    [Senate Hearing 118-298]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 118-298

                                  OPEN HEARING:
                        AN UPDATE ON FOREIGN THREATS TO THE
                                  2024 ELECTIONS

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                        SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE

                                     OF THE

                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                        ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                                  MAY 15, 2024

                                   __________

          Printed for the use of the Select Committee on Intelligence

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

            Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov

                                    __________

                       U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    55-722	                    WASHINGTON : 2025

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                        SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE

               (Established by S. Res. 400, 94th Cong. 2d Sess.)

                       MARK R. WARNER, Virginia, Chairman
                      MARCO RUBIO, Florida, Vice Chairman

    RON WYDEN, Oregon                    JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
    MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico          SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine
    ANGUS S. KING, Jr., Maine            TOM COTTON, Arkansas
    MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado          JOHN CORNYN, Texas
    BOB CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania         JERRY MORAN, Kansas
    KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York      JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
    JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
    MARK KELLY, Arizona

                    CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York, Ex Officio
                     MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky, Ex Officio
                      JACK REED, Rhode Island, Ex Officio
                    ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi, Ex Officio
                                  ----------

                           William Wu, Staff Director
                      Brian Walsh, Minority Staff Director
                       Kelsey Stroud Bailey, Chief Clerk

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                                  MAY 15, 2024
                               OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                       Page
    Mark R. Warner, U.S. Senator from Virginia.......................     1
    Marco Rubio, U.S. Senator from Florida...........................     4

                                   WITNESSES

    The Honorable Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence....     6
        Prepared Statement for the Record............................     9
    The Honorable Jen Easterly, Director, Cybersecurity and
      Infrastructure
      Security Agency, Department of Homeland Security...............    12
        Prepared Statement for the Record............................    14
    Larissa Knapp, Executive Assistant Director, National Security
      Branch,
      Federal Bureau of Investigation................................    21
        Prepared Statement for the Record............................    44

                             SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

    Questions for the Record.........................................    49

        OPEN HEARING: AN UPDATE ON FOREIGN THREATS TO THE 2024 ELECTIONS

                                  ----------

                           TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2024

                                           U.S. Senate,
                              Select Committee on Intelligence,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:37 p.m., in
    Room SH-216 in the Hart Senate Office Building, in open
    session, the Honorable Mark R. Warner, Chairman of the
    Committee, presiding.
        Present: Senators Warner (presiding), Rubio, Wyden, King,
    Bennet, Casey, Gillibrand, Kelly, Risch, Cotton, Cornyn,
    Lankford.

     OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARK R. WARNER, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
                                VIRGINIA

        Chairman Warner. I want to call this hearing to order, and
    I want to welcome today's witnesses. I want to warn them at the
    outset, we are finishing up one vote. We'll have another one.
    We're going to work through that process, but if people are
    slipping in and out, I think you understand.
        Our witnesses today are Avril Haines, the Director of
    National Intelligence; Jen Easterly, Director of the
    Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, CISA; and,
    Larissa Knapp, Executive Assistant Director of the National
    Security Branch at the FBI. Welcome to all of you.
        Today's hearing builds on this Committee's bipartisan
    efforts 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 the U.S. government is
    postured to protect our elections from those foreign threats. A
    broad interagency task force is tasked with protecting from two
    forms of election interference we've 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, we have held both open and closed hearings ahead of each
    federal election, featuring testimony from U.S. officials,
    social media executives, and open-source research executives.
    This is 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 the 2016 cycle that was so long ago,
    that the public perception of past foreign election meddling
    has too often been treated as something that was trivial or not
    of major league. But as this Committee's exhaustive bipartisan
    investigation into Russia's meddling in 2016 election showed,
    and as a declassified Intelligence Community assessment showed,
    foreign influence efforts go well beyond simple online trolling
    or traditional propaganda. Foreign election efforts in the last
    eight years have, among other things, involved efforts to
    infiltrate, both online and in person, a range of U.S.
    organizations on both sides of the political spectrum, with the
    goal of stoking political polarization in the United States and
    promoting social and racial strife.
        We've seen as well successful impersonations of U.S.
    political and social organizations, with the Russian IRA
    memorably back in 2016 having Twitter and Facebook accounts for
    the Tennessee GOP and Black Lives 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 the PRC
    influence operatives try to set up a sting operation to 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 efforts orchestrated
    simultaneous rallies in Houston, one with an anti-Muslim event
    taking place at exactly the same time and place as a Muslim
    cultural event. Luckily, law enforcement intervened.
        We have 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've seen many of the same foreign influence actors
    aggressively meddling in the elections of our Democratic
    allies. The PRC's influence actors aggressively sought to shape
    the outcome of Taiwan's election earlier this year, including
    promoting narratives that the election had been rigged as
    Election Day neared. More recently, literally in the last few
    weeks, Czech and Belgian officials have disclosed efforts of
    Russian operatives to shape the outcome of June's E.U.
    elections with the goal of undermining European support for
    Ukraine. And a wide range of media, open source research, and
    other sources have similarly pointed to Russian influence
    operations in Slovakia, one of the cases that I think is
    particularly interesting--a country that when Russia invaded,
    75 percent-plus of Slovaks supported Ukraine. A few years later
    due to Russian efforts, Slovakia now has a pro-Russian
    president and literally 55 percent of the Slovaks are saying
    they think the United States started the war in Ukraine.
        We've seen recently as well that deepfakes of the Moldavian
    president have been widely circulated. And fresh off the
    presses just a couple hours--I'm not going to ask our witnesses
    to testify about it--a new Russian effort geared at somehow
    saying that Zelenskyy and the CIA are working on trying to
    undermine again our elections in this year.
        The barriers to entry for foreign malign 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 a range of foreign
    hacktivists and profit-motivated cybercriminals.
        One of the things, and I think this hearing is so important
    in many ways, our adversaries could be more sophisticated and
    aggressive in both scale and scope in 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 our elections because they can understand that it
    could affect their particular national interest. In 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've seen that 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 AI
    tools. The truth is the kind of audio and video manipulation
    that even as recently as four years ago and clearly eight years
    ago was still a challenge now can happen at a speed and scale
    due to AI tools that's unprecedented. And literally, there's
    not a week or month that goes by that those AI video and audio
    tools don't continue to improve. And I just on a personal note,
    I fear that Congress's inability to pass any new guardrails in
    the last 18 months for AI-enabled mischief really could pose a
    huge problem. We've already seen fake video of President Trump
    embracing Dr. Fauci. We've seen audios of President Biden
    telling people to use a different voting day in New Hampshire.
    The truth is these tools are out there and growing in their
    danger.
        Third, we've seen, unfortunately, increasingly large
    numbers of Americans of all political stripes across the
    political spectrum who simply don't trust U.S. institutions
    from federal agencies and law enforcement to the mainstream
    media, who increasingly rely on the wildest conspiracies
    imaginable that pop-up on the web. The truth is these tools are
    out there and growing in their danger.
        And fourth, since 2022, we've seen a concerted litigation
    campaign that has sought to undermine the federal government's
    ability to share on any kind of voluntary basis vital threat
    information with social media platforms. And unfortunately,
    since 2022, we've seen from some of those same social media
    platforms considerable disinvestment and, in certain cases,
    utter disinterest in platform integrity by some of those social
    media companies.
        And an area where the Vice Chairman and I have worked very
    closely together, we've seen the rise of a dominant social
    media platform, TikTok, with ownership based in a country that
    is clearly adversarial in terms of their intents on our
    elections. It is these kinds of attempts by foreign actors and
    adversaries to sow disinformation, undermine confidence in
    elections, and seed discord that Americans can expect their
    federal agencies, both law enforcement and intelligence, to
    help detect and defeat. We've got to do a better job of making
    sure Americans of all political stripes understand what is very
    probably coming their way over the next less-than-six months.
        I hope today's witnesses can provide a comprehensive
    overview of these 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, I'll turn it to the Vice Chairman.

      OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARCO RUBIO, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
                                FLORIDA

        Vice Chairman Rubio. Thank you. Thanks for calling this
    hearing. And thank you all for being here on this important
    topic. And by the way, it's one I think we're going to be
    dealing with for the next quarter century, but it's hopefully
    one we get to learn from experience on.
        I always think it's important at the outset to sort of--
    because I know this will be discussed--as threats to the
    election is a broad topic. And it's always bifurcated into two
    things. There's election interference, which is trying to hack
    into the voter database or messing with the early reporting,
    unofficial reporting system of a state--things of that nature.
    That's more easily understood. And then there is this whole
    topic of influence. And it's not just in elections; it's also
    in our debates. We saw elements of that during COVID. We see it
    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 convincingly, and in ways that spread very
    quickly and are difficult to contain. And in particular, we've
    seen this globally--I mean, we've seen increasing amount of
    damage that's being done to the reputation of the United States
    in parts of Africa by a very active effort to undermine, make
    life very difficult, for our diplomats to serve in that region.
    Or for our military personnel in some of these countries where
    the Russians have moved in and gained greater influence. So,
    all of that is happening at a global scale and the Chairman's
    already talked about some of the countries that have faced
    efforts to meddle in their elections and try to influence and
    steer the outcome and in some cases, successfully.
        But today, I think the focus is going to be on how this
    could be used in an election and in policy debates, too. But
    let's focus on elections for a moment. And the reason why I
    want to really focus on that is I think we'll hear a lot about
    the tools that are available, the capabilities that someone has
    to put out an AI video to spread narratives that are difficult
    to knock down, and so forth. The weaponization of this
    information. What I think I hope to learn a little bit more
    about is when this happens, if this happens, who's in charge of
    responding to it? Have we thought through the process of what
    do we do when one of these scenarios occurs? Because I don't
    think I have a clear understanding of who's in charge and how
    we would respond. Who would take the lead?
        I know that if a hurricane is headed towards the United
    States, the National Hurricane Center is going to put
    meteorologists on the air who are going to describe to us: this
    is the hurricane, this is what it looks like, this is how
    strong it's going to be when it gets here. They're going to put
    out forecasts. It's going to issue warnings. And people,
    Republicans, Democrats--no matter who you're going to vote
    for--are going to take the appropriate steps. If something like
    that were headed towards our election, I don't know who's 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 it's the government interfering
    in the elections themselves, and it's not helpful. As an
    example, and I use this as an example because it's a very
    recent one, when the whole laptop situation happened, the
    Hunter Biden laptop, a number of former intelligence
    officials--I get it, they're formers, no longer in the employ
    of any of these agencies, but that title carries weight--all
    signed a letter saying this has all the hallmarks of a Russian
    disinformation campaign. We know now that it was not a
    disinformation campaign. I don't want to get into the
    particulars of what was on it. I'm just saying we now know that
    it was not a Russian disinformation campaign, but the result of
    it was that social media companies would not allow anyone to
    post the articles and there was a media blackout. It could not
    be reported in any other-- except for one place. And so what
    happens as a result of that, whether it had an influence on the
    election or not, the result of it now is that we have some
    segment of the country who repeatedly says things like the
    Intelligence Community interfered--even these reformers--but
    that title.
        And so why that is relevant here is because no matter who
    this 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 real quandary here. But I do think we
    have to begin by at least understanding if something were to
    happen. If tomorrow there was a video, very convincing video of
    a candidate. Let's not say president, let's say, U.S. Senate or
    Congress and a video comes out with 72 hours to go before
    election day, of that candidate saying some racist comment or
    doing something horrifying, but it's fake. Who is in charge of
    letting people know this thing is fake, this thing is not real?
    So that we can have people who are going to 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 to
    protect the credibility of the entity that is--whoever it is in
    charge of saying it--so that the other side does not come 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 the Russians are the best at it. They've
    been doing it a long time and so they know, and they've
    perfected it. But every election cycle, more and more cast of
    characters are joining the parade here in terms of getting into
    this business. And I think in the years to come, we're going to
    see more and more nation-states and maybe non-state actors
    begin to not just come after us and our elections and our
    political process, but those of other countries, as well.
        So this issue is not going away anytime soon. I think it's
    only going to accelerate. It's going to get worse. And we
    really need to begin to lay out some parameters about how we
    are going to respond to these things in a coordinated way that
    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. It's a tough one to handle, but
    it's one that I think we have to get a handle on.
        Chairman Warner. I agree.
        I think, Director Haynes, you're going to lead us off?

                STATEMENT OF AVRIL HAINES, DIRECTOR OF
                         NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

        Director Haines. Thank you very much, Chairman Warner,
    Ranking Member Rubio, and Members of the Committee. I really
    appreciate having the opportunity to brief you on the
    Intelligence Community's election security work, alongside my
    colleagues at CISA and FBI, who are leading efforts to take
    actions to secure our elections alongside the extraordinary
    state and local officials who are on the front lines of this
    work.
        The U.S. government's efforts to protect our elections have
    improved significantly since the 2016 presidential election.
    And even as the threat landscape is becoming increasingly
    complicated, it is my view that 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 efforts are effectively organized by the Foreign Malign
    Influence Center, or FMIC, which houses the Election Threats
    Executive. The Election Threats Executive leads, coordinates,
    and integrates the IC's activities, initiatives and programs in
    this realm. And fundamentally, we support the federal
    government, particularly CISA and the FBI, as they work to
    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 able to identify and mitigate
    foreign threats to our elections and communicate our
    assessments 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 ensures that when
    relevant intelligence is collected concerning a 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 these notifications are nonpublic, there
    are, as you both indicated, scenarios in which public
    notifications are appropriate and if doing so would render the
    foreign influence operation less effective, and that is part of
    that mandate. Of course, exposing a foreign actor's 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 illicit financial networks. And we also support
    CYBERCOM as it conducts a range of cyber operations to ensure
    that foreign adversaries cannot 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 an increasing number of foreign actors,
    including non-state entities, who are 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 while making
    it more challenging to track down the original instigator of
    the foreign influence efforts.
        And then third, perhaps most obviously, relevant emerging
    technologies, particularly generative AI and big data
    analytics, are 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 AI have enabled
    foreign influence actors to produce seemingly authentic and
    tailored messaging more eficiently at greater scale and with
    content adapted for different languages and cultures. In fact,
    we've already seen generative AI being used in the context of
    foreign elections. In September 2023, two days before the
    parliamentary elections in Slovakia, which Chairman you noted,
    a fake audio recording was released online in 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, but under Slovakia law, there is a
    moratorium on campaigning and media commentary about the
    election for 48 hours before polls open. And since the deepfake
    was released in that window, news and government organizations
    struggled to expose the manipulation and the victim of the
    deepfake ended up losing in a very close election.
        To position the IC to address generative-AI-enabled foreign
    influence efforts, we have an IC group focused on multimedia
    authentication that leverages DARPA's semantic forensics
    technology among other tools and enables those in the IC who
    are working on election security to rapidly access media
    forensic experts to facilitate the authentication of foreign
    suspect media related to the U.S. election. Members of this
    group regularly engage technical experts inside and outside of
    the government to ensure we are applying the latest techniques.
    And if state and local officials have concerns, for example,
    about media that is suspected to be synthetic or manipulated
    and violates a law or is tied to a foreign actor, they can
    request authentication 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, the People's Republic of
    China--or PRC, and Iran.
        Specifically, Russia remains the most active foreign threat
    to our elections. The Russian government's goals in such
    influence operations tend to include eroding trust in U.S.
    democratic institutions, exacerbating sociopolitical divisions
    in the United States, and degrading Western support to Ukraine.
    Russia relies on a vast multimedia influence apparatus, which
    consists of its intelligence services, cyber actors, state
    media proxies, and social media trolls. Moscow most likely
    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. Whereas Beijing seeks to promote
    support for China's policy positions and perspectives,
    including in the context of specific elections, portray the
    U.S. democratic model as chaotic, ineffective unrepresentative;
    and magnify U.S. societal divisions. And the PRC also has a
    sophisticated influence apparatus through which they leverage
    emerging technologies, including generative AI. And they are
    growing increasingly confident in their ability to influence
    elections globally but remain concerned about the possible
    blowback in the event their efforts are disclosed. In fact, in
    2020, we assessed that China did not deploy influence efforts
    intended to change the outcome of the U.S. presidential
    election, principally because of concerns 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 and undermine confidence in
    our democratic institutions, as we've seen them do in 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
    they will continue to rely on their intelligence services in
    these efforts and Iran-based online influencers to promote
    their narratives.
        We've also observed other countries attempt to support or
    undermine specific candidates, but these efforts tend to be on
    a smaller scale. For instance, some other countries do things
    like direct campaign contributions to candidates they believe
    would promote their interest if elected and seek to obscure
    their support.
        In brief, the election threat landscape is increasingly
    challenging, but our capacity to manage the threat has also
    improved, as you will hear from colleagues. There is nothing
    more important or fundamental to our democracy than protecting
    our elections. And I can tell you that we are focused and ready
    to do our part.
        And I thank you for your time, and I look forward to your
    questions.
        [The prepared statement of the witness follows:]
        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        STATEMENT OF JEN EASTERLY, DIRECTOR, CYBERSECURITY AND
                     INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY AGENCY

        Director Easterly. Chairman, Vice Chairman, Members of the
    Committee: thank you for the opportunity to discuss CISA's
    efforts to protect and defend our Nation's election
    infrastructure.
        Since 2017 when election infrastructure was designated as
    critical and the CISA was designated as the sector risk
    management agency, CISA and our partners, including the
    Intelligence Community and the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
    have made significant progress increasing the security and
    resilience of the Nation's 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. 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 is no evidence
    that malicious actors changed, deleted, or altered votes or had
    any material impact on the outcome of any of these elections.
    This, of course, has been validated time and again, including
    in multiple court challenges. And in any race that was close in
    2020, there were paper records that could be counted and
    recounted and audited to ensure accuracy. In this 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's why I have confidence in the integrity of our
    elections and why the American people should as well. However,
    we cannot be complacent. While 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, aiming to undermine American confidence in
    election integrity and our democratic institutions and to sow
    partisan discord. These are efforts which will be exacerbated
    by generative 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 did not represent the
    will of the American people. Such claims are corrosive to the
    sacred foundations of our democracy, 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 taking
    operational experience and institutional knowledge with them.
    And some of those who remain are operating under difficult
    conditions. We at CISA are very proud to stand shoulder to
    shoulder with these election officials, these election heroes
    who are on the front lines of our democracy.
        In fact, CISA is providing more services in more
    jurisdictions than ever before, with training and resources
    featured on our ``Protect 2024'' website. Since the beginning
    of 2023, we've provided over 340 cybersecurity assessments, 520
    physical security assessments, 70 tabletop exercises, 220
    training sessions that reached 9,000 election stakeholders.
    Every week we provide reports to nearly a thousand election
    entities with highlighting vulnerabilities so they can be
    immediately remediated. We've provided and sponsored 230
    security clearances for election officials and worked with 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 front lines with election officials.
        Finally, we remain laser 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. We'll continue to use our Rumor vs. Reality
    website to provide accurate information about election
    infrastructure security. And perhaps most importantly, 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 are political, election security is not; and we at
    CISA are committed to keeping it that way and look for your
    leadership and support in helping us do so.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of the witness follows:]
        [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Warner. And it's my understanding, Ms. Knapp,
    you're not going to do opening, right?
        Ms. Knapp. [Nonverbal affirmative response.]
        Chairman Warner. Let me first of all thank the witnesses
    for their testimony and particularly acknowledge what Jen
    Easterly just said: our election officials are our election
    heroes and many of them who served 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 some of that could also
    be enhanced by foreign interests.
        Let me direct my first question to Director Haines. And
    again, I think there has been some rewriting post-2016 that
    somehow some of the activities in Russia or even in 2020 with
    Iran, that that was kind of harmless trolling.
        Can you speak to the fact that literally the level of
    violence that was incited in cases, or exacerbating racial
    strife, religious strife? These foreign adversaries are trying
    to pit us against each other at unprecedented levels, literally
    leading to violence.
        Director Haines. I think you did a very nice job in the
    opening of highlighting a number of such incidents. I will say
    that just starting with Iran, it is, as I noted in the opening
    statement, increasingly aggressive in their efforts seeking to
    stoke this kind of discord and promote chaos and undermine
    confidence in the integrity of the process.
        And they use social media platforms really to issue
    threats, to disseminate disinformation. And we saw how they did
    that in 2020. That's one of the incidents that you identified,
    where they attempted to incite violence and threaten voters by
    sending spoofed emails designed to intimidate the voters, to
    incite social unrest. And distributing content, including a
    video that implied that 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.
        So I think that is a very good example. We've also seen
    Russia engage in these types of tactics, particularly in their
    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'll leave it at that.
        Chairman Warner. And I would just say, I recall that
    incident, and again it was a little bit of what Senator Rubio's
    question about, who announces that? There was a real show of
    force at that moment when we had the ODNI. We had the FBI
    director, we had the head of CISA--I'm not sure whether General
    Nakasone was involved. Because my fear is who makes that
    message in a politicized environment? It needs to be people who
    are going to be viewed, as much as possible, credibly by both
    sides. And I think, again, in that case, the Trump
    Administration did the right thing.
        Lots and lots of talk about AI. There's not a week that
    goes by that we don't see a new enhancement in terms of either
    video or audio deepfake capabilities. I don't think, even
    though we passed some bipartisan legislation out of the Rules
    Committee today, that will get the national legislation on
    deepfakes. I would point out there's about a dozen-plus states
    that have taken this on their own, and they range from red
    states to blue states and everything in between. And those of
    us who have been pushing the tech companies to do more--there
    were 20 tech companies that came together in what was called
    the Munich Accord. And this includes all of the big--it's the
    Facebooks, it's the Googles. It is also Twitter, TikTok,
    Anthropic, OpenAI--promising that they would have a commonality
    of watermarking, so you can indicate if something has been
    altered, this AI in elections, a 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 an election this year.
    Right now, India has got an election. The Europeans will have
    their parliamentary election shortly in June. I worry that
    after that much publicized announcement in February to use the
    old political term--``where's the beef?''--I don't see that
    common watermarking standard emerging. I don't see these 20
    tech companies moving in the aggressive nature that I would
    hope. I'd like to hear briefly from each of the witnesses on
    how you think the state of the collaboration between tech
    companies on making sure AI is not misused.
        Director Easterly. Thanks for the question, Chairman. I saw
    the letter that you sent out to those companies yesterday,
    which I think will be very helpful in getting specific answers.
    I will say, we've been working with the generative AI 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, the Coalition for Content
    Provenance and Authentication. In addition, one of the very
    useful things that they're doing is if there are any questions
    about elections, they're actually driving people who use that
    technology to sources like canivote.org or ``Trusted Info
    2024'', which is the National Association of Secretaries of
    State website that provides verified information at the state
    and local level. So it's really a validation that they are
    pushing people to those trusted sources. All that said, what we
    are doing is providing guidance to state and local election
    officials on AI threats and ways that they can mitigate such
    threats to their election infrastructure. We put out something
    in January and again in April about foreign malign influence.
        Director Haines. I'll just add to that by saying that
    absolutely I support everything that Jen just indicated. In
    addition, I think we're seeing both the opportunity 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 continue to encourage. I
    think we're still in the process of watching them build out,
    essentially, their capacity and efforts in this area. And so
    things like your statement I think are helpful to channel that
    energy and to begin to push forward on it.
        I think another thing that we're obviously doing is we've
    been engaging with them in order to make sure that we
    understand the technologies they're bringing to bear, to make
    sure that we're producing, basically, the state of the art
    identification authentication services within the IC, and also
    for state and local partners, if they so request appropriately,
    as I indicated, through the FBI. And we're also promoting the
    adoption of DARPA's suite of technologies, frankly, in this
    area that really allows users to detect, to characterize
    falsified media assets to defend in particular against large-
    scale automated disinformation attacks to public authorities
    and to third parties. So I think all of that is mutually
    reinforcing in this area.
        Chairman Warner. Ms. Knapp.
        Ms. Knapp. Thank you, Sir, for the opportunity to respond.
    Obviously, AI is definitely a concern to us, as well. Whenever
    we get any sort of intelligence, we do provide it to the social
    media companies for action. When we do get any sort of intel
    indicating the hand of a foreign adversary, that information is
    provided to social media companies, whether it is as simple as
    an internet protocol address, an email address, or a phone
    number for them to take what action deemed necessary.
        Vice Chairman Rubio. All right. And I understand that the
    talk about protecting the infrastructure, it's very important.
    But I want to focus on, and I'm going to largely base the
    scenario I'm about to outline, I'm going to base it on a CNN
    February 9th exclusive about a tabletop exercise and it
    basically describes the following tabletop exercise. China
    creates a fake AI video showing a Senate candidate destroying
    ballots and they're able to identify that it's AI, that it's
    fake. So we have the ability to do that. And I think that's
    what you've described, what the DNI's office is able to do
    through that, through DARPA. I guess the effort, the semantic
    forensics technology and all that.
        Okay. So we know it's fake. What the article says and what
    I want to know, maybe the article is wrong, and you can correct
    me, is after that in this tabletop exercise, no one knew what
    happened next. They struggled on what the 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 this tabletop--nobody raised
    their hand and says, we will do it. We want to be the ones in
    charge of notifying the public. There was real consternation if
    in fact this was being promoted through a cutout, like maybe I
    imagine like a blogger. Let's say there's a right wing blogger
    or a left wing blogger and that person is the one that released
    a video. Now, there was a certain fear that if we go out and
    say that this video is fake and this person is spreading it,
    people are going to say the government itself is interfering in
    our elections, and then a real question about if so many
    Americans already don't trust the federal government 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.
        If in fact a scenario like this plays out, video comes out,
    I'm not on the ballot this year, so let's use me. Video comes
    out and it's me and an audio recording, fake, saying, yeah, I'm
    going to rig the election and I'm going to steal a bunch of
    ballots. It's fake, you know it's fake, what happens at that
    point? Because I'm now a week before the election, six days
    before the election, does someone notify me? Am I able to say
    that? Is someone going to come out and say this is not real? He
    really didn't say that. What happens? Because this article says
    it would be turned over to state and local officials. I don't
    know what a state and local official is supposed to do. They're
    going to turn around and say yes, the DNI's office or the FBI
    or somebody told us this was fake. I don't understand what the
    process that would happen at that point is. Do we have a
    process that would kick in in a situation like that one that I
    just described?
        Director Haines. Absolutely. So first of all, I wasn't at
    the tabletop exercise, so I don't know what happened in that
    particular scenario. But I understand that's not actually an
    accurate representation of what the discussion was.
        I would say that in terms of what would happen, yes, there
    would be a statement. So I think the model that I pointed to in
    2020 is an appropriate model if there is basically a video or
    some deepfake 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
    intelligence, through the notification framework. The
    notification framework is an interagency group that basically
    indicates: Okay, we think this is something that deserves a
    public----
        Vice Chairman Rubio. I apologize. I don't mean to interrupt
    you. I just wanted to ask you this for clarification. So the
    video is clearly fake, you may not be able to attribute it to a
    foreign entity, but you'll at least be able to say this is not
    real and we're working to see where it came from. Maybe it was
    designed by some guy in a basement, but maybe it was designed
    by a nation-state. But at a minimum, we have to be able to say
    this thing is not real and it could be the work of a foreign
    adversary. Would you be the one that would stand up? Is it the
    DNI? Is it the FBI? Who would be the person that would stand
    before the American people and say, we're not interfering in
    the election. we just want you to know that video is not real.
    Who would be in charge of that?
        Director Haines. So, I could be the person that goes out
    and makes that determination. And I'll just give you an
    example, frankly, one of the ones that the Chairman just
    mentioned from this morning. There's an article today about the
    fact that there is a fake video that was basically promoted, we
    think, by Storm 1516. It's a Russian affiliated group
    basically. And that video purports to show a whistleblower and
    a Ukrainian former employee of a made-up CIA-supported troll
    farm tasked with interfering in the upcoming presidential
    election. CIA immediately came out with a statement that
    basically indicates, and is reflected in the article, that this
    is fake. And I am here to say categorically 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.
        Vice Chairman Rubio. Okay. But is that established that
    you--would you say you could be the one that--I mean, who is--I
    guess my point is it really--I don't want there to be any gray
    area like someone needs to be in charge of interfacing with the
    American people. And ultimately saying we will be responsible
    for notifying the American people.
        Director Haines. Yes, the----
        Vice Chairman Rubio. Has that been established?
        Director Haines. The only hesitation that 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
    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's just a question of going through the process
    and determining what exactly is the issue that's being raised?
    What's the fake information that's being put forward? Who is
    going to be the best essentially official to immediately come
    out?
        Vice Chairman Rubio. Who makes that decision about who the
    best person is?
        Director Haines. That's through, for example, the
    notification framework.
        Chairman Warner. I think it's a very valid question. I'll
    remind colleagues that in open hearings, we go by seniority.
        Senator Wyden.
        Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And it's good to
    have all three of you here. And I'd 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 a foreign adversary to interfere in an
    election is to compromise a candidate. The best way to do that
    is with money. Now 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 who 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'd like to ask you, Director Haines, is
    let's set aside Donald Trump, okay, for purposes of this
    question. Is a foreign country's influence buying of a
    candidate, in your view, a counterintelligence concern and a
    form of interference?
        Director Haines. Absolutely, and it's a tactic that we've
    seen, for example, the Chinese engage in quite regularly.
        Senator Wyden. Good. Then let's go to data purchases,
    something you and I have talked about, because one way for a
    foreign adversary to tailor their influence is through the
    purchase of large amounts of Americans' private data. The
    Executive Order that President Biden signed on February 28th
    and the data export bill included in the recent foreign
    military and supplemental, those were welcome steps. And I
    think you know I've indicated that. But unlike the bipartisan
    bill I 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 Haines, is couldn't the
    countries covered by the executive order and the recently
    enacted 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 laws or
    setting up front companies?
        Director Haines. I think it's sort of fact specific and
    it's hard for me to make a very broad generalization. But
    there's no question that both Russia and China, for example,
    look to obtain critical information, including, for example,
    polling data that ultimately allows them to determine the
    targets of their influence campaigns, including with respect to
    funding illicitly.
        Senator Wyden. So would you work with the Vice Chairman,
    Senator Rubio, and I to clean up these loopholes 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.
    They're going to look at front companies. And bam, we're 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.
        And I gather I ought to quit while I'm ahead, because you
    said you'll work with us.
        Director Haines. Absolutely, I'd work with you on really
    any legislation you have to offer.
        Senator Wyden. Very good.
        Director Haines. Thank you.
        Senator Wyden. So, with respect to this election worker
    issue question for you, Ms. Knapp, we've got a lot of interest
    in this strong statement that Director Wray put out. I wanted
    to make sure we protect election workers from threats of
    violence. This is something I hear from all of our county
    officials in my state. This is an 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, the
    general incitement of violence. What are your priorities in
    this area?
        Ms. Knapp. Thank you for that question, Sir. Obviously, as
    you had said, election workers are critical to our democratic
    process, and they are the front line of democracy. In terms of
    what we're seeing in this space is obviously election workers
    are being harassed via robocalls, via white powder letters, as
    well as swatting. And we take all of those incidents very
    seriously. We work very closely with the Department of
    Justice's Election Crimes Task Force. To date, since its
    inception in 2021, there have been 17 successful convictions,
    as well as 13 sentencings. We continuously work with state and
    local authorities on these matters to hold any and all
    individuals that have been identified accountable for those
    actions.
        Senator Wyden. My time is up. I'm 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, 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.
        Chairman Warner. Senator Risch.
        Senator Risch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I understand. I
    apologize. We were in a Foreign Relations Committee meeting,
    but I apologize.
        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.
        Does that ring a bell with you at all?
        Director Haines. Yes, Sir. I don't remember every detail of
    it, but I certainly remember the letter.
        Senator Risch. I'm going to help you out here.
        Director Haines. Good deal. Thank you, Sir.
        Senator Risch. No, it isn't a good deal, but I'm going to
    help you out. But we asked six questions and only one of those
    six questions was answered. So I'm going to ask you here
    publicly, and by the way, let me tell you how this fits in. I'm
    as concerned with this sort of 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. I mean
    these were 51 people that had very significant influence 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 a security clearance? And that was as of
    May 31st of 2023. So let me ask it now, how many of those 51
    people still hold a security clearance?
        Director Haines. I believe we provided you with an answer
    on that. I don't recall the----
        Senator Risch. No.
        Director Haines. I thought we did. All right. If we did
    not, we will get that to you shortly. We have that information.
        Senator Risch. All right. So how many of the Appendix A
    individuals maintained business arrangements, contracts, or
    other consulting arrangements with any element of the U.S.
    Intelligence Community between October 1st, 2020 and October
    31st of 2020. That question was not answered.
        Director Haines. Yes, Sir. That question we're still trying
    to get an answer to.
        Senator Risch. You're still trying to get an answer to it?
        Director Haines. Yes, Sir.
        Senator Risch. That security clearance as of October of
    2020, surely you got a list of these people? Whether or not
    they had security clearance.
        Director Haines. We have a list of the people that had
    security clearances. As I said, that's an answer that I thought
    we had provided. We will provide that to you.
        On the contracts, that's a much more complicated question
    and that's something that we're looking to give you.
        Senator Risch. How many of the Appendix A individuals
    currently maintain business arrangements, contracts, or other
    consulting element of the U.S. Intelligence Community? And that
    was as of May 31st, 2023, and move that forward to today. Both
    of those last two questions. How many of those people of those
    51 had the arrangements in October of 2020? And how many of
    them have any contacts today?
        Could you get that information for us?
        Director Haines. I don't have that information now, but we
    will look to provide it to you.
        Senator Risch. Okay. So let's talk about this particular
    problem. Senator Rubio was asking the question about who's
    going to stand up and look in the camera and say this is
    baloney, and that's going to be you. I think you've said that's
    the high responsibility that you have. And that was in the
    context of foreign interference in an election.
        What about this sort of thing where it's domestic
    interference, that's obviously false? Who's got the
    responsibility for standing up and looking in the camera and
    saying folks don't count on this, it's not true? Is that going
    to be your responsibility?
        Director Haines. Sir, I think 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 that they're not disclosing classified information. That
    we're protecting that and dealing with that. It's not----
        Senator Risch. What if it's false? And they're using their
    robes of their having knowledge of security matters and
    intelligence matters. And you know it's false. Is that your
    response or do you just say no, I'm not going to get involved
    in that?
        Director Haines. I don't understand, because I think, first
    of all, I think they said that their experience makes them
    deeply suspicious of that activity, right? And I wouldn't----
        Senator Risch. They went a little farther than that, I
    think, but I'll take your characterization of it.
        Director Haines. Okay.
        Senator Risch. And if you know that's false and you come
    into the information that it's false, is it your obligation or
    not your obligation to stand up look in the camera and say
    folks when you're voting, no, don't take this into account.
        Director Haines. Senator, I don't think I could even
    frankly make sure that I've read everything that a former might
    have said or that anybody else has on these issues. So, no. I
    don't think that it's appropriate for me to be determining what
    is truth and what is false in such circumstances.
        Senator Risch. But what if you know? I mean you're sitting
    here. You're the center of intelligence in America right there,
    and this has come out and you know it's false. What's your
    obligation or do you have any?
        Director Haines. 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.
        Senator Risch. But not----
        Director Haines [continuing]. Which we would do----
        Senator Risch. But not calling out someone who stands up
    and purports to have intelligence information that you know is
    false.
        Director Haines. Senator, first of all, I'm not sure I'm
    the best arbiter of what is true and false. And secondly----
        Senator Risch. Let's say in a particular instance, you've
    seen the paper, you know, it's false. Let's take that instance.
    What do you do?
        Director Haines. I mean it depends on the situation. If
    we're talking about a fake video that's been put forward----
        Senator Risch. Somebody with intelligence credentials
    stands up and says, I know this from an intelligence
    standpoint, and you know as the Director of National
    Intelligence that it's false.
        Director Haines. No, I do not----
        Senator Risch. What do you do?
        Director Haines. I do not consider that to be part of my
    responsibility. If there is disinformation 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
    basically to our customers and there will be a process whereby
    determinations are made, and it may not be to the public, but
    it might be classified information. It might be anything else.
    I don't know under the circumstances. It's too much of a
    hypothetical.
        Senator Risch. My time is up and I'm not making progress,
    so I'm going to give it back to you.
        Chairman Warner. We ought to continue to pursue this. I
    mean, my sense that it would probably be the responsibility of
    the FBI, if there was proven--. I'm 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 that----
        Senator Risch. Well, that's the purpose of this hearing is
    to find out how American voters are going to be----
        Chairman Warner. But although the purpose, our purview at
    least, is focused on that foreign influence, but I understand
    your point.
        Senator King.
        Senator King. Well, following up on this point, it seems to
    me the tension here is I don't want the U.S. government to be
    the truth police. If you start talking about what's true and
    what's not true in political advertising, you know, you could
    have a thousand people doing that full time, 24 hours a day.
    That's not the job of the U.S. government.
        It strikes me that 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, 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 the source.
        In a Maine town meeting when somebody stands up to talk,
    you assess not only what they say, but who they are--and you're
    not allowed to wear a bag over your head in a Maine 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 of the
    word ``notification framework.'' I've seen that. It's 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: bad news gets
    around the world before good news gets its shoes tied.
        So I hope that you 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, let the public know so they can
    assess that. Is that something you can take back?
        Director Haines. Yes, absolutely, and that is something
    that we do is try to attribute where information is coming
    from, essentially, and working through the methodologies on
    that.
        And I realize ``notification framework'' may sound quite
    bureaucratic, but it really is a living thing. And for example,
    they have worked through a process where they can expedite
    their decision-making process through within 48 hours. They are
    looking at even making that----
        Senator King. That should be the standard. 48 hours should
    be the----
        Director Haines [continuing]. Across the board. Yes, it's
    not much longer than that in terms of----
        Senator King [continuing]. 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.
        Director Haines. Absolutely. Agree.
        Senator King. Because what's going on here is our
    adversaries are using our strength against us. It's a kind of
    geopolitical jujitsu: the strength of our society, its
    openness, the First Amendment, freedom of expression. They're
    using that in order to manipulate our most fundamental sacred
    right, which is the right of an election. And so we've got to
    be alert to it.
        And as I say, I disagree with my colleague. I don't think
    you're in the truth or falsehood business. I think you're in
    the disclosure of intelligence business. And I hope that that's
    something you can continue.
        Now at CISA, I'm 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. You gave a very
    impressive list of all the meetings and things that you're
    doing, but I'm hearing from some election officials that they
    don't feel that CISA is out there with them. They're not
    getting the support that they need. So I hope that you're being
    very forward-leaning about the protection you can provide to
    state and local election officials.
        Director Easterly. Thank you, Senator. Actually, as I
    mentioned, we are providing more services in more jurisdictions
    than ever before. We've actually enhanced our field force of
    cybersecurity advisors, physical security advisors, and then
    election security advisors 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
    I am in touch with chief election officials across the country
    to include Secretary of State Bellows and others to ensure that
    they are getting everything that they need to run safe and
    secure elections. And that's not been affected in any of a
    partisan way.
        Senator King. Please ramp it up. We've got about six
    months, and we know that these adversaries are going to be
    coming at us.
        Final question, we know that in 2016, and I believe in
    2018, the Russians got into something like 35 states' election
    infrastructure. They didn't do anything with it. There was no
    effort to manipulate voting lists. But they weren't doing it
    for fun. I'm worried that they're still there and that the
    potential for, for example, people walking into a polling place
    in Miami and finding their name has disappeared off the list--
    the potential for chaos is very high. So I hope all of you are
    pursuing those--I call them sleeper cells--that may still be
    there in state election infrastructure.
        Director Easterly. I'll just comment that since we have
    designated election infrastructure as critical, there's been
    enormous progress in particular in raising the bar on
    cybersecurity. So as you know, not all of voting equipment--
    vote tabulation and vote casting is not connected to the
    internet. Just vote registration and election night reporting.
    So that, the fact that it's disconnected, it's not exposed to
    the internet, that's a layer of security. But there are also
    multiple layers. Election officials take a defense-in-depth
    approach--technological layers, physical layers, procedural
    controls--to ensure that that election infrastructure is secure
    and resilient.
        The other thing that's important to remember, Senator, is
    that we have so much diversity across our election
    infrastructure. If you've seen one state----
        Senator King. It's a benefit.
        Director Easterly. It's a benefit. If you've seen one
    state's election, you've seen one state's election. And so the
    virtue is there are procedures and controls under the chief
    election officials that make that election equipment secure.
    And having worked with folks like Secretary of State McGrane in
    Idaho, I know that all election officials are focused laser-
    like on this. And they don't see elections security as a
    partisan political issue.
        They see it as an issue of ensuring that they can enable
    every one of their citizens' votes to be counted as cast.
        Senator King. Final quick question. Director Haines, did
    you hear about the three conspiracy theorists that walked into
    a bar?
        Director Haines. No.
        Senator King. It wasn't a coincidence. [Laughter.]
        Director Haines. That's great. Thank you.
        Senator King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Warner. Senator Cornyn.
        Senator Cornyn. Well, thank you for the good news. Director
    Haines, you said we've never been better prepared. Ms.
    Easterly, you said our elections have never been more secure. I
    think that's good news. All the campaigns I've been involved in
    in my career and/or observed as a citizen have never been
    exemplars of truth telling. They are contests, political
    contests for the hearts and minds of the voters and hopefully
    the ballot cast by that voter. And I frankly don't think it
    makes a whole lot of difference if it's 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 a lie attributing certain information in
    election to Russian disinformation.
        I actually found also, Ms. 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
    redundancies to ensure security and resilience. It is because
    of these measures and the incredible efforts of 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 attempts to disrupt our election
    process.
        Is that correct?
        Director Easterly. Yes, Sir.
        Senator Cornyn. 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. That's my observation,
    not necessarily yours.
        So I was very encouraged to see that the work you've 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, Ms. Knapp. I
    don't know who should take this question. But one of the
    biggest challenges we've had when it comes to elections or
    cyber-attacks basically 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?
        Ms. Knapp. Thank you for that question, Sir. I can
    certainly start and then I'm sure my colleagues would love to
    jump in.
        As you had mentioned, Sir, attribution is a difficult
    thing, but it is not something that is impossible, and it takes
    time. So for us from an FBI perspective, you know, that would
    involve us tracing the origin. We would gather all available
    intelligence, we would serve legal process, we would--it's an
    iterative process.
        Senator Cornyn. So that's not something you could do in
    real time, let's say, against the deadline or backdrop of an
    election date?
        Ms. Knapp. Well, it would depend; it would depend on how
    easy it is to, to have attribution. It would also depend on
    what sort of available intelligence is out there driving us to
    come to whatever conclusion. But I don't know if any of my
    colleagues want to jump in on this.
        Senator Cornyn. Director Haines, does the U.S. government
    do anything to impose costs against those who engage in this
    misconduct?
        Director Haines. Obviously that's a policy question, but
    yes, obviously there have been actions that have been taken.
    Sanctions.
        Senator Cornyn. It may be a policy question, but you would
    know.
        Director Haines. Yeah, fair enough. No, no, no. I mean
    sanctions are an example of the kinds of actions that have been
    taken, PNG and other actions, depending on the particular
    scenario. And we've also seen as we've been helping, for
    example, Europe look at Russian efforts to influence the
    European Parliament elections. They've been taking certain
    actions in response to some of those influence operations. So I
    do think there are in fact tools that can be used. And others
    may wish to join me.
        Senator Cornyn. I just have 17 seconds left. Let me change
    the subject a little bit. We've talked about virtual threats to
    election integrity, but not physical threats from terrorist
    groups. Director Haines, you said in your annual threat
    assessment, you're willing to acknowledge that perceptions of
    immigration policies are driving record numbers of illegal
    immigrants across our borders. Director Haines also talked
    about the ISIS-affiliated individuals who are facilitating the
    passage of migrants to the U.S.-Mexican border and into the
    United States. Can you tell us in open session how many illegal
    immigrants have ties to ISIS operatives? And does the IC assess
    that individuals with those connections have entered the United
    States through the southern border as Director Wray has
    testified?
        Director Haines. I can support what Director Wray has
    testified to publicly, but I can't answer your specific
    questions in open session. But we can obviously have further
    discussions.
        Senator Cornyn. You can't tell us what he told us, which is
    ISIS facilitators have managed to deliver people to the
    southern border and they have likely been released into the
    United States?
        Director Haines. 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 can't
    go further into detail on that without being in closed session,
    Sir.
        Senator Cornyn. Well, I think we are looking at a matter of
    when, if not if, we're going to have to live with the
    consequences of that.
        Chairman Warner. Two quick comments before we go to Senator
    Bennet.
        One, you know, I do think as policymakers, and I think
    there have been 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 policymakers, that
    action. And I would also say I want to commend, I mean, some of
    this point you made with Jen about the decentralized nature. I
    want to applaud Texas, which in an overwhelming way, I think
    almost unanimous in your state house and 75 percent, I think in
    your state senate approved legislation that the Governor Abbott
    signed prohibiting deepfakes of political candidates. And I
    think that makes a lot of sense.
        Senator Bennet.
        Senator Bennet. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for holding
    this hearing.
        It's a tough set of issues because we live in a free
    society. One way or another I think we're all trying to help
    strengthen this democracy and help strengthen the values that
    we all share. And we're under assault, you know, in a way that
    we've never been before from our adversaries. And we've 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 the WIRe last week about the Russian disinformation
    campaign, the Doppelganger Operation, the Kremlin-backed
    operation that promoted a fake Washington Post article that
    said that billionaire Soros was hiring people at $30 for anti-
    Semitism. 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
    these guys were working, I think, with the Russians. Have
    fabricated articles from Le Monde and Fox News as well.
        And I just wonder if you could talk a little bit about the
    speed. And that's not an election issue, that's a democracy
    issue. This is a debate that's going on in the streets of this
    country and the streets of free countries all over the world,
    that our totalitarian adversaries are using to try to incite
    divisions and incite discord to take the temperature up based
    on information that isn't 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 help
    notify people in real time when this kind of thing is
    happening. When the country as a whole is subject to this sort
    of intentional misinformation that we're seeing, frankly,
    throughout Europe. We've seen it in the most devastating way in
    Myanmar, where people were killed as a result of the content
    that was being purposely disseminated over social media
    platforms there. And I think we would be naive to think that
    that level of political violence couldn't also occur here as
    well.
        So, I guess the first question I would ask is, what are we
    going to do about it?
        Director Haines. Well, I do think that one aspect of what
    you do about it is basically expose what the tactics are and
    what we're seeing, and then address specific issues as they
    come up just as you've been saying. And we have been looking at
    increasingly working with partners and allies, frankly, around
    the world to do exactly that, because it is 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.
        There's also going after--and this is part of, I think,
    what you were describing--there's going after the platforms
    that get used in this context. So, Russia has been pretty
    extraordinary in terms of the platform that they've built for
    their work. They essentially have a state-run propaganda
    machine that is comprised of domestic media apparatus outlets
    targeting global audiences such as RT and Sputnik, and a
    network of kind of quasi-government trolls that are used. And
    over the years, the apparatus has grown. It's broadening the
    array of influence actors, the tactics that they use for covert
    and deniable operations. And they're trying, as you indicated,
    to shape U.S. political discourse, European political
    discourse, to reduce support for Ukraine, other things. And
    part of what we're seeing is their capacity to use some of the
    platforms that they've chosen are getting harder as we're
    getting better at disclosing how those platforms are being 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 that is among some of the sort of
    opportunities for battling it.
        Director Easterly. I might just add something to your
    question insofar as it relates directly to elections. And we
    have a great relationship with Secretary of State Griswold and
    Judd Choate, 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 may actually happen, one
    focused on being prepared, the other focused on a very
    effective response. So in Arizona, Secretary of State Adrian
    Fontes has been working with his local election officials to do
    a series of tabletop exercises with deepfakes of him in the day
    before the election to prepare them to be able to respond and
    to be able to communicate. And he's brought in local media and
    the community to help them understand these kinds of threats
    and, again, to lay the ground to inoculate them from being
    influenced, because of course those could be amplified by
    foreign malign influence actors.
        The other very good example, I think, was the robocall that
    happened in New Hampshire two days before the primary election.
    When that happened, the attorney general, John Formella, came
    out with a very clear statement saying that it is likely
    criminal behavior, saying that it's being investigated, and
    that it should be ignored as an example of repression of the
    vote. And then the secretary of state, David Scanlan, came out,
    he amplified that on a whole bunch of media platforms to get
    that message out to all of the constituents. And then said at
    the end of the day, the turnout was actually higher than he
    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 they're
    actually able to react to it, Sir.
        Senator Bennet. Thank you very much and thank you both for
    your testimony. I know I'm out of time, Mr. Chairman, but if I
    could just finish with one thought. Those are two great
    examples in Arizona and New Hampshire, where local elected
    officials who have sworn an oath to the Constitution are
    fulfilling that oath.
        Director Haines had good examples of what we're trying to
    do with foreign actors that are associated with the Kremlin.
    That's good, too, Mr. Chairman. We still have the problem of
    our own platforms, these 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 they in theory hired to do the
    content moderation work that they were going to do, who have
    not been willing to think about slowing down the degree to
    which information is shared across the planet Earth that goes
    through their network. So, I just think we've got a
    responsibility of our own here in terms of oversight to make
    sure we're going to have what's required as well.
        Chairman Warner. We're going to have that kind of hearing
    with the social media companies.
        And to the ever-patient and with seven minutes of time,
    Senator Lankford.
        Senator Lankford. I'll take that. Thank you. Thank you all
    for your testimony.
        You were just speaking to Senator Bennet about Russia and
    some of the influence that they have targeted and the ways that
    they're doing it. Can we switch sides and actually talk about
    China? What is China doing currently to try to influence the
    United States public opinion?
        Director Haines. I'll mention what they're doing here, but
    also what they're doing abroad because we're seeing it on a
    broad range of things. I think they're growing, we assess,
    really increasingly confident in their ability to influence
    elections, but remain concerned about the possibility of
    blowback should they be discovered. And the PRC has made
    improvements to its influence operation tools using artificial
    intelligence, big data analytics. Their tactics globally
    include bankrolling candidates they prefer, using deepfake
    technologies to generate content, collecting polling data to
    determine targets for them, conducting social media influence
    operations. For example, the PLA will take over and operate
    social media accounts on a number of different platforms. 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. And we've seen them obviously seek
    to influence elections not only in the United States in the
    context of Congressional candidates, generally--this has been
    one of the things in a different levels and spaces--but also
    elections in Taiwan, in Australia, and in Canada. So a pretty
    significant portion.
        Senator Lankford. How do we expose that? How do we put the
    word out? Attribution is the challenge here as we've already
    talked about. Once it starts to get out there on social media
    and other places, how is that exposed most effectively if it's
    discovered on the federal side?
        Director Haines. I'll start, but I think my colleagues may
    wish to amplify certain aspects of this. I mean, we obviously
    put in our annual threat assessment some of the things that
    we're seeing the PRC engage in, in terms of influence
    operations, including in these spaces. And when we get
    intelligence that indicates that the PRC is, for example,
    taking on social media accounts or things like that in a
    platform, we then pass that information through. The FBI is
    able to provide that to the companies to take action.
        Senator Lankford. A general statement if they're going to
    do it is different than an example to say here's an example of
    a post that we know was created by or was amplified by China,
    Russia, Iran, North Korea--whatever it may be. In 2016 and
    2017, we were able to pull exact examples and to be able to
    list them, post them, and say this was Russian created. Here's
    where it started. Here's where it came from and to be able to
    expose it. How do we do that now as we're approaching this
    election, and foreign actors are trying to influence?
        Director Haines. We will do just that. So essentially the
    same playbook in that sense that we are identifying specific,
    credible intelligence. We are passing that to the companies or
    exposing it publicly, as the case may determine.
        Senator Lankford. Okay. Let me keep going, because I'll be
    limited in time, though I have mercifully seven minutes to be
    able to walk through this, but I'll still run out of time on
    this.
        Since we passed the Help America Vote Act, HAVA, as it's
    called at this point, there's been perpetual funding that's
    been sent out to multiple states to be able to improve their
    systems. It's been interesting. I pulled new numbers, because
    every state says: we can't improve our election systems, we
    don't have enough money on it. So, we pulled the recent
    spending and what people have and what they haven't spent
    already.
        Colorado--my colleague, Senator Bennet, just left--has
    received $15 million; has only spent 27 percent of that money.
        Hawaii has received 8 million; has spent 26 percent of it.
        Louisiana has received $14.5 million and has spent zero of
    that.
        So far, Maryland, $17 million; has spent 37 percent.
        Minnesota, $16 million; has spent 41 percent.
        Not to leave my own state out, Oklahoma has received 11
    million; we've spent 23 percent of that.
        Now, other states have spent more on it, but this money has
    been sitting there for years. This is not money that was
    allocated to them three months ago. Quite a bit of this funding
    was allocated to them years ago and they have not actually
    spent it.
        So my question is, Ms. Easterly, on this, how do we
    encourage states to be able to up their game on a couple of
    areas? One is learning the lesson of the unofficial results in
    their own websites and how to be able to protect those systems.
    That's an obvious area of creating distrust on election night
    if those are actually interfered with. The second one is old
    school paper ballot backups, so if there's a problem with the
    machine, everybody can verify it with a piece of paper.
        When we have states that have literally millions of dollars
    sitting there saying we don't have enough to be able to do
    this, when most of them do, how do we advance this?
        Director Easterly. Thanks for the question, Senator. So I
    can't speak to those statistics, and I'm happy to follow up on
    that. But I will say what we provide is the Sector Risk
    Management Agency, our no cost services and no cost training.
    So many of the states, in fact, thousands of jurisdictions,
    take advantage of the cybersecurity assessments, the free cyber
    hygiene scanning we provide, the endpoint detection and
    response that we have, the malicious domain blocking. So, all
    of that is in place across the country, so I know they're
    taking advantage of that. And that has significantly raised the
    bar from a cybersecurity perspective.
        I think your points about election night reporting are very
    good ones. One of the things that I think it's really important
    for everyone to remember is that those are all unofficial
    results, right? And they need to be canvased--they need to be
    certified--which takes days to weeks.
        Senator Lankford. But if it's announced on election night
    who won and then a week later, the state announces, oops! No, a
    different person won, that sows incredible distrust----
        Director Easterly. I agree.
        Senator Lankford [continuing]. Where now no one trusts the
    election results anymore. And while the election results were
    unofficial, if those are interfered with, that's a real
    vulnerability to building trust among the American people.
        Director Easterly. I agree with that, Sir. As I said in my
    opening statement, these systems are more secure than ever
    before. And election officials--to include Paul Ziriax who's
    your state election director--are terrific, are working
    incredibly hard to make sure that every one of their citizens
    votes are counted as cast. And I think it's really important
    that we focus on them because they're the true election experts
    and we listen to their voices and what they say. And 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 it's not canvased, it's not certified yet. So
    let's wait until it's certified.
        Senator Lankford. Okay, thank you. Mr. Chairman, I'm just
    going to ask a follow-up question on this and I'm going to have
    it done.
        Ms. Knapp, as far as the FBI and U.S. Attorneys offices
    following up on a criminal offense of voting, if you're not
    legally present in the country and you're voting in a federal
    election, that is a federal crime. What I'd love to be able to
    know, and I've not been able to get the statistics on, is how
    many prosecutions do we have across the country for a federal
    election crime? Is that actually being followed up on? Do we
    have a good number of both charges being filed and actual
    prosecutions on that for a federal election crime?
        I know in my state, we talked about Paul Ziriax in my state
    and what our district attorneys are doing in the state. If
    someone votes twice or whatever may be, the prosecution's there
    and they have a good history on that. I don't know on the
    federal side. Can you all provide that to me?
        Ms. Knapp. Sir, thank you very much for the question. What
    I do have in front of me right now is how many cases have been
    charged through the Department of Justice Task Force on
    Election Security. What I don't have is that second part, but I
    can at least give you a general number right now. So right now,
    the task force has charged 17 cases with a resulting 13
    convictions. But with respect to your subset question, I'm
    happy to take that back to my team and get you a more complete
    answer.
        Senator Lankford. Thank you.
        Chairman Warner. I think those HAVA numbers are pretty
    remarkable. I'm glad you shared those.
        Senator Lankford. Some states have spent 70, 80 percent of
    them; quite a few of our states spent 50 percent or less on
    HAVA numbers, and these are the most recent from just a couple
    of months ago.
        Chairman Warner. That's a very fair question. And on your
    question about 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 have
    been both state and federal.
        Let me move to a slightly different topic that is related
    to this. As I think you know, we're 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, Mandiant and
    Graphika, both companies that the Committee's very familiar
    with and that we've used, have reported that there are some of
    these gig employment companies, Freelancer and Fiverr are two
    that I think 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--I'm not sure whether
    they're A, B, or C list--but has gone out and appeared to have,
    again, unwittingly enlisted celebrities to help on anti-Ukraine
    messaging.
        How are we thinking as we think about malicious use by
    foreign actors? You know, 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?
        Director Haines. I'll start, and we'll play in. But I
    think, first of all, you're absolutely right. I think one of
    the key trends that I identified with the use of commercial
    firms--and some of them are witting and some of them are
    unwitting in this space--it's marketing firms, it's public
    relations firms, it's reputation management firms, it's gig
    firms. It's across the board and they're increasingly being
    relied on of launder covertly-directed narratives through media
    sources and social media platforms. And this complicates,
    obviously, attribution. And this is something that we're trying
    to get better at in a faster way.
        But part of the reason that they're doing this, right, is
    because these firms tend to be more nimble than their own
    intelligence services and government apparatus basically for
    taking action. They're also frequently more sophisticated in
    their capacity to actually promote influence campaigns. And so
    this is one of the things that we're 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 count. So it is really becoming
    increasingly widespread, and it's one of the challenges that
    we're trying to manage in all----
        Director Easterly. I would only add that just last month we
    actually worked with FBI and DNI to put out an advisory that
    very specifically highlights these tactics, to include using
    proxy media, laundering it through PR, whether witting or
    unwitting, how to recognize it, and then mitigations around how
    to actually deal with these types of things. And we're doing
    separate training on it as well. So part of this is the
    awareness of it at the election official level and then what
    they need to do to mitigate it. Separately, though, the
    platform is an issue, obviously, that needs to be addressed
    directly.
        Ms. Knapp. Sir, thank you for the opportunity. We are
    obviously, like my colleagues, absolutely concerned with any
    sort of technology that our adversary uses. What I can say in
    this setting is 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 that allows companies
    to be more aware and more informed so they can mitigate that
    and spot it within their own systems.
        Chairman Warner. Well, one of the things I would suggest
    and that this Committee and Senator Rubio and I, I think, 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, the foreign agent entities, that makes
    all of this activity illegal. That guidance ought to be
    updated. And I would strongly encourage some level of convening
    of these kind of platforms. Again, where do you draw the line?
    But if we have in open-source documentation from Graphika and
    Mandiant the fact that these platforms are being used, and its
    citizens are being unwittingly used now whether the platforms
    are unwitting or not, is maybe an open question. But if they
    realize that if they were wittingly helping foreign agents
    interfere, that would be a violation of the law, I think that
    would be a helpful process.
        Thoughts on that?
        Director Easterly. My main thought is one of the really
    great things since 2020 that's different now, Chairman, is we
    have the FMIC, which we didn't have before, which allows for
    those classified briefings. And I'll defer to Avril, but I
    think that is very much added value.
        Director Haines. I'll just say that I very much support the
    idea of getting the sector together and seeing whether or not
    we can enhance our capacity to get out to everybody,
    essentially, on these issues. So, absolutely.
        Chairman Warner. One thing I am concerned about, because I
    appreciate all of the comments and the outreach that CISA has
    done, but, you know, how do we in an appropriately nonpartisan
    way--? I've 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 has used in the past, like the
    Albert system, where I thought for a long time we had literally
    a level of cyber protection down to the county levels. But for
    whatever reason, certain counties are now opting out of that. I
    heard in Washington state. Is that kind of a one-off? Or I
    would just hate, as we get closer to the election, if the
    distrust of the federal government becomes such that people are
    literally turning away voluntary cyber and other educational
    protections.
        Director Easterly. The good news, Chairman, is that that's
    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 sensors in
    particular, there's 1,083 sensors across the country. I think
    less than a handful--less than five--have not renewed their
    contract and that's for a variety of reasons, to include opting
    to use different technology for intrusion detection.
        So this is something we look at very 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 I'm very attuned 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.
        Chairman Warner. I again turn to Senator Rubio for his
    closing comments, then I'll make one or two quick comments. You
    know, 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 Russian interference. And I still remember at
    first some of the tech companies refusing even 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 well prepared in 2020 because there was effective
    communication and a team that was 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 don't 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 that's
    unprecedented. And the fact that we've 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 kind of pre-
    assigned process, especially if we're getting into those last
    30 days, or last week or so, before the election of who would
    report. I think this effort today that made the press, it
    probably is appropriate that the CIA itself responded. But as
    we get into those final days and weeks, having an approach--and
    again citing the 2020 example where 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 that are coming to bear potentially
    on this election.
        Senator Rubio.
        Vice Chairman Rubio. Just to wrap this all up. First of
    all, I haven't focused as much on the CISA role because to me
    the technical aspects--it's not that it's easier technically,
    you know, protecting elections from people that are
    professional hackers that are constantly trying to get into
    everything from water systems to election systems to hospital
    systems. I mean, these people--this is what they do all day. So
    I'm not in any way diminishing the importance and the
    difficulty of it. I am pointing out, though, that it's
    technical, right? It's a red state, it's a blue state--they're
    both going to be equally impacted. They both are fertile
    ground, especially when you get down at the Congressional level
    and even in local elections.
        So the reason why I focused so much on election
    interference, on an election influence, and in particular
    foreign malign influence, is because that's a lot trickier. And
    just the threats, I don't know what this comes from. I think
    it's the one of the--yes, the assessment for foreign threats to
    '22. If you just go through this, you start to see one of the
    first things that it points out, which I think you see to this
    day, is that part of their effort is some of these operators
    are largely focused on amplifying what are already authentic
    beliefs in American politics, right? So these are people who
    already believe these things. And one of the things they do is
    they just simply amplify things that people are already saying.
    So what's the risk there? If you say that the Iranians or the
    Russians or the Chinese are amplifying a message, some people
    take that to mean if I believe in something that I've stood for
    for a long time, all of a sudden now I'm a Chinese agent or now
    I'm a Russian agent because I'm actually saying things on the
    campaign trail?
        And so you see, it for example, and it's also, you know,
    Iran proposed helping nationalist groups inside the U.S. And
    Iranian officials have advocated using covert social media to
    pit the extremist groups against each other, though more likely
    for use in 2024. This was written in '22. So obviously we're
    now in '24 and you see that. So that's just an effort to get
    Americans to fight and make us look weak internally.
        Then the other thing is that in October of '22, Twitter
    exposed three separate Iranian-based influence networks
    operating on the platform, generally supporting left-leaning
    U.S. politicians, including a range of House and Senate
    candidates. And according to industry reports, many exposed
    accounts espoused pro-Palestinian sentiments. At the same time,
    they expressed positive sentiments towards progressive
    candidates.
        Now you flip to the Russians. The Russians tried to
    denigrate the Democratic Party before the midterm and undermine
    confidence in the election, most likely to weaken U.S. support
    for Ukraine. So they denigrated the Democratic Party. They
    wanted--in particular, they amplified questions about whether
    U.S. aid to Ukraine would continue if the balance of power in
    Congress shifted. Their intent there is not that they're
    Republicans, but their intent there was to denigrate the
    Democratic Party because it furthered their aim, and in the
    process, also begin to influence our willingness to continue to
    be committed to helping Ukraine. You move on to others. So
    another one--that the Russians are blaming multiculturalism and
    leftist ideals for ostensibly driving the U.S. into a crisis.
    There are a lot of people that actually hold that view,
    irrespective of what the Russians believe. They're just
    amplifying what somebody has probably been saying for 15 years.
    That doesn't make that person a Russian agent. It just makes it
    more difficult on this.
        And then you have these unique cases--and this one in
    particular strikes home--because I think I know who they're
    talking about. We assessed the Cuba attempted to undermine the
    electoral process of specific U.S. Congressional politicians in
    2022 that they perceive as hostile. They focused their
    operations aimed at denigrating specific U.S. candidates in
    Florida, although in an attempt to shape the impression of
    other politicians as well, because they view Cuban-Americans in
    Miami as having an outsized influence on U.S. policy with
    regards to Cuba. And they also cultivated members of the U.S.
    media who held critical views of that Member of Congress. So I
    probably know who they're talking about. But the point--and
    obviously it was in '22, where I happened to be on the ballot,
    among others. But the point being is that that's a very
    specific aim.
        My whole point in all of this is you have the example that
    I've used about the fake AI video. Okay? And that's almost, I
    don't say it's an easy question, but that's a more obvious one.
    It's clearly a fake video. And I think what we want to know is:
    do we have a formalized process to act very quickly to say this
    thing is fake, even if we can't attribute it? You don't need to
    attribute it to be able in the last days of a campaign to at
    least protect the American people. And it has to be done in a
    way where the other side, who maybe hopes it's real, doesn't
    feel like you're tipping the scales in favor of your preferred
    candidate, right? To be blunt, let's say a video comes out
    that's fake about Trump, and the DNI comes out and says this
    video it's not a fake. Or let me do the reverse. A video that
    comes out about Biden and the DNI, yourself or whoever's in
    charge of coming out with this, says this video is a fake. I
    can see where people on the Trump side would say, well, that's
    just because you're trying to help Biden. It's probably a real
    video and the reverse would be true in a different scenario.
        So it's a hard thing to do, but someone has to be in charge
    of coming forward and at least saying it's fake, even if we
    can't attribute it. That's the obvious question. This one, the
    one I've just described about amplifying voices that are
    already out there in narratives, that's a lot tougher. I think
    the most we can say in that regard is, look, we know that these
    countries are doing this. They're not doing it because they're
    Democrats or Republicans. It serves some purpose--influencing
    Cuba policy, influencing Ukraine policy, making America look
    chaotic, getting groups to fight against each other. But this
    is what they're doing and let people make judgments as to how
    they take these narratives. It's tough.
        I don't have an easy answer for how we fix it or what the
    process should look like in terms of notifying people. I just
    know that this is going to get far more complex, and I predict
    it won't just be about elections. It will actually become in
    real time--it already is--on policy debates that we're having
    here. Should we have tariffs? Should we ban TikTok? Should we
    you-name-it? On a weekly basis, whatever the issue is here, I
    can see this becoming part of an influence even in our daily
    political debates.
        So we really need to get a handle on it. It's a tough one,
    but we really need to, because it's going to get far worse, far
    more sophisticated with many more players. And, I think, pose a
    grave danger at some point of turning into something that we
    haven't fully anticipated. And so I hope we can continue to
    work on finding a way forward, because I'm sure they'll be
    talking about it at this dais after we're both gone. This will
    still be a factor.
        Thank you.
        Chairman Warner. I agree with Senator Rubio. I think these
    are challenging times. But I think the only thing that I would
    hope we both agree on is that Americans have got plenty of
    differences between them. But if that amplification can
    literally be traced back to the Cuban spy services, and it
    appears that millions of Floridians are saying something that
    they're 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 we can trace it back that these individuals
    who are posting things anti-Ukraine are actually being paid by
    Russia. If that proof is there, some of these things would
    violate--. Why I think the upgrading of the FARA bill--. There
    are restrictions against foreign agents taking these kind of
    actions. So it is a challenge. Technology is going to make it
    much, much harder. This will not be the last time that we deal
    with this.
        And please, for all of the folks who are in the row
    supporting you and more importantly, back at your respective
    agencies, we're going to count on you. This truly is, we always
    say, and politicians always say, particularly when they're up,
    this is the most important election ever. Even though neither
    one of us is up this time, this is the most important election
    ever.
        We're adjourned.
        (Whereupon the hearing was adjourned at 4:20 p.m.)

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