[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 213 (Wednesday, December 16, 2020)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1157-E1159]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 COMMITTEE REPORT FROM THE COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS, ``HIJACKING 
   OUR HEROES: EXPLOITING VETERANS THROUGH DISINFORMATION ON SOCIAL 
                                MEDIA''

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. MARK TAKANO

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, December 16, 2020

  Mr. TAKANO. Madam Speaker, I rise today as Chairman of the House 
Committee on Veterans' Affairs, to bring attention to an important 
issue facing our nation's veterans.
  During a hearing held on November 13 of last year, the Committee 
heard about the risks faced by our nation's veterans when using social 
media. Based on the results of that hearing, as well as additional 
research and analysis, my Committee has prepared a report that not only 
details the risks faced by veterans, but also outlines a series of 
policy options and other solutions. The executive summary of the 
report, ``Hijacking Our Heroes: Exploiting Veterans through 
Disinformation on Social

[[Page E1158]]

Media,'' is below and the full text of the report is available at: 
https://veterans.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Hijacking%20Our%20Heroes.pdf.

       The threat of foreign individuals and organizations 
     influencing United States (U.S.) elections by manipulating 
     social media has been a persistent and growing issue since 
     before the 2016 election year. The threat was a significant 
     concern during the 2020 elections.
       Recent investigations and analysis document the broad 
     proliferation of online influence campaigns that originate 
     overseas. This includes the use of ``spoofing,'' or the act 
     of disguising an electronic communication from an unknown 
     source as being from a known, trusted source. A subset of 
     these operations target the veteran and military service 
     member communities in order to misappropriate their voices, 
     authority and credibility. The pervasiveness of social media, 
     as well as the nature of the specific threat to our election 
     integrity and the sowing of political discord makes this a 
     critical issue affecting both veterans and those who value 
     veterans' voices. As described by Chairman of the House 
     Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Mark Takano (D-CA), ``the 
     issue of protecting our elections from foreign influence is 
     one of critical importance to all Americans and preserving 
     the power of veterans' voices should be of equal concern to 
     us all.
       On Wednesday, November 13, 2019, the House Committee on 
     Veterans' Affairs held an investigative hearing to examine 
     the nature and scope of threats posed to the veterans' 
     community through ``internet spoofing.'' Experts testified 
     that stolen, misappropriated, or fraudulently created social 
     media accounts can be used to target veterans for the 
     purposes of disseminating political propaganda and fake news 
     in order to influence elections. The witnesses also described 
     romance scams and commercial fraud being perpetrated using 
     spoofing techniques. Representatives of three major social 
     media platforms--Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter--discussed 
     how they are addressing this threat, particularly considering 
     the 2020 elections, and described best practices for 
     information sharing, protective measures, and law enforcement 
     cooperation. The Committee later held a briefing on January 
     14, 2020, with representatives from several components of the 
     Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that handle law 
     enforcement for online crimes.
       Ranking Member Dr. David P. Roe (R-TN) noted during the 
     hearing, ``The evidence is clear that veterans have their 
     identity misappropriated and that they, like other social 
     media users, could be targets for propaganda or scams.'' 
     Although everyone who uses the internet is subject to online 
     scams, spamming, phishing, identity theft, and other such 
     risks, veterans are particularly susceptible to internet 
     spoofing based on their higher propensity for political 
     engagement (including running for office, volunteering, and 
     sharing political opinions and information). For the purposes 
     of disseminating political propaganda or exerting influence 
     on dividing Americans on sensitive political ``wedge 
     issues,'' veterans are targeted because of their close 
     identification with strong national security policies, 
     patriotism, personal sacrifice, and honor.
       Chairman Takano stated during the hearing, ``By 
     impersonating veterans, these foreign actors are effectively 
     eroding the hard-earned power and integrity of veterans' 
     voices.''
       Veterans are more likely to be engaged in their 
     communities, be perceived as leaders, and can exert influence 
     on political matters (particularly with respect to defense 
     and national security matters). Therefore, a successful 
     spoofing scam that results in a veteran or Veteran Service 
     Organization (VSO) unknowingly distributing or endorsing a 
     piece of disinformation can yield greatly increased, and 
     sometimes even exponential, results due to the added 
     credibility imparted to that disinformation by virtue of its 
     approval by the veteran or VSO. With each successive 
     endorsement or share, the credibility of the disinformation 
     snowballs. The collective association with actual veterans 
     and VSOs makes it increasingly unlikely that the 
     disinformation will be closely scrutinized, questioned, or 
     eventually exposed as fraudulent or misleading. Moreover, 
     scammers also try to spoof veterans to gain leverage over 
     them. Many veterans move into jobs requiring security 
     clearances or within the federal government after they leave 
     the military--those positions can be jeopardized if the 
     veteran is compromised through financial fraud, identity 
     theft, or otherwise becomes susceptible to blackmail.
       Internet spoofing became a visible problem in the context 
     of the 2016 U.S. election, when foreign disinformation spread 
     widely across social media, including Facebook, Instagram, 
     Twitter and YouTube, among others. However, disinformation on 
     social media and information operations conducted by 
     sophisticated actors have occurred for far longer. In the 
     past few years, foreign information operations have targeted 
     divisive political issues within American society and have 
     sought to manipulate and divide political and social 
     communities. Unfortunately, our military and veterans' 
     communities are no exception. Moreover, the incidents of 
     foreign spoofing increased following the 2016 election, and 
     industry experts project that these numbers will continue to 
     increase through 2020 and beyond. Russia's Internet Research 
     Agency (IRA), a Russian company which has engaged in online 
     influence operations, more commonly known as a ``troll 
     farm,'' dramatically expanded its information operations 
     after the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections, both in terms of 
     volume and intensity. Russia and Iran are the most prominent 
     state actors in this context, but recent work has identified 
     additional state actors, such as China and Saudi Arabia, 
     using information operations to target communities and topics 
     of interests.
       The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence published a 
     five-volume bipartisan report focused on Russia's influence 
     operations. The second volume focused on Russia's use of 
     social media platforms to influence the election, while the 
     third volume focused on the shortcomings of Obama 
     Administration efforts to combat the ongoing attacks. The 
     third volume highlighted the lack of legislative or 
     regulatory action to combat a known threat emanating from 
     Russia and its intelligence services. The Senate Report sheds 
     light on the broader issues of misinformation campaigns and 
     predatory schemes targeting veterans presented in a report 
     prepared by the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA).
       Industry analysts, journalists, and law enforcement agree 
     that the problems of internet spoofing and foreign influence 
     exerted through social media continue to grow at an alarming 
     pace. However, neither the major platforms nor the FBI were 
     able to identify an obvious or comprehensive solution to this 
     ongoing problem. Both continue to devote significant 
     resources towards combatting spoofing. However, the foreign 
     entities who perpetrate much of this illicit activity are 
     becoming more sophisticated in their schemes and are 
     targeting broader swaths of internet users to more quickly 
     and efficiently disseminate their fraudulent messaging before 
     they are identified and deactivated.
       Facebook and Twitter note that automated systems can 
     struggle to differentiate authentic images and accounts from 
     fraudulent, unauthorized, or duplicated accounts and thereby 
     risk erroneously flagging and removing legitimate accounts. 
     The platforms have chosen to err on the side of minimizing 
     false negatives by relying upon patterns of suspicious 
     activity and certain tactics or techniques, rather than on 
     other identifying data (e.g., duplicative names or images, 
     geolocation information, or ostensible organizational 
     affiliations). Suspicious activity patterns, such as 
     irregular, repetitive, or voluminous posting, triggers 
     additional layers of review, including an examination of the 
     geolocation data in order to assess where the suspicious 
     activity may be originating. The final review and removal 
     decisions sometimes warrant human examination, but often 
     removals are made without any human review. Although these 
     layered review processes may be effective in protecting 
     legitimate users, they undoubtedly also add a significant gap 
     in removal time for fraudulent accounts, which provides a 
     window within which spoofers can continue to operate.
       Law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI, are constrained 
     in their abilities to efficiently identify and eliminate 
     spoofers because the agencies only have limited access to the 
     data held by the social media platforms. Often these agencies 
     do not receive important information until after the 
     platforms have already removed a spoofed account, at which 
     point law enforcement is unable to actively monitor and trace 
     the account in real time.
       The ability of spoofers to operate from overseas, 
     anonymously, or by using fraudulent or concealed identities 
     requires law enforcement to rely upon account identification 
     data and detailed activity patterns in order to accurately 
     identify or locate the potential spoofer. However, Title II 
     of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) (18 
     U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 2701-2713), known as the Stored 
     Communications Act, requires a government entity to serve a 
     subpoena on social media platforms to compel the production 
     of certain relevant information. Requiring a time-consuming 
     legal process to obtain identification data hampers the 
     ability of law enforcement to respond quickly or to fully 
     understand the scope of a potential spoofing campaign. 
     Therefore, the law enforcement agencies recommend increasing 
     the amount and level of detail that the platforms can easily 
     provide to the authorities.
       Past attempts to address this problem have been piecemeal 
     in nature and have proven ineffective to date. This 
     fragmented approach has prevented any wholesale, systemic 
     efforts to tighten rules or law enforcement protocols. 
     Incremental adjustments have been made by individual 
     platforms, which leaves an irregular landscape where 
     motivated, corrupt actors may still be able to exploit 
     weaknesses among the platforms.
       Based on discussions with representatives of law 
     enforcement, and considering the issues raised by the social 
     media platforms during the hearing, the Committee believes 
     that there are additional measures needed to address the 
     growing threats posed by spoofing. Our recommendations fall 
     into two broad categories.
       The first category is oriented at users of social media and 
     is defensive in nature, such as teaching users how to be 
     aware of the dangers posed by spoofers on social media and 
     training them how to protect themselves through heightened 
     vigilance, healthy skepticism, and adherence to basic 
     principles of cyber-hygiene.
       The second category is aimed at putting the social media 
     platforms and law enforcement on the offensive and developing 
     robust

[[Page E1159]]

     mechanisms to more effectively identify and quickly eliminate 
     foreign-based spoofers. While the first category is likely to 
     be less costly and easier to implement, the second category 
     may ultimately prove to be more effective in bringing the 
     threat under control.

                          ____________________