This week we will be exploring documents that delve into federal law enforcement in the United States and how these efforts relate to US national security. Join our discussions about these documents on this forum thread as the blog is updated throughout the week.
Joint Report from DOJ and DHS on Foreign Interference Targeting 2020 Federal Elections
I remember back in 2020 when there would be rumors about countries like Russia that had interfered with the elections in the United States. It was interesting to me because I always wondered how a country/people could even do something like that? Shouldn't our elections system be fair and free from outside interventions? However, following the election, the Department of Justice, including the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security, including CISA, investigated the public claims and determined that they are not credible, thus it was mere rumors.
One of the most fundamental components of any democracy is ensuring free and fair elections. This article was very informative since there have been rumors of foreign election interference within the United States. Election interference is a threat to the United States, so it is significant that the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security are using physical security and cybersecurity to defend against this interference. The US Government needs to keep addressing election interference issues so that the political system can be protected.
In one of my other posts I just mentioned joint agencies and working together. I mentioned that I didn't think the different departments worked together as well as they could, and then as soon as I said that, this article was given to us. It shows the departments working together and sharing information about recent cases. It says specifically, "We the Department of Justice, including the FBI, and Department of Homeland Security, including CISA... Looks like I was wrong and the agencies do have good relations and are able to at least write a report together.
I liked that it talked about cybersecurity. It is very relevant to the topic at hand. Especially in 2018, there was a lot that happened which resulted in having a lot to talk about. 2020 was also a big year for things to happen, especially cyber attacks. The world was shut down and some people didn't do anything other than stay home and learn new exploits and hack different things. Computer usage saw a big increase and so did the attacks that come with it. Some people even started working together. At least agencies did and is how they found so many of the attacks because they worked together finding them. Good job joint task force. It's cool that they teamed up and wrote this report. I really enjoyed reading it.
This was an interesting report to read. I have heard the stories about the rigged elections to read up on how the Intelligence Community reacted to this and tried to find something tangible was interesting to say the least. What is puzzling to me is that the Intelligence Community or the IC of the United States is in the top tier of the Intelligence echelon, and they went on based rumors alone. There were no solid leads. The recommendations that the report provided were excellent. I think that each of them can be built upon in their own way, its tough to pick just one or two that would be satisfactory to use. Each of the recommendations help defend against outside interference in some way. If I had to single out one of the recommendations that need more attention, I would pick the physical security and cyber hygiene. Because we are in a modern era of technology that is expanding week by week, this area needs to be ahead of the trend.
I found this article quite interesting because foreign interference in elections has become a large issue for the country even before this past election. It is great that the Department of Justice and Homeland Security understand the real threat that events like this can pose to democracy and the security of it. However, it is critical for both the government and the citizens to remain vigilant about what is posted and seen online around election time.
Foreign interference is an inevitable concept with the government and election systems veering g to a digital platform. Even North Korea, a nation politically isolated where its citizens cannot access digital technology for the most part, has trained individuals working for the regime that attack websites and government databases. The CIA and FBI indicate that North Korean hackers were responsible for the infamous WannaCry attacks that dismantled hundreds of information technology websites. I am sure that other nations with ideological differences and are political foes to the United States have tried to access our election systems and access government files. Yet simultaneously our nation's CIA has interfered with other countries elections and political systems as well, therefore foreign interference goes both ways. It is good to hear that foreign interference in the 2020 election did not impact the election to the extent that it did in 2016 with the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee.
This article was very interesting, but I think it was needed long before this past election in 2020. I am glad that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security are worried about foreign interference targeting the election. Although in the report they said that they didn't find anything relating to foreign interference, it is good that they are looking at least. I do think that they should focus domestically as well. Citizens of the United States attempt to manipulate voting. I think that they can help with this problem with the many recommendations they made at the bottom of the article. I hope that the U.S. government looks at these vulnerabilities that we have within our election process, that way we can prevent these things from happening, instead of election security being a huge problem every election we have. We need to fix things not let them keep happening.
This is a very important document for Americans to read because it confirms that there are attempts by foreign powers to manipulate our democracy, but our democracy has remained strong! However, it concerns me that the issue of election manipulation has become a baton for political opponents to try and hit each other with. To resolve that part of the problem, our security and intelligence communities should keep Americans as up-to-date as possible with election security information during an election cycle.
Foreign Interference Targeting Election Infrastructure Report:
I think there can often be claims of election fraud when the outcome isn't what was desired by the opposing side. Of course looking into these types of fraud, especially in such important elections is needed, but claims made can often be baseless. Myanmar also had an election in 2020 where the military alleged voter fraud when they didn't agree with the outcome and went so far as to use it as a reason for justifying the coup a few months later. Independent reports found there was no evidence of voter fraud in the Myanmar elections and so it really just came down to disagreeing with Aung Sang Suu Kyi winning the election. While Myanmar's situation is far more extreme than events in the U.S. following the election, I found the parallels to be interesting.
China Case Example:
Out of the entire document I thought the mitigation efforts listed were the most interesting. Most of what was recommended seemed like it should be commonplace for a company that has important information to protect. Especially for a company that is dealing with important information for the government that's worth a lot of money. Protocols like "ensuring proprietary information is carefully protected", conducting "in-depth" background checks are performed, and making sure that retiring or separated employees return company property all seem like they should have already been in place. It just seems odd to me that it would have been so easy for this information to be taken in the first place.
It is unfortunate to see that foreign forces attempted to interfere in the 2020 elections. What's especially disturbing is that actors like Russia and Iran attempted to directly hack election systems, and would have likely tried to alter the physical vote count if they had ben able do. Thankfully the report concluded that there was no actual alteration of voting data. And while it's difficult to determine the impact that less tangible forms of interference like disinformation campaigns had, I doubt that these substantially altered the results. However, these are still vulnerabilities we need to be aware of. I hope that the US government implements the solutions outened in this report including improving physical and supply chain security, engaging in more interagency cooperation, and educating the public about disinformation campaigns.
Leading up to the 2020 election, there was a great deal of concern about potential Chinese interference in the election. However, aside from their usual political maneuvering on social media, most intelligence has found that they did not make a concerted attempt to influence the results. There was some indication that China wanted Biden to win, as they had hoped he would be more predicable then Trump. However, they eventually decided that it was not worth interfering as they both had more negative views of China. This was largely an accurate assessment, as the Biden administration has generally continued his predecessor's policy of being tough on China.
Elections can shape an outcome of a country. With both the US and South Korea being democracies, their leaders have support from their nation. To find if that support is falsified can lead to huge retaliation from the people. The report presented does conclude that outside actors are interested in tampering with elections. While the integrity of the votes was kept intact, it becomes scarier when that interference makes an actual difference. In 2006, Mexico underwent one of the most controversial elections to date. With such a close election, it became difficult to account who had won—the official votes tallied up labeled Felipe Calderon as the winner by 0.58% of votes. There were immediate rechallenges, and riots burst out for the possibility of falsified votes. Many have provided facts about the fraudulent nature of the voting, with irregularities forming at over 60 different polling places. Who would have won is still uncertain, but Mexico provides an important lesson. When voting becomes neck and neck, there will be outrage no matter the victor. For an outside country to possibly tamper with election results, they would need to make a close victory of their preferred candidate. That is how dissidence is formed. The report presented does clear up normal misinformation, but election integrity is still a rising concern.
This Report concludes that outside forces are trying to influence the election. I feel that the efforts to counter this were due to the Russian interference in the 2016 election. By having the intelligence community being on guard during presidential elections, the agencies can assure Americans that the democratic system is not being jeopardized and that elections are being conducted fairly and legally.
But As we see with the capital insurrection, even questioning the legality of an election by powerful political leaders could make Americans question the American democratic system. By having a report showing and disproving such rumors Americans can feel confident of the election system and not have any doubts about the results of the 2020 election.
I would be more interested to see this same report for the 2016 election. Although there were many rumors about the 2020 election being messed with, I feel like they were primarily spread by President Trump. However, in 2016, the rumors seemed to be more serious and coming from both sides. I am sure an investigation was done and if anything serious was found, they would have dealt with it. In 2020, it doesn't even look like there was a serious attempt to rig the election. The good thing is that the government is on top of these investigations and knows how to prevent them. The bad thing is that people are so desperate to alter the results of our election that they would try to hack it every four years.
FBI Case Example: Research Partnerships
From all situations, even bad ones, one must be able to look back on it and be able to grow from that situation. After the dilemma with the Chinese citizen expressing to others his desire to return to China to advance his career and work on research projects related to his work at the U.S. company, the lessons the United States learned are crucial to improving career, economic and political agendas.
One of the things I found interesting is that the Chinese citizen had access to such a large amount of important documents, data, and hard drives. Sure, he was working for an important American brand, but should not there be better regulations within the company to keep important data from leaving the building or being easily accessed by personnel?
Democracy requires a fair election to take place. If not, then a country's democratic values become blurred. As we know, there has been foreign interference during the 2020 elections, and this was probably also the case with the 2016 election. The United States is a very influential country, making foreign actors target our elections. However, it's good to know the background of the situation. We shouldn't blame one country as it may be multiple at fault. It's also good to consider the scope of this attack. It could have affected one city, or it could have affected many states. No problem is too small, though. For example, even if climate change changes the temperature by one degree, it could devastate the ecosystem as a whole.
DOJ and DHS are working together to solve this problem, but the first point that they must consider is who they are getting their information from. These governmental organizations could be provided misinformation. Yet, we can take away something from what we have found so far. First, we know that both the Iranian and Russian governments were involved. Furthermore, we know that other countries were involved too, but they were probably not as influential as the two countries listed before. There are two recommendations that the DOJ and DHS are suggesting for the next election. People need to be educated—especially those who work in the government. Individuals need to collaborate too. This is because working together will make solving issues a lot easier. For instance, if more countries try to address climate change, it will be easier to mitigate it.
National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism Part 2 (p. 15 - 30)
"Domestic terrorism can take many forms, inspired by a wide range of violent ideologies whose common, dangerous feature is the resort to violence rather than the peaceful expression of views and resolution of differences."
It is interesting to see how we, as humans, can react to differing opinions. Many groups of people, use violence, which in turn becomes terrorism, as a way to express their beliefs and act upon them. But why do humans do this? Why do we go from one extreme to another trying to explain what we believe? Instead, so many of our issues could be resolved if we voiced our concerns, and peacefully expressed our views. This means tackling racism, mental health, cultural stereotypes and so many other social issues that prevent humans from empathizing with one another and learn how to communicate and understand one another.
This article is both concerning and interesting because on one hand, individuals will go to great lengths to get information into the hands of foreign hands. While on the other hand it is good to see that the FBI is taking action against people who are taking sensitive US information and sharing it with the wrong people. The need for comprehensive background checks is critical in ensuring this kind of information does not get to the wrong hands.
The article is insightful and I enjoyed reading it. The article mentioned one of the indicators being making short, unexplained trips to foreign places or communicating with foreign nationals. I actually just did a video on security clearances as well as a paper on getting a security clearance with foreign families. These foreign interactions were one of the main things talked about and were indicators of terrorism or at least crimes against their country. I as well as the article talked about recommendations to curb these issues. It mentioned starting programs to deter these acts from future generations and ensure other locations and companies are safe from noncitizens. This is an unfortunate circumstance and case study but was an interesting read.
I am glad to hear that the FBI is catching people like this, it take a lot of expert intelligence to figure out stuff like this. I also really liked that the case example included ways that they can learn from their mistakes that were made. The biggest one for me was the back ground check. The background check absolutely needed to be more in depth. From the looks of what was in the case example, the individual must have had a pretty high security clearance, and this means that he is presented very secret and important issues and facts about the United States. If he is going to have access to this type of information, a better background check is needed, I am surprised the FBI did not catch this when doing his background check to begin with. I do however think it is good that the FBI is realizing their mistakes, sometimes as a large agency it is hard to do that, people worry that I will give the FBI a bad name.