. >> well, follow-up on this point it seems to be tension here is, i don't the u.s. government to be the truth police if you start talking about what is true and what's not true and political advertising. you know, you could have a thousand people doing that full-time 24 hours day. that's not the job of the u.s. government. it strikes me that the role you can o play, however, is disclose

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, that's the role where it's important for you to notify the public so they know the source. not whether it's true or not. because i just think that's an impossible determination. but at least people should know thede source and main town meeting, when somebody stands up to talk you assess not only what they say but who they are and you'reto not allowed to wear a g over your head in a main town meeting. and so that's where i think you have an important role to play. and the thing that bothers me and worries me use the word notification framework i've seen that. it is a bureaucratic nightmare. a notification that comes in february after a november election ain't any good. and what i want to urge is disclosure of sources when

you're aware of it immediately. immediately -- mark twain said it takes -- bad news gets around world before -- 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 this is coming from a foreign source let the public know so they can assess that. ise that something you can take back? >> yeah absolutely. that is something that we try to do attribute where information is coming from essentially working through the methodology and notification framework may sound bureaucratting but it is a living thing, for example they have worked through a process where they can expedite their decision making process through within 48 hours. they can look at even -- >> that should be the standard. >> 48 hours should be -- >> it is not much longer than that. >> having this information that it's foreign sourced within the u.s. government doesn't do us any good if the election is five

days away and you don't get that information to theod public. >> agree. .... in order to manipulate and the right of an election. we have got to be alert to it. i disagree with my colleague i don't think you're in the truth of the business i think in the disclosure of intelligence business. i hope that is something you can continue. at says that i'm worried you could be overbearing the partisan room that will freeze you in terms of taken action necessary you gave an impressive list of the things that you are doing but i'm hearing from

election officials that they don't feel that says that is out there with them you may not getting the support that they need. i hope that you're being very forward leaning about the work and protection you can provide to state and local election officials. >> thank you, senator, as i mentioned were providing more services and jurisdictions thanh ever before, we enhanced our source of cybersecurity advisors, physical security advisors and election security advisors who are former secretary of state or stay election directors who are working hand-in-hand with secretary of state and current state election directors and i'm in touch with chief election officials across the country to include secretary of state ella and others to ensure that they're getting everything that they need to run safe and secure elections. that's not been effective in any

partisanno way. >> wrapping up we have six months, we know that the adversaries are going to be coming out as. finalco question, we know in 206 and i believe in 2018 the russians got into 35 states of actionta infrastructure. they did not do anything true there is no effort to manipulate but they weren't doing it for fun. i'm worried that they are still there and the potential for example, people walking into a polling placell in miami and finding their name disappeared off the list potential for chaos is high so i hope all of you are pursuing the sleeper cells that may still be there and stay election infrastructure. >> since we have designated election infrastructure is critical for his been enormous progress in particular and raising the bar on cybersecurity. as you know not all of voting

equipment and vote casting is not connected to the internet just vote registration and reporting that is the fact it's disconnected not exposed to the internet that is a layer of security but there are multiple layers taken a defense in depth approach technological layers, physical layers procedural controls to ensure that the election infrastructure is secure and resilient and the other thing that is important to remember senator we have so much diversity across our election if you see one state it's a benefit use use one state election using one states election there are procedures and controls under the chief election officials that make the electionma equipmt secure and having worked with folks like secretary of state mclean in idaho, i know all

election officials are focused on this and they don't see election security as a partisan political issue they see it as an issue of ensuring that they can enable everyone of their citizens b both to be counted as cast. >> did you hear about the three conspiracy theories that walked into a bar. it wasn't a coincidence. >> thank you for the good news, director haynes you said you'd never been better prepared. new center elections have never beenk more secure, i think thas good news all the campaigns i've been involved in or observed as a citizen have never been examples of truth telling their political contest for the hearts and minds of the voters and

hopefully the ballot cast by the voter and i don't think it makes a difference if it's generated by a computer code or algorithm were artificial intelligence or human being that is not telling thee truth or a third party like the 51 intelligence officials who shared and allied attributing certain information and election to russian disinformation. i found this statement in your statement to be reassuring you said our election if her structure is diverse managed locally by state and localal government offices to meet their unique jurisdictional requirements. it involves in-depth layers of

defense and redundancies to ensure security and resilience. it is because of these measures and the credible efforts of election workers across the country that the american people can have confidence in the security of our election process. again more good news, as i read that it seems to suggest the distributed nature of our election system is actually a strength against attempts to disrupt our election process, is that correct? >> yes, sir. >> any attempt by federal officials herefi in washington, d.c. to centralize or concentrate that election t authority would seem to run counter to the distributed structure which is providing some defense against attempts to disrupt or interfere with our elections.y that's my observation not

necessarily yours. i was encouraged to see the work you've done with chief election officials in places like texas and elsewhere the training, assessment and resources you provided a been successful and led you to believe we've never been more secure. let me ask you, maybe ms. snape, i don't know he should take this question. what are the biggest challenges we've had when it comes to elections or cyber attacks have been attribution. how do we know what the source of some of this information or cyber attacks let's say, how do we know who it is? >> thank you for that question i can start and i'm sure my colleagues would love to jump in. as you mentioned attribution is a difficult thing but not something that is impossible. it takes time, for us from an fbi perspective, that would

involve us tracing the origin and all available intelligence and legal process is an intranet process. >> that's not something you could do it real-time against the deadline or backdrop of an elelection date. it would dependd on how easy and what available intelligence encounter that the dragon is to a conclusion i don't know video my colleagues would jump in on this. >> is a u.s. governmenton do anything to impose cost against those that engage in the misconduct? >> obviously that's a policy question and there have been actions at a been taken. >> fair enough, i think sanctions are an example of actions at a been taken in png and other actions on the particularic scenario and we've seen as we've been helping

europe look at russian efforts to influence our elections at a been taking certain actions in response to the influence. there are tools that can be used in the joining. >> at 17 seconds let me change is subject we talked about virtual threats to election integrity but not physical threats from terrorist groups director haynes you said in your for assessment and willing to acknowledge the perception of immigration or driving record numbers of illegal immigrants across the border, director haynes talked about the isisd affiliated individual facilitating the passage of mike under migrants into the mexican border into the united states can you tell us inpe open sessin how many illegal immigrants have ties to isis operatives and does the i see with those connections have entered the united states through the southern border as director wrayth has testified.

>> i can forward what director wray has testified public but i can't answer those in open session. >> you can't tell us what he t told us the isis facilitators have managed to deliver people to the southern border and they are likely 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 we've been managing but i cannot go further into detail without being in close session. >> i think were looking at a matter of when if not if we will have to live with the consequences of that. two quick comments, one i do think the policymakers in times in statehouse in 75% the

state senate approved legislation prohibiting a itpolitical candidate soon i thk that makes a lot of sense. >> thank you, mr. chairman, thank you for holdingrm the syrn it tops that issue because we live in a free society one way or another we are all trying to strengthen the democracy and strengthen the values that we all share tumor under assault in a way we've never been before from our adversaries and we have competing values at stake the

first a member on the one hand protect international security on the other hand and i was reading director haynes a piece last week about the russian disinformation campaign, the doppelgänger operation in the kremlin backed operation that promoted a fake washington post article that said billionaire soros was hiring people $30 of anti-semitism in the site look like the washington post and the people having protest in the united states were basically being attacked by the propaganda by the effort to divide us and these guys working with g the russians have fabricated

articles in fox news as well. i wonder if you can talk about the speed that's on election issue is a debate going onn in the streets of the country and free countries all over the world that are totalitarian adversaries are using to try to incite divisions and discord to take thee temperature up based n information that is not true somehow we have to find a way as a free society to respond to the seems of first part to notify people when the country as a whole to intentionaljefr misinformation that we see throughout europe and in the most devastating ways bmr where

people were killed as a result of the content that was being purposefully about. >> i think one aspect of what you do is expose what the tacticsex are and what we see ad addressas specific issues. we've been looking and increasingly working with partners and allies around the world to do exactly that because it's better in numbers and to get the message out in ways that people find increasingly credible in targeting the disinformation and alsoti going

after what you were describing going after the platforms that get used in the context russia has been pretty extraordinary in terms of the platform that they built for their work they essentially have a state run propaganda machine that's comprised of domestic median apparatus outlets targeting global audience such as rt and sputnik in a network of quasi-government controls are used in over the years apparatus has grown running influence actors, the tactics that they t use for gover and deniable operations in there trying to shape u.s. political discord to reduce support for ukraine and part of what were seen their

capacity to use some of the platforms that are getting hardertt as were getting bettert disclosing the platforms being used and how countries are taking action to pull broadcasting licenses and other things along those lines from order to make it more challenging letters among the opportunities for battling it to others. >> i might add something to your question, so far that relates to elections and we have a great relationship, the secretary of state griswold in your election director who are focused on the issue , if you look at two very powerful examples that the state level where this may actually happen one focused on be prepared and the other on an effective response. in arizona secretary of state aging has been working with his officials to do a series of

tabletop exercises with him and the day before the election to prepare them to respond and be able to communicate in the local media and the community to help them understand these threats and to lay the ground to inoculate them from being influenced because those can be amplified by foreign malign influence actors another very good example was a robocall in new hampshire two days before the primary election will not happen john came out with a clear statement saying is likely criminal behavior state is being investigated and should be ignored as an example of the repression of the vote secretary of state amplified that on a whole bunch of media platforms to get the message out to all of the constituents and said the

turnout is much higher than he expected so election officials securing elections are ensuring thatre they can prepare and we have good examples of how they can react to it. >> thank you very much and thank you for your testimony i know i'm out of time but if i finish with one thought those are two great examples in arizona and new hampshire were local elected officials worded oath of the constitution are refilling the oath director haynes had good examples of what were doing with foreign actors. mr. chairman we still have a problem of her own platforms the pop firms in the united states of america but not taking responsibility that they need to deal with the challenges as well and not kept on the people that

they hired to do the content moderation work that they were going to do and not willing to think about slowing down the degree to where the information is shared across planet earth. i think we have a responsibility of her own in terms of oversight. >> were willing to have that hearing with thehe social mediao the ever patient in a seven minute time. >> i will take that. thank you for your testimony you are using deepfake technology

to generate content, collecting polling data to determine targets for them c foron them and the pla and opere social media on a number of different platforms and we look to disclose that from tell companies about that to promote disinformation, they target their diasporas and you seen them to influence elections not

only of the united states in the context of congressional candidates this is been a different level but also election in taiwan and australia and canada so pretty significant portion. >> how do we put the word out to the challenges we talked about when to get southbound social media and other places howell is out expose most effectively on the federal side. >> i think my colleagues want to amplify. we put another assessment those things oversee the prc and influence operation including the spaces remotely get intelligence of the prc is taking on social media we pass out to the fbi to provide that to the company to take action. >> a general statement as example of a post that we know was created by or amplified china, russia, iran and north

korea in 2016 and 17 we pulled examples and to post them and say this was russian created here's where it started and came from how do we f do that now ase approach this in foreign actors influence. >> we will do that the same playbook that we identified specific credible intelligence him passing that to the countries exposing publicly is achieved may determine. >> alright out of time on this but since we passed the health of america vote act there's been perpetual funding out of multiple states to improve their systems and it's been interesting to pull new numbers because every state says we cann improve our election system we don't have enough money so we pulled the recent spending and what people haven't haven't

spent already colorado my colleague senator bennett just left and received $15 million and is only spent 27% of the money, hawaii has received 8 million and spent 26%, louisiana 14 and a half million dollars and spent that so far marilyn 17 billion, 37%, minnesota 16000000041% and not to leave my own state outs oklahoma received 7 billion we spent 22% of them other states have spent more but this money has been sitting there for years not money that was allocated three months ago quite a bit was allocated years af ago and thed not actually spent it my question how do we encourage states to up their game on a couple of areas, one is learning the lesson of an unofficial result in their own website and how to protect the systems as an

obvious area creating this trust on election night if those are interfered, the second one is old-school paper ballot backups so if there's a problem with the machine everybody can verify with a piece of paper when we have states of millions of dollars saying we don't have enough to do this would most of them do how do we advance this. >> thank you for the question i can't speak to the statistics and i'm happy to follow-up but what we provide is management agency no cost services and training so many of the states, thousands of jurisdictions and take advantage of the cybersecurity assessment and the free cyberer hygiene scanning ad the endpoint detection and response that we have and the malicious domain blocking all of that is in place across the country so i know they taken advantage of that and that

significantly raise the bar as the cybersecurity perspective and your point about election night reporting is very good 11 of the things that is really important for everyone to remember that those are unofficial results and they need to be canvassed and certified which takes days to weeks. >> if it's announced on election night who one and a week later the state announces a different person one that shows incredible distrusthe, now no one trust the election results anymore and while the election results were unofficial as those are interfered with that surreal vulnerability on the american people. >> i agree with that and as a sediment opening statement these systems are more secure than ever before an election official with your state election director are terrific and working incredibly hard to make sure everyone of their citizens vote are counted in a thick it's

really important that we focus on them they are the true election experts and we listen to their voices and what they say i would help anybody providing unofficial results would make sure the state r election director can say is not canvassed or certified yet so let's wait until certified. >> mr. chairman i'm going to ask a follow-up, as far as the fbi and u.s. attorney's office following up on a criminal offensive voting if you're not legally present in the country and voted in the federal election is a federal crime i would love to be able to know and i've not got the statistic how many prosecutions do we have across the country for a federal election crime is not being followed without bond, do we have a good number of the charges being filed and actual prosecution, i know when my state and the district attorneys

in the state of someone a votes twice in the prosecution there and i don't know on the federal side, can you provide that to me. >> thank you very much for the question, what i have in front of me, how many cases have been charged to the department of justice task force on election security but i don't have the second part but i can give you a general number, right now they charge 17 cases with the result of 13 convictions but with respect to the subset i'm happy to take that back to my team and get you a more complete answer to. >> i think those hobbit numbers are remarkable. >> some state spent 70, 80% and quite a few spent 50% or less i don't have the numbers in these are the most recent from a couple of months ago. >> is a very l fair question i think on your question on how many federal violations i thought there was something in

the range after the 2000 election i thought there was a canvas of a relatively small small number but that might've been both state and federal related to this as i think we are talking about aib and the buzz at this point but i think the nefarious nature of our adversaries using a series of technology platforms, the independent entities both companies that are very familiar with and that we have used have reported that there are some of the getting employment companies freelancer are to let her go to be indicated in the targeted countries and paying them to be

influence operators and cameo which goes after celebrities i'm not sure depending on a, b or c list has gone out and appeared unwittingly enlisted celebrities to help on anti-ukraine messaging, how are we thinking as we think about malicious use by foreign actors, a couple of years ago we would notag of thought that a gig platform would be a tool for that kind of foreign influence, anybody on the panel want to take that one. >> i will start, first of all you are absolutely right one of the key trends that i identified with his commercial firms and some of them are waiting in

summer waiting period is marketing firms, reputation management firms, it is across-the-board and they are increasingly being relied on tos launder, covertly direct narratives through media sources and socialla media platforms and this complicates obviously attribution and this is something thatnd we are trying o get better at in a faster way but part of the reason that they're doing this is that firms tend to be more noble than their own intelligence services and government apparatus and taking action and are also more sophisticated in their capacity to promote influence campaign. this is one of the things that we are watching. in 2020 and to give you a scale of this, the types of firms that were involved in information manipulation and at least 48 countries byy our account. it's really becoming increasingly widespread and is one of the challenges. >> overhead. >> i would add last month we

work with the fbi and dni to put out an advisory that specifically highlights the tactics to include using proxy media, laundering through pr, whether witting or unwitting how to recognize and the mitigation around how to actually deal with these types of things and redoing separate training as well. part of this is the awareness that the election efficient level and what they need to do to mitigate it, separately the platform is an issue obviously that needs to be addressed directly. >> thank you for the opportunity. we are absolutely concerned with any sort of technology that are adversary uses. what i can o say when we have specific information on it to particular company we will engage with them however, in absence of that, key partners putting out the general awareness piece that allows companies to be more aware and

suggest all that will and i think even fairly effectively is doing a series of classified briefs by industry sector frompr the prc, this is more specific but i would hope the fbi or d.o.j. might uproot their foreign agent entity that makes all this activity illegal the guidance to be updated and i would strongly encourage some level of convening of these platforms and where you draw the line and if we had an open source and the platforms are being used in unwittingly used and not an open question but if

they realize that they were wittingly open foreign agents t interfere, that would be a violation of the law i think it would be a helpful process. >> my main thought one of the really great things in 2020 that is different now is we have the outlet with the classified retained and i think that is very much added value. >> called to say i'm very much getting the sector together and enhance our capacity to connect to everybody on these issues will. >> one thing i am concerned about you because i appreciate all of the comments that the outreach with the system has

gone how do we inappropriately are nonpartisan way i have heard that there are not many but a certain number of counties that are opting out of the voluntary tool from the past will and i thought were long time we had some protection down the county level that whatever reasons are counties or not opting out of that i heard washington state is on a one off i would hate as we get closer to the election from the discharge from the federal government will in turning awayy involuntarily cyber and other educational production will. >> the good news that is not accurate the trend is actually state and local jurisdictions continue to take advantage of the no-cost voluntary services with respect to the centers in particular there is albert

einstein in the thousand and 83 across the country less than a handful, less than five is not review your contract has a variety of reasons to include different technology for intrusion detection, this is something that we look at very closely and i have no concerns and nothing of the day as you know chairman susan is a nonpartisan political agency and we cannot be effective unless wn can work with election officials at the state and local level in between n to that and i'm not seeing any changes to the cost liservices information and no-ct voluntary training to election jurisdiction acrosss the nation. >> all to senator rubio for his closing, and then only wanted to closing.

the whole system was shocked by 2016, i think a lot of good work by this committee will complete aversion to in the tech companies. we took action on 22 and i have really, really said under the trump administration we were very well prepared because it was effective communication and the team that were working altogether, i worry at times that in 2024 and a whodunit increasing distrust of any governmental entity will, i worry with social media plan from that don't seem to have their users adhere to their own standard and some of the new a.i. tools that can operate at speed unprecedented in the fact

that we been immune to misstatements and mistruths, i share some of the concerns raised by a number of the members that we do need a preassigned process getting into the last week or something before the election, i think this effort today is part of the cia responding but as we get into the final days and will having an approach and again, deciding the 2020 example that affects everyone across-the-board coming out and called out the iranians for their action, we need to not be gametime thinking that through with all of the potential portions that are coming to bear

potentially on the selection. >> just to wrap this up, to me the technical aspect is not that it's easy protecting elections from professional hackers that are trying to get into everything in the water system selection systems, hospital systems, this is what they will day i'm not in any way diminishing with the important difficulty of it i am pointing out that it is technical work in a red state,ni blue state and ty could be fully impacted get down to the congressional level in the local electrical, the reason why a focus on election interference i'm sorry influence in foreign malign is on, that is a lot trickier in the threat i don't know where this comes from high-ranking is one of them

assessment of 22 when they go through this in one of the first thing that it points out or were part of their effort is largely some of the operators are focused on amplifying will what are already in the american policy, we already believe and what is the thing to amplify things that people are really saying, what is the reasoning you say that iranians are russians and chinese amplifying a message, some people think that will mean if i believe in something that i said for a long time all of a sudden i'm a chinese agent or russian agent because i'm saying things on the campaign trail. so you see or example andnd is also long iran proposed helping national groups inside of the u.s. and iranianan officials usg social media with the extremist groups against each other more work, more likely using 2024,

this was written in 22, obviously were ready for andrew slezak, that's just to get americans weak internally. the other thing in october of 20 twitter exposed three separate iranians operating on the pronghorn generally supporting left-leaning politicians including the range of house and senate candidate and embassy reports when he exposed pro-palestinian sentiment at the same time they expressed positive sentiment for progressive candidate. now you go to the russians. the russians had to denigrate the democratic party and wasn't determined under competency the election most likely the week and support for your prayers it generated the w democratic party and they wanted questions about the u.s. aid to ukraine with continual work in the balance of power in congress shifted that was their intent not the democrats but the republicans and the intent of the democratic party to further aim and in the process to be influenced to be committed to helping ukraine long or if you move on to other,

another when the russians blame multiculturalism and leftist ideals for driving the u.s.a. crisis, there are a lot. of people that hold that in respect to what the russians are amplifying what somebody is angry 15 years that does not make that person russian agent and makes it more you will. then you have the unique cases, this one in particular strikes, because i think i know what they're talking about work with kiewit to undermine the electoral process in the u.s. congressional politicians in 2022, they focus their operations in a specific unit and will u.s. candidates and record. although an attempt to shake the oppression of other politicians as well because they view cuban-americanss in miami of an outside influence on the u.s. policies with regards to cuba, they also cultivated members to help critical means of that member of congress.

you probably know who they're talking about the obviously and 22 where i happen to be on the ballot among others the point being very specific angle, my whole point in all of this you have an example about the fake a.i., that is almost eyewitness and easy that is clearly a fake video and i think what we want to know do we have a formalized process act quickly disney this is fatal even we can attribute it you don't need to attribute in the last days of the campaign to protect the american people, to be done away with the other side will and hope you will that we all don't feel like were tipping the scales in favor of a preferred candidate. say aye video comes out about trauma only dni comes out and says this video is not a fake or somebody video comes out about mining in the dni or whoever in charge of coming outin with a tt this video is a fake, i see what

we've on the travel side with saito trying to help her is probably a real video and the rivers will be truthful in a different video. 70 has been charge of coming forward and what we can attribute this obvious question, this one when i described about able line voices that are already out there in the narrative, the most wetr. can sy for avatars is that these countries are doing and they're not doing to the democrats and republicans will with influencing cuba policy and ukraine policy and make america look chaotic and fighting with each other but this is what they're doing and let people make judgment on the national, it is tough i don't have the answer on how we consider what the process should look like a dream of notifying people, i know the system on a more complex and i predict it will just be about elections and the real-time policy debate never having here, should we have tariffs, should we be in tiktok,

you name on a weekly basis whatever that she was here i see this becoming part of an influence in our daily political , we really need to get a handle on this, it is a tough one but getting it far worse or more since luncheon sophisticated with many more players and it poses a grave danger of turning into something that we haven't fully anticipated will also why hope we can continue to work on finding a way forward because i'm sure they will be talking about it afterward both done. >> i agree with senator rubio, the only thing that we both agree on is that americans have plenty but if the amplification can be traced back to the cures by services and is appearing millions of the lord and are saying but they're not

releasing, i think the floridians ought to know that that is not the case and we can trace it back to the cuban services or we can trace it back to the individual who are hosting and bmp progression, if not proof is there, with these things would violate the upgrading of the bill, there are restrictions against more real taking these kind of action. it is a challenging elegy will make it much, much harder and it will not be the last time that we deal with this and please from all the little folks you boarding you and more importantly after respective agencies we are going to count on you, this truly is wheelies later politicians when there is the most important election ever even though neither one of us are at this time this is the most important of neverc-span

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