Transcripts For CSPAN2 Hearing On Combating Global Disinformation 20240713

[inaudible conversations] thank you very much for being here and i particularly want to thank chairman barrasso because he allowed us to have the subcommittee hearing and for me to chai chair if this is a discn thats important to all of us that are here and so many of our colleagues. Information is power today, and we see it all over the globe when its used improperly it is used as a weapon. Democracy requires wellinformed electorate to function properly but to undermine the principle through socalled Disinformation Campaigns designed to mislead voters and in doing so delegitimize the democratic elections. Actors like russia systematically exploit the media and to distort the truth to an unsuspecting populace with regards to the coronavirus and this information is being spread is a high degree and anonymous and again if left unchecked it could be devastatingly effective. I established this organization it could help lead to the global disinformation effort and work with International Partners. The Bipartisan Legislation within the state department is now the law and to get it up and going we will hear more about that today but we are pleased that we are making progress. They lead, synchronize and coordinate efforts in countering the states and nonstate propaganda and disinformation efforts. So, it is a broad and in work and mandate. Its a central message to create this issue against the falsehoods that affect the integrity of other democracies. We are pleased to have Peter Gabriel as our first witness. A former human intelligence Operations Officer for the Liaison Officer in the navy program director. Shes done all that within her short life so its very impressive that she is well experienced. We look forward to the assessment and budgetary requirements moving forward. I think its critical that we resource this important mission. We will have poly, im going to try this again i always call her alena. From the center of european policy analysis and Dan Blumenthal from the institute is at the expert witnesses as we have a serious discussion. Theyve testified before other hearings and today we will examine the democracies to put intentional sponsored information there are examples of this happening we have extensive documentation that russia conducted a coordinated campaign in the 2016 elections ukraine has been the subject in response to its efforts to break free we see the rise from the indo pacific and europe. This is a global problem and that requires a response. The security conference with some of my colleagues here we have a robust discussion about this and about the partnership in fighting disinformation. Today i want to dig deeper into the subject as well. With regard to the Indo Pacific Region it is a model for others to follow and how they manipulate or block information doesnt feed the desired narrative. Last i think its important that the u. S. Continue to be a world leader to combat this disinformation. To the other agencies weve established a close and effective relationship with our counterparts and the joint effort to gain traction elsewhere. The topic of disinformation is now a topic of discussion across the globe as they solve the conference in munich. To continue the leadership on this issue, we have to have effective organizations to coordinate the response this hearing will address so we can understand better and also make the gc even more effective. The problems caused by the deliberate statesponsored information are going to be here for a long time. They are not leaving. Tactics are inexpensive, effective and its critical that we understand the dangers and the best way to seize the initiative. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses in a moment and from the members of the committee, i now turn to the Ranking Member senator volker for his opening remarks. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. You can only get a hearing done that you and senator murphy and your extraordinary leadership in drafting the legislation that authorized if i understand correctly the executive order as to something that was established and i want to thank senator murphy for the leadership in many ways as a more Junior Member on the committee. This is a very bipartisan hearing. The concern in the mission is is organizations aorganization bute department refused to provide the committee with the witnesses requested and that is unacceptable to me. Its not the way we should be doing business. We have shared values and a shared understanding of the growing more sophisticated threats it is just unacceptable to me it isnt helping us to do the business of the people at protecting us and keeping us safe. And that brings me to where my thoughts are for the moment which is the aftermath of september 11 with the goal of reducing the influence and effectiveness of extremist groups that were seeking to harm americans. Today the scope of this work is incredible to me the scope beyond violent extremist groups and statesponsored propaganda is going to be an incredibly Critical Mission given the complex challenges. And as we are sitting here in this hearing there is widespread concern regarding the coronavirus at the time when people are worried in a vulnerable and we understand that in the context of this it is very profound. We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and that the additional threat of fear. The Washington Post has been reporting on the scott talking about the use of social media and the Conspiracy Theory put us out of danger. Its a coordinated activities responsible for pushing these dangerous falsehoods. One Conspiracy Theory is to attack people in this country to blame them bill and melinda gates. About this thread they find these lies is put out more danger and so this intentional desire to model the fact to undermine the security and safety to make us doubt the institutions. Ticket to the bottom of this information is exactly why it was created by congress but i have some questions about why go so far refused to comment about the report and other reliable news outlets are seeking to expose this so i hope to have that conversation as this goes on. Im also hoping to get to the bottom of the information that theyve uncovered about those that are spreading the falsehoods and what purpose and effect its already having. Russian interference demonstrate the dangers posed and we now know that the russians and other countries are trying to get better and better and more sophisticated at what they are doing. They are targeting democracies showing the sport through misinformation and attempting to weaken relationships between allies. Theres no reason to believe they are not going to continue to employ this playbook to get better at it than to seize any opportunities that the coronavirus to undermine the safety, security and our very bond here in the United States of america. While they dont have the authority over the homeland through the data and analysis collected on the techniques and practices, we know a lot more about what they do and to meet a lot of the challenges they present. I want to know how this is being shared with agencies including the department of homeland security, fbi and more. And while the u. S. Recently has began to see these threats, the neighbors have had the attempts to reverse the gains for years. We also know these efforts are not limited to europe and the United States. They are seeing this growing in africa. Moscows engagement fosters corruption especially in an already fragile african country. We know the activities are defined as part to weaken the u. S. Leadership in the region, but to undermine the very ideals of our democracy and others. Last year facebook identified accounts targeting eight african countries saying although the people behind these networks attempted to conceal the identity and coordination, our r investigation connected these two entities associated with a specific russian oligarchs who was described as the architect of russians interference in the 2016 election. China also has rapidly increased the use of influence tactics in the information space. It is clearly playing out in the misinformation space as well and so to me the task is considerable to lead efforts to counter propaganda from other organizations and countries. I look forward to hearing from both panels about how we as congress can continue to strengthen our work to make sure they are meeting what i believe is a growing threat tactic and techniques being used to undermine this country as well as critical allies and the stability and strength of people all around the country. Thank you again for being here and mr. Chairman, i turn it back to you you. Thank you. I appreciate those statements and we will get into more of the issues as we go forward. The first is mr ms. Gabriel, coordinator of the Global Engagement center for the department of state and all of your written record will be put in its entirety into the record. We ask that you limit your remarks this morning to five minutes coming up we look forward to your testimony, and then to asking questions. So, ms. Gabrielle, your Opening Statement. Thank you for inviting me to testify before you today. Im pleased to talk about the Global Engagement center. This is an important topic with serious implications for u. S. National security adviser she at the subcommittesheetthe subcomms time to it. We are dedicated to the mission of leading and coordinating the u. S. Government efforts to decisively exposed and counter before in state and nonstate disinformation propaganda. Secretary pompeo has called upon to employ a broad suite of tools to stop americas adversaries from organizing information and using propaganda to undermine the free society. Capabilities globally to ingest foreign propaganda. I worked to ensure mikey enter team has the necessary tools and resources by congress. At the state department chief conference, i spoke with the u. S. Ambassador who represents us around the world. I shared on threat assessment on this information propaganda and listen to their perspective on how developments are playing out on the ground. We at the gec recognize the crucial role that our missions and officers play on the front lines of the information battleground. My teams are working with embassies overseas and with the Department Regional bureau daily to execute and corny activities. Today i will outline how we view the disinformation of the kremlin and the Chinese Communist party are propagating. What were doing to counter each in the role that data and analytics play in our work. I will also describe the gecs role in court needed the government effort to respond to foreign propaganda in this information. I am also available to answer any questions about how the gec uses propaganda from terrorist organizations like isis as well as disinformation from the iranian regime. Lets start with the kremlin. The intent scope and style of this information propaganda spread by the kremlin and the Chinese Communist party are distinct from one another. The kremlin swamp the media environment with the tsunami of lies. Outside of russia the kremlin seeks to weaken adversaries by manipulating the environment and the various ways by polarizing political conversations. And attempting to destroy the publics fate in good government, independent media and democratic principles. To counter the kremlins disinformation, the gec is creating Strategic Partnership with Foreign Government to enable information sharing in the coronation that allows us to get ahead of the russian government Information Operation. The gec is providing support to our Mission Abroad and International Partners for wide range of efforts to counter the comments disinformation. This includes Civil Society groups in central and Eastern Europe that build resiliency in the communities. In running joint communication campaigns with allies to counter russian historical revisionism and to empower Fact Checkers in latin america to stem the surge of information in that region. With increased funding, we intend to provide more of this type of support to additional allies and partners globally so they can increase their own ability to resist the russian tactics. The investments we have made have also allowed us to expose elements of the russian government Information Operation ecosystem. This exposure inoculates audiences against the threat in critical. While moscow wants to rip enter disrupt the current order, the communist party seeks to shape it to beijings exampl advantag. Theyre pursuing a comprehensive court needed comprehensive campaign to advance interest and undermine the United States. But when you take a closer look, it is clear that many of the ccps action in the economic, security and human rights base our bill propaganda. The gec program is focused on puncturing the falseness. Our efforts to counter ccc propaganda to increase aspects of the belton road initiative. Increasing awareness of the problematic aspects of human rights abuses and elsewhere in china. As well as beijings abuse of open research and academic environment to achieve the military objective we also have programs to build global resilience to disinformation through Media Training and support investigative journalist and to map prc influence in the number information for future purchase. Beijing also wants to shape third country perspective of the u. S. Foreign policy. In order to restrict the space, wherccp up again it can take the route, oversees an effort to provide Accurate Information about u. S. Policies and the contribution of u. S. Businesses to the local communities. All of this our success depends on leveraging analytical tools as well as network, credible partners and local voices overseas and capabilities we are refining and expanding each day. My team and i are committed to the commission at Congress Task to the gec. In the modern age, the russian government, prc and other adversaries have clearly found ways to leverage new technologies to deepen and accelerate the impact this information propaganda can have. As always been the case, free nations must unite and Work Together to defeat the threat. I am here today that we are making progress. We are building up the gecs capability, crafting strategies tailored to the specific approaches of adversaries and most important link we are regaining the initiative. I thank you very much for the opportunity to testify today, i truly appreciate the subcommittee support for the gecs omission and look forward to answering your questions. Thank you and i appreciate your opportunity to share with us in more details in your Opening Statement. I got three colleagues who have scheduling conflicts and a couple republicans who will come back. Im going to take a minute now and ask questions after have a chance for the have to leave and what i want to talk about is coronavirus which is such a hot topic. In this very room we had a hearing earlier today, everything i guess you would call it was some of the nations experts on the issue, there has been some discussion in her Opening Statement about the fact there is information out there including groundless conspiracy theories being promoted and theres an analysis i saw that you believe there is evidence of an authentic incarnated activity concerning social media post in tweets, can you talk about the work they have done on this already in the disinformation on the coronavirus and the conclusions regarding the role of state actors in the falsehoods. Absolutely, thank you for raising this important issue. The coronavirus is an example of where we seen adversaries take advantage of a Health Crisis where people are terrified worldwide to try to advance their priorities. The gec has a robust analytics and Research Capability and we work with partners so we can use the highest Level Technology and the latest data science tools to assess the environment. We are watching the narratives that are being pushed out, false narratives around coronavirus. Unfortunately, weve been able to assess the account tied to russia, the entire ecosystem of this disinformation has been engaged in the midst of the world Health Crisis. One of the best practices encountering propaganda and disinformation is exposing it. So decreasing the vulnerability and audiences that are targeted and increasing resilience requires exposing disinformati disinformation, this is an example where the gec works with Public Diplomacy and affairs at the state department so we can get the word out and engage with the Media Organization to share some analysis that we had on what we see in terms of coronavirus. We sell the entire ecosystem at play. Russian state proxy website, official state media as well as swarms of online false personas personal false narrative. Exposing it by working with the media has built awareness around the issue so theres a lot of disinformation and right now i hope all actors will act in the most responsible manner to support people that are scared around the midst of this crisis. Exposing it is obviously critical in providing the counter narrative which is the factual narrative in the scientific narratives. We will have more time to talk about that and other issues. Im gonna do for to senator murphy again and i express my gratitude for his leadership on this and look forward to hearing his line of question. Thank you very much. Thank you to you for this hearing and thank you ms. Gabriel for what is been great leadership and i congratulate you with a fairly skimpy budget having extended the reach of the gec substantially during your time. We have been complaining forever about the fact we are fighting asymmetric wars all over the world, predominantly with russia, thats where you hear the term used the most but would china as well. And asymmetry is a choice, its not inevitability, we made a choice over the years to not equip our forces and our foreignpolicy Infrastructure Overseas with the capacity they need to compete. In the gec and attempt to fill a vacuum on our side of the ledger with respect to the ability to fight in combat disinformation. And yet, the reach of the gec is frankly negr eager to what is ot there now. I am hopeful that we can get out there. Ms. Gabriel, with respect to funding, i think its important to note and you can tell me if im wrong, the president s budget request is requesting funding within the state department for the gec. At the very beginning we were forced to do a transfer fun from the dod to state department to get the gec up and running but that is a cumbersome process, unnecessary given the fact that we agree on the efficacy of your work. Can you speak to the importance of having the gec funded through the state Department Rather to transfer funds . Yes senator murphy and thank you for raising this important issue. The gec is focused on our mission of disinformation. What we are requesting and reflected in the president s request to congress is an increase to allow to expand the scope and scale of activities for disinformation. And to bring all the tools to bear. And to focus our team on the Mission Rather than on process. We truly appreciate the work from congress on finding mechanisms to assist in providing funding for the gec in the past and over the past year we have seen the process of trying to obtain funding from a Different Agency to be extremely commerce him although we work closely with commands and built very strong relationships with the dod, we do assess that the best practice and process would be directed funding for the gec and state department. So your report on coronavirus and this information has gotten a lot of attention. Im glad you produced it. Tell us about your ability to be able to communicate with the social Media Companies that are transiting a lot of this information whether you have the capacity today or something you envision being able to do more but robustly and effectively with Additional Resources. I think its important to understand that what we are seeing is the ecosystem where this information and propaganda is being pushed out across platforms. The relationships are very important and were working to build relationships, we have an alanon from the gec in Silicon Valley and were doing a lot of outreach with Tech Companies to understand the technology being developed to counter disinformation but also to be able to have open minds of communications. I want to be clear, the gec works for the American People, social Media Companies are companies so the gec is going to be focused on best practices to serve the American People encountering form propaganda and disinformation. Sometimes that means sharing information, sometimes it means exposure through the media, that relationship is important but i will focus on the best practices and not looking at any specific individual account but rather the principle of what is happening and how we can counter it. I also have a question and maybe im leading into the question about what lanes different parts of the federal government occupy and maybe your giving me an answer to this question. There is an important question of identifying sources of propaganda, identifying foreign actors that are putting propaganda online, there is Platform Companies more willing to take those actors off the platform, theres others that are not as discriminating. Are you saying that is not primarily your role to identify the sources and have that communication with the pop from companies that there are other elements in the federal government that are better suited to do that . I think social Media Companies have a tremendous challenge with protecting their consumers in terms of what is happening on their platforms but the point im trying to make is not just about the individual platforms, its a big picture we see develop and how adversaries are using the social media landscape to push out false narrative. So we focus on theres a misunderstanding about how to counter this information, theres a misunderstanding just taken down specific personas online or point and counterpoint, that is not best practices predict gec put a lot of focus on working with our partners in the inner agency, Intelligence Community and partners worldwide, working with the Academic Community to understand how you do this and its about sensitizing audience, its getting out in front of the problem rather than reacting. Also trying to focus on sources rather than specific content. It is hard to chase one lie after another, you actually have to go after the source and expose the source as illegitimate or untrustworthy. That is correct. Lastly, tell me about the relationship with a different state department post, you have embassies all over the world that have political officers working on this question of disinformation with local objective journalists who are trying to do the right thing, i imagine the current level its hard to be able to have a hand in all the embassies and the places that we care about on china and russia, is that something you can do more of with Additional Resources . There is so much we can do more of with Additional Resources. As my team has said, we really like to get the g in the gec gaining the global. We are critical working with bureaus and weve been doing a good job with that. Just to give you an understanding of how the gec is broken down, disinformation of propaganda is the undermining the u. S. Security in the alleys and partners worldwide everyday all the time. We have to focus our resources on the adversaries having those effects. Thats why we broken it down so far. We divide into threat teams, russia, china and iran and we focus on the violent extremist threat. We also have a cross functional team, Tech Engagement Team working with Tech Companies to identify the best technology being developed in the space to counter the information and what is very critical, we have analytic and Research Team that supports all teams, this is where we can put a lot of resources to make sure were staying up with the latest technology so we can do the assessments of the environment and a apply best practices. Our analyst team has 25 data scientists who are experts and add text, natural language processing, social media and traditional media monitoring, they have all the tools and they know how to use that are available on the market, they wrote their own algorithms and codes so they can build programs we can share with their partners and allies, another thing we built the first of its kind, i think that noise might be my mic to faraway Something Different okay. I want to talk about disinformation sharing platform that the team has developed in the first of a kind and sharing these tools in the capabilities to do in alexa and research with our partners worldwide, not just so they can see our analysis and our tools but so they can be force multiplier and do their own assessment and provide and feed back in. The large coronation is a big part of what were doing, resources will help and we need to take the issue global. I am grateful to do this work with senator portman. Thank you for his leadership in being here with the leadership. We look forward to continuing this conversation but there really important points that you raise. Thank you very much. I went to get a better understanding of how much work you doing inhouse and how much are contracting out, you have an employee equivalents or funding that goes outside or inside or so forth. Try to get a picture of how your structure. At the gec we have 118 people as of today, that the 42 increase since we received fy 17. But with this global problem that we are facing, i think its clear itll be enforceable supplier. Since ive been on board, ive been very focused on building a team with expertise that we need, regional expertise, analytics and expertise of people who understand Information Operation and coming from an advertising background. In building the team has been critical. I focused on making sure the team has resources that they need to execute on this and weve been very focused on building a strategy. Our strategy really has three main lines of effort, the first is to lead and execute, countering propaganda in the campaigns. Thats bringing into alignment what were learning from the experts, what were doing with the inner agency, when we coordinate from a policy perspective another policy guidance and what we quorum it with their International Partners soberly being a force multiplier in taking propaganda globally. The other thing that we have been doing, having the opportunity to put Program Funding where they can have highimpact solutions and in building the big picture essentially to what everybody else is doing in space incarnating and bringing it to a strategic alignment, we can see where theres opportunity to have highimpact and thats where we can work with thirdparty implementers who have unique expertise, ability and no different parts of the world. I think to give you a picture, we see ourselves as a datadriven Mission Center that should be entered rising the Network World writing of partners and alleys for the information. My question was pretty simple, what portion of your operation is inhouse and what is outside. And you have not answered that prayer can you give me an answer. Is difficult to do apples topless comparison. We have 118 people with a worldwide problem. We are force multiplier, the work that were doing worldwide in working with our allies and partners is much greater in some of its parts. Your inhouse spending, is it ballpark, 20 of your budget, is 80 of your budget, just getting a basic understanding. The inhouse spending, i want to get back with the exact number but its around 75 , maybe 70 but i have to make sure you understand, big portion is creating the analects and research capabilities, we are datadriven. But we dont want to use antidotal evidence to attract the problem, to recognize understanding expose encounter start to data and starts of having to write experts inhouse and having those capabilities to drive impartial solutions. If i go back two years ago, it was reported that the inhouse team working on russian propaganda did not have russian speakers, im guessing by now that is completely been corrected. Yes, it has. How many russian speakers do you have now . I want to make sure i get you a correct number and we will report back but that is my deputy as a russian speaker. Are they all russian speakers . No they are not all russian teachers and a former human intelligence operator oftentimes when youre working in different environments you use others to help you understand the information environment. But youre able to get the talent that unique, youre pretty satisfied yes okay. Ill let you followup and give me details if you would. In 2019, i was asking about how much is done out of house, once you contract outside of groups, sometimes its hard to keep control of exactly what they are doing. We had one case where i think things got out of hand with the ironic disinformation project in which they were putting out essentially disinformation rather than being counter disinformation including attacking and smearing u. S. Citizens and i know you cut funding to them or your predecessor did, im not sure if this is when you came in, can you fill us in on that and how your developing strategies so there are funding groups actually are engaged in this information rather than countering the information. Thank you for raising the important issue. I was a special envoy in coordinator when the issue arose and i will tell you within hours of learning about the fact that one of her implementers had gone outside of the scope of their agreement, it was never intended for them to readdressing u. S. Domestic audience, as soon as we found out that they went outside the scope of the agreement i immediately suspended that particular project. Then we conducted an internal review and decided to in that contract. And to in the agreement. We did have some Lessons Learned from that. We had teams monitoring social media over implementers. I have been very focused on implementing measures of effectiveness in Monitoring Evaluation and all of our programs, we follow the latest research as we approach these problems so we can make sure we are using respected organizations that are vetted, we have a vetting process at the state department and we have regular oversight as well as reporting from all of the organizations so we have a very robust effort to put in place and make sure any implementers are staying within the scope of work improperly spending taxpayer dollars, that is critical. Thank you. Im down to 30 seconds, i want to ask in regard to specific efforts of russia to spread the disinformation on u. S. Regarding the coronavirus that came out of the lab, you mustnt enter mentioned there was a lot of being generated you mentioned a lot of people and buildings to treat, how much messages are being generated. What are the terms of the technology they are employing . What we are seeing as i mentioned as an entire ecosystem. If you look at the spectrum it looks that russian statefunded media, official accounts, proxy news sites that have been conspiracy theories under journalism and legions of false social media persona. Many of those were not bots. We saw thousands pushing out false information. Thousands of people not bots, people generated . So were seen more reliance on human operations than on bots in this regard . It continues to be a mix. Thinking. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman, first of all, thank you, i cannot express the patriotic duty you are doing in our country, and this whole area was not imaginable ten years ago. I am very understanding that this is something there were all continuing to learn, my friends founded some of these companies are working closely with and a lot of things are moving fast and the challenges are oncoming developing the like in your presence and leadership and dedication and commitment is incredible. I want to get to some specific understanding, the report that you have on the coronavirus specifically, you did not make the public, is a classified data in there . Is that concern . We have done a number of reports and coronavirus that are intended to inform our partners and allies both inside the interagency as well as our partners worldwide on what were seen around false narratives, sometimes it makes sense to share those reports and sometimes it does not. It goes back to best practices, a report that you have been referencing, some have been out in the press and there was one report that allegedly that was leaked to the media, i have not seen what it is that theyre talking about but it does talk about some of what weve been seen, the reporting i have seen accurately depicts what weve been seen and we did share one of our analysis with Media Organization specifically around russian disinformation in the narratives that we have seen. That was specifically to address our best practices encountering disinformation which is exposing it. That is my point, if were trying to expose this, wouldnt you make sense for all the reports unless theres classified information to train to protect sources et cetera. Why not get that information out there, doesnt help discredit the activities themselves . What is important is exposing and showing enough supported analysis to expose the problem. But what we do not want to do we dont want to share our tradecraft with our adversary. So youre saying the reports you and i are talking about that are not public and not intentionally public have tradecraft in them that we want to protect . That is true. Im not saying its classified tradecraft, its methodology weve been developing and we intentionally made a lot of these reports and unclassified levels so we can share with our partners and allies which is important in exposing. The zeros and ones of how were doing the work, that is not prudent in terms of best practice in disinformation and exposure were trying to do. We dont want to give our adversaries opportunity. I respect that. And so do you see a part of your mission in releasing information that you are trying to dispel it, undercut it, kneecap what is going on out there . Best practices are not counterpart, its rather to decrease vulnerability and increase resilience, by exposin forgive me for interrupting, i get that. I guess also with a specific challenge of the coronavirus. There could be the dual purpose. Best practices, helping to empower the folks but when you are exposing this, it diffuses the strength of the disinformation as well. Am i correct . That is correct and thats why we did it. Thank you. To the extent that you see this, you said here which is one of my first questions, specifically the russians and their sophisticated networks are trying to put out disinformation about the coronavirus and our country and our people at risk. Is that definitively correct . We saw the entire russian ecosystem of disinformation pushing out false narrative around coronavirus. That is correct. You release that in the reports that you released . We have shared the analysis of one of the reports with the Media Organization who accurately reported on that, we have answered questions that were provided to us through Public Diplomacy and public affairs, its wellknown at this point that there are false narratives out there around coronavirus and its very helpful for people who are scared in the midst of the crisis to understand that they need to go to accurate sources of information like the World Health Organization in the cdc for active information on how to protect themselves. I guess this is a big frustration for what i have, we still have people in positions of authority in our country that are denying the growing sophistication of the russians in their ecosystem as you call it which seems to give strength to them and if we in ourselves are denying that the russians are doing this kind of activity, is my concern that government officials would be denying the strength sophistication, the ecosystem as you put it that the russians are using to undermine whether its this or election security, isnt that problematic as the goal is to diffuse this by exposing it to have counter narratives coming from positions of authority, denying that the russians are even doing this activity, doesnt that make us more vulnerable and mockup the water so to speak with our ability to expose and diffuse those very russian activities . I can only speak to what ive seen in the support i have received come ive seen. Or from this administration to the Global Engagement center and propaganda and disinformation reflected in the 138 milliondollar budget request to congress which i truly hope they will support. I appreciate that clearly representative in this i dont expect you to state specifically, i was saying to talk about the administration specifically allows me too do that no problem, i just think of you as an actor. It is problematic if positions of authority are undercutting the very point that you made which is that this is a threat to the United States and the russians are growing in sophistication and have established ecosystem, that in itself an academic way is a simple yes, sir no question, its very problematic, yes, sir no if we as a country are speaking with multiple voices and some say this is not a problem that they are not doing this and only give strength to the russians themselves, is that correct . The kremlins goal is to separate and divide us, is classic sir version, the more we can Work Together bipartisan, nonpartisan on working on disinformation we will be better as a country. Hallie lew leone, amen. Thats exactly what their tactic is to divide us and undermine our trust of our agencies, our trust of our intelligence apparatus to directly purchase and its very frustrating to me when you see folks that should work in tandem publicly giving the same message, undermining the truth in the simple truth you are putting forward and i appreciate that response and i will yield to my chairman who has a much better haircut than me. First of all it was dark hair before i got involved in this issue. I used to have a big afro and i was saying earlier behind the. I am very encouraged and i want to thank you for coming, i want to follow up on a few issues, senator brooker is correct that the more information is better in the context of coronavirus as to what some of the false narratives are in the exposure is part of it and best practices, we did this money and what you said this morning is pretty powerful. What you have not done is provided specific examples mentioned earlier of bill gates and not sure people understand what that meant but ill give you a chance if you would to play out one or two of the false narratives that have been out there in regard to coronavirus so people can be aware. I want to be careful with my words because repeating false narratives reinforces them. We learned from social science that often times people believe the first version of the story that they hear and its an uphill battle to undo that. If you would like to identify certain disinformation narratives i can but i prefer not to. Let me do it since it was mentioned earlier which is somehow bill gates and some labs started the coronavirus which is an absolute falsehood and no basis for it. Since it was mentioned earlier i want to clarify that. But that is an example of the thing for a person watching today who is not an expert on what disinformation propaganda means, thats an example of something meant to divide us and you mention polarization earlier, werent polarizers soon country and as you said earlier, my colleagues have said distress, institutions and the government in a democracy like ours. Why that is so important. I think your role is incredibly important, we talked a lot about the budget and i want to put a finer point on that if i could, my understanding you requested 76 million and were procreated 60 million for this fiscal year and i are asking for 138 million which is again more than a doubling of what youre currently receiving. Fiscal discipline is important but when you look at the mission and the importance of the mission and the fact that increasingly as a former military officer your self, increasingly our battle is not kinetic, some say hybrid but specifically its battling of diffs information and my hope is that we can support the mission more strongly and make sure spent wisely, i think senators question to you is important to be sure we do not have contractors who are misrepresenting what you want to do and im glad you acted quickly to the iranian issue in the media like if you could talk a little more about the new approach in the dod transfer to you that we thought was necessary to get to up and going in the kickstart i agree what you said today and what was implied by what senator murphy said that that was not a successful endeavor, it took too much of your time and other peoples time to work through the bureaucracy in the fight of secretaries of defense were always supported when they talk to me at least and they were i believe but for the bureaucracy to respond and also your secretary of state right now, circuitry pompeo in his previous deputy secretary sullivan and current deputies, and deputy secretary and are very supportive and thats why you see the bigger numbers being requested. We dont want to go back to the dod focus but we do want to be sure that we can justify the budget increase you are asking for, what would you say is the best way to do that. You have a mix of Foreign Service officers, contractors, some folks who understand the interagency utilities, you have to have technical experts and you can do these algorithms and their highly paid individuals because you have to get them to the private sector and you cant compete on a monetary basis, but theyre happy to serve their country. What would you think is the main reason we need to more than double the budget. There is a very simple answer and its because we need more of everything to execute this on a global scale. I think your wanting specific examples of initiatives and ill go further. I think we need to be focused on the continent of africa and we should be shifting focus, we should see russian Disinformation Campaigns off the continent and see chinese malign influence, we see a programs ready to go and we have a local leader across the board and we have the resources to do that right now, we have to continue to stay had entered the capability and the Tech Industry and some examples are initiatives that we have and we plan implemented grenada campaigns that takes spending people to travel business partnerships with other countries means bringing funding to the table and being able to lead on those initiatives. Were developing repeatable tradecraft that we can share, i mentioned the platform and online information sharing platform that were sharing with partners and allies worldwide that is critical. Were conducting analysis to understand and Craft Solutions to be datadriven in this approach and that takes money. Were analyzing the attempts to adversaries, the Tech Solutions take money. Heres another place really important, supporting the nonus government efforts on the ground who have expertise in their regions to understand the problem and to push back with effective solutions. It all takes money, we have to put the g back in the gc and make a global. It is very helpful to have that list of specific priorities and initiatives that do require resources. While all add that you mentioned earlier is to be proactive. I think this is something that you said is consistent with best practices and requires resources. Not always use Government Resources as indicated including listing our allies, partners and we talked about journalist earlier in objective and professional journalists to counterpart i think getting ahead of the curve is more important than ever. I cannot agree with you more, i try to agreement with kenya give you truth to help those in west africa. There is a lot we can do right now with africa to counter what is clearly a target for other actors including russia and china. My final question has to do with keeping us up to speed. There was everything with Congressional Staff in this hearing is an opportunity for you to brief us, we would like to do more of that and i think honestly if we did this a couple years ago it wouldve been difficult because you did not have your feet on that point or the resources or the personnel and it takes a little while to get the organization up and going. Weve been going with some interesting going further, would you commit today to send your staff on a more regular basis to consult with with members and share on what youre doing . Absolutely. I can tell you that my staff tremendously enjoyed the act and were very proud of the work, and its a wonderful opportunity to interact and highlight the leadership in a great thinking coming for my team at the Global Engagement center. I want to dig in, just your general strategic approach, i think that was great testimony for more resources. And from what i have been reading, the expansive attempts of chinese and russians on that continent it i think the global under global science term is can you give a little bit more description of your strategic approach to the problem . I tell you that this is a perfect example of where we need more resources, right now were launching a program that Networks International china experts with local African Voices to exchange insight and better understanding of enter tcp and africa, were emphasizing technology, we have a team to kenya in a couple months for a tech challenge in its where were convening tech experts to local government expert, ngos and members of our team to look at in excess technologies being developed on the continent that counter propaganda disinformation and only serves to provide an opportunity to give funding to the companies trying to make their technologies work and that can be effective in the space but more importantly its important and visit building resiliency and decreasing vulnerability by exposing them and bringing them together in a community of interest in this challenge. There is so much more we can be doing and thats why truly important that we have the funding in the direct funding were requesting. Besides china and russia are there other powers and i work there . Of course we can never take our eye off a Violent Extremist Organization in the terrorist tt threat. One white its been executed is in the ct space. I am a cold lead on the Communication Working Group of the coat under global to defeat isis. My team has built a campaign to counter isis ideology in the core that we have worked through the interagency as been supported by the nsc and we now taken it to the Global Coalition of working to sensitize the 82 members of the Global Coalition on this campaign to bring us to strategic alignment, this campaign would start in the core but it can be applied to places in africa where we see the ct threat become more hot. We have to continue to keep her eye on the ball, theres a number of threat, china and russia are at the top as well as a Violent Extremist Organization threat. Last thing, the power diversity ive seen this in the senate, weve been talking a lot about diversity in general of the state department, i would love to see numbers as you build your team about gender and Race Diversity in your department and i know from watching folks trying to do with misinformation on social media that might be targeting certain groups that having diverse staff with experiences can pick up a notice and things others cannot. I agree with you that diversity is very important bringing a number of different ideas, expertise, backgrounds is critical. I talk about the Different Levels of expertise that we have and i made the gc more diverse as a leader. I would love if you can help me get a picture where you are youre probably not prepared right now on race, and gender and religious diversity, as well. We would be happy to share the information with you. Thank you very much. I appreciate you being here today and it was reassuring to me that one of the challenges that is apparent to all of us is that you have a very broad mandate in the missions crackle, the resources are limited and having performance majors and understanding what commission is is important. I will not ask you today to give us your specific measures of effectiveness but its something id like to follow up on and be helpful to you including if we need to do anything in the legislative side including reauthorization, how can we focus and target on what is essential given the broad mandate. Thank you much and we will stay in touch. I want to echo and say thank you again. You are literally trying to do a startup operation and a sense learn to build a plane and flight at the same time. Thank you to the commitment to the country and the patriotism you shown throughout your entire career, thank you for being with us today. Thank you very much, im proud of my team and the work they are doing. We thank you for this opportunity. We will go ahead with our second panel, we have two experts who are going to join us, and i will let them come up to the front first we have mr. Daniel blumenthal, mr. Blumenthal is the director of Asian Studies in the american institute, he has testified before congress before on this topic and were impressed with this testimony. And doctor is president and ceo of the center for european policy analysis, she is an expert in this area and i had an opportunity to see her in action at a security conference talking to International Partners and ngos in with her today is her mother irena, i want to recognize you as well. I know you must be very proud. Senator brooker is going to join us in the second, he has seen the testimony and i will ask you all to go ahead in your written testimony will be printed in the record in its entirety and i ask you to keep it under five minutes and will have a chance for some giveandtake and i will ask mr. Blumenthal if he will go first. Yes, absolutely. Thank you, senator portman in booker when he comes back for alholding this important hearin. As you heard, the disinformation censorship and propaganda threat is one of the greatest challenges we face, i think when you talk about chinese ominous party, you have to put it under the rubric of china committed and engaged Political Warfare against us in information and disinformation and censorship are one key pillar of the Political Warfare, they have been doing so for many years and we just started to engage that fight. The political worker meaning trying to undermine our position in the world, our alliances, our own democratic system through all means other than actual military warfare. As i allied in my written testimony there is an unbelievable number of organizations that are involved in propaganda censorship, harassment of media, western and internal, at least ten that i mentioned, and even more than that, lets not to say that its a feature of the Chinese Communist party system, its not above, its built on lies and afraid of the truth, so the season when it comes to the coronavirus part of the reason were facing a greater virus is because there was a coverup in china for a matter of two months and as we now know people who try to tell the truth in china, doctors and journalists and so on are punished, detain and arrested. China goes after these people because the Chinese Communist party cannot live with exposure of any kind of mismanagement or corruption or injustice. But the entire chinese activity in the censorship space is just humongous. They go after western media as we see in the recently they kicked out wall street journalist because of an oped that they did not like that was on the wall street journal opinion page, they arrested a hong kong tycoon and Freedom Fighter jimmy because something he wrote in the washing journal recently. I guess if you want to read and journal in the wall street journal, in my testimony i would say china has an innovative strategy because of the market to shut down the free speech of westerners. If you look at the case of the National Basketball association, if you look at hollywood there is at least six more organizations in china the sensor content coming from hollywood, the themes are very clear, america probably knows very well that theyve never seen the chinese billing in a hollywood movie in the scenes that is cowardly and does no wrong in places like africa and so forth in chinese are brave and ascendant and so forth. There is probably 16 organizations that go through the content of movies in china before theyre allowed to be shown. So the free speech rights the china block access to the market and shutdowns peoples ability to say things like we support the hong kong, the hong kong protest, as i say in my written testimony, taiwan has been ground zero in terms of attempted collection and interference, they fought back and gives us good lessons, they fought back and working with social media and sending out right away humorous memes to combat the disinformation they were putting out. Of course tonys people voted for the party that china did not want to elect. A lot of lessons to be learned. In terms of what we should do, i would add that we need to be more on offense, we obviously need to continue to do what were doing and treating Chinese Media personas as foreign agents because thats what they are, there is no free media, the foreign agents of the communist Chinese Party and we need to put caps on them and making them register as foreign agents. We can do a lot more offensively as going into china with mandarin speakers, telling our story and telling the story of success in places that are like taiwan and chinese language speaking and culture that are democratic and putting china on defense because the people of china from what we know are extremely fed up with the role of the Chinese Communist party, weve engaged in political worker in a much more robust fashion, i would love to see us go back to an organization if the gc could lead like the gsa that creates an information warrior and the entire job in network and the entire career path is in the space and engage in the fight against china and russia and other places. And see the role in the job in the career process of developing into operators and taken out of the rome of the military inputting at the state department. Thank you, the court is following up. Doctor. Thank you, senator and senator brooker for hosting this important hearing, i wanted thank you, senator portman and murphy who could not stay for the majority of the hearing and for your bipartisan leadership work on a specific issue. Without your efforts in expanding the role they would not be here today. So thank you for that. Its a true honor and privilege to address to you today and before you begin the substance issue, i want to acknowledge that in the president ceo of the center for european policy analysis which is a nonprofit, nonpartisan independent Foreign Policy think tank here in washington, my views are my own and do not represent those of the organization which takes no position. President Vladimir Putin seeks to weaken institutions. They discredit democratic and liberal values and create a post truth world. First and foremost this information aims to undermine u. S. Leadership across the world, you only have to watch a few minutes of russian language statesponsored media at home in russia to understand the level of animosity that the kremlin has for the United States and it very much sees itself locked in the battle for world dominance with the United States. I want to make it clear that these campaigns as we have heard in discussions of coronavirus are not limited to election. In fact any disruptive world event such as a virus spread is expanding today is an ample opportunity and Fertile Ground to disruption and spreading these Information Operation. The spread of disinformation is one part of a broader political worker in russias arsenal just as my colleague mr. Blumenthal mentioned on china. I think we see a lot of similarity and how disinformation sets into the broader Foreign Policy objective of russia and china. Of course it is not new, i have been working with this information long before it became the issue and likewise ukraine, georgia, the Baltic States have been the testing ground in the test labs for this campaign for quite some time. As a result in some ways its far more resilient than us. Unfortunately the United States and western europe will complete to the challenge. I think the good news on the wakeup call on 2016 it was moved from admiring the problem to entering into trial and error stage where we are trying new policies, social media activities and research to counter and build resilience to the throat. I want to highlight three insights that emerged over the last few years. There is no Silver Bullet for addressing this problem, the whole society not just the whole of government approach is badly needed. Second, as we meaning democratic governments, Tech Companies and Civil Society has responded in 2016, their tactics have evolved, my concern is that we are not keeping up with evolution of the adversarial threat in my written testimony i detail that three ways in which the russian information have evolved, one russian operation has gone global, not only in terms of scope but in terms of how other countries are copying the playbook, the russian playbook is global in the russian information has gone global and further fields to africa and south america. The russian influence operation is fullspectrum ecosystem approach, they operate across multiple platforms and they operate across multiple media platforms not just social media platforms and indirect focus with other tools of Political Warfare including military groups which is on africa very recently. Lastly russia is engaged in Information Warfare by proxy. This is an important because increasingly they use cut out in local groups and individuals in local servers to mask their origin. This means exposure while incredibly important is quickly becoming difficult if not impossible and will see today the lines between authentic domestic voices which are protected in most democracies by freespeech rights and by the First Amendment here and information weve been talking about here, the line has essentially disappeared. Lastly, to get ahead of the threat instead of reacting to desperate attacks and walkable fashion, we have to invest in building longterm resilient at the same time its getting to deter operations of this nature. Our response must be calibrate to meet these future challenges as they will continue to use operations are to undermine u. S. Credibility and global leadership. I go into quite a few details in terms of recommendation but in the interest of time i will stop here. Thank you very much. Youve given us lots to chew on. There is so much and we will not have time to go into every detail but again we appreciate your constant help on the legislation specifically and those of you that are helpful in developing it and we appreciate the continued briefings and as you say this is an evolving issue and as it evolves we have to be noble and be able to change our strategies. What that would be compared to 30 milliothe 30 million we arg about . I would be happy to start on the russia question. Its not such a straightforward question to answer because of course we dont know how much were spending on the covert operations and most of what they are doing is covert. Its a false persona and its obfuscation of the origins of the attack. So, what we know into these are broad estimates because they do not publish the budgetary information as we do, the latest estimate is a global Foreign Language is around 300 million but that is severalyearsold and we have no updates since then. Some estimates for the number over a billion and again this is an estimate. We know in the language media they spend at least 1. 3 billion in u. S. Dollars, so on the whole it is difficult to judge but most experts say that its a port of two to 3 billion a year. That is hopeful. For ththe statement on the medie it seems to be a conservative estimate given so many activities covert. Mr. Blumenthal, they have numbers on that . Its so opaque and you cant trust a lot of the numbers. In the unclassified realm china spend more on the security of the peoples liberations for which they spend at least 130 billion on external missions so in terms of security, it is in the billions if not over 100 billion. How much of the ghost of that go censorship propaganda disinformation is even tougher. I can name some organizations that to get a movie into china and content from hollywood you have to go through not just the normal organizations that look at film like the administration of radio and television, you also have to go through the state of affairs commission, ministry of security, the bureau of religious affairs, ministry of education, justice, Foreign Affairs and other bureaucratic entities, so i would say that we are looking at billions and billions of dollars spent on censoring content. And then for the Chinese People themselves to absorb and for the world to absorb and then money spent on detaining journalists, that is police and internal security and kicking out journalists. I think what could be very helpful for the congress to do is get the Intelligence Community to map out the actual funding of the quote on quote state media. So, who is behind this which we consider Tech Companies funds a lot of the state media which are actually agents of the government here in the United States and europe and other places pushing the party line so the money is gigantic and then theres how do you calculate the money of denying access to certain companies. Again it is angering. What youre doing pales in comparison icomparison and or en is about exposing it. Its about information and that was helpful to put it in context. Ukraine in particular, you are an expert on much of what has happened there. I think it might be interesting to talk a little bit about the focus information efforts that continue. We talked about since the revolution 2014 russia has been very active and along with senator murphy and others weve been involved on these issues. Hes got a lot on his hands right now. Can you talk specifically about what they are trying to do to show confusion about the status of crania and the role and what we can do to help ukraine in this disinformation no . Thank you for that question. As i mentioned earlier, ukraine continues to be victim number one and target number one of the disinformation of the local warfare effort and it doesnt just stop with disinformation. This information. Its also been the primary target that we have seen in history in recent years and i think what we have learned in this country is what happens doesnt stay in ukraine. All the tactics eventually come up to us and to our other allies in western europe as well. What we have seen in the last few years is the kind of proxy information was first tested in ukraine. The first instance o of that but they learned of the open source route of the parliamentary last year in 2019 and the intelligence agencies arrest an individual who confessed to being an Intelligence Officer who was sent to ukraine to try to convince domestic ukraine begins to sell or rent out their facebook account which they would then propagate all kind of political disinformation and posed an. Then we solve them to play the scale in africa in the fall so you see very short time lines from the test and then in october we learned they were carrying out this kind of proxy warfare in a large scale across almost a dozen african countries so i think we need to follow these kind of patterns. Most recently on the coronavirus issue a earlier worked together to expose in ukraine we know the russian language media has been trying to show chaos and propagate kinds of attacks on asian minorities and they have a few instances of attacks on these counts and people of east asian origin and this kind of narrative hasnt propagated. The other area that we see in the covert operators pushing out as the coronavirus was invented by the cia and again this is a pattern that they also fell back on in the soviet era and continue to see today that happens on ukraine and ukrainian soil. Thank you. Senator booker. I want to jump in and kick the tires a little bit of the cpc. Theres a whole bunch going on. I think you have agencies trying to deal with the problem of disinformation and that seems to be very centralized highly funded state factors we are going up against. This seems to be one of the main ways to undermine democracies and so as an outsider do you believe the structure that we have set up here and is this the most effective way for us to counter this massive undermining of western democracies in the country at the time when ive ever seen in my lifetime the suspicion that americans have now for the institutions and how well the conspiracy theories seem to take root in the culture. This community is weakening the bonds between those that come together and meanwhile, china is the 18,000 miles of highspeed rail from boston to washington, d. C. , around half an hour slower because we cant get it together anymore even as a society to Work Together for the common thread. I just as an outsider tell us is this the best way to match the threat that we see growinfact te influence and strength from our foreign adversaries . I think we should never have gotten rid of it as an independent agency which wasnt seated in any one department and could coordinate with some real power across the cia and dod and not only stop the active measures that come from the soviet union, but take that active measure in spite of the soviet bloc. On the short answer to the question is no. We are where we are and i think that if the gec is properly funded and doesnt have to fight with the special forces command and others about who has the authority that they should be in the lead particularly on the china issue which is a Strategic National level issue and the kind of things im talking about is kicking out of the u. S. Media to control the content of what they say and try to stop free speech rights going after our allies and going after the countries. So, it should not be a military leave by any stretch of the imagination. I think if they are given the Proper Authority and can coordinate the action and have the power and authority to do so and enough chinese language linguists who know the culture well and the information environment and can identify the socalled media people here in the United States and kick them out under th the authoritys bef can actually going to china and tell our stories were told the truth i think it will be better than what they have had over the last few years. And i would say the challenge i have with what you are saying, i understand the Propaganda Machine affecting the companies and business undermining fair play in the economy and so forth, but thats a little different to me. Maybe im wrong in their efforts to undermine the democracy thatr offensive efforts and so could you help me understand that distinction and i get confused when you are talking about ive talked to people in those industries if you want to have a blockbuster global film you no longer have a villain but thats different from the chinese insinuating they are around the virus here or interfering with in our elections so there is more chaos. Let me connect the two because i believe that once you start affecting the way hollywood or the National Basketball association does this content back into the United States and without noticing it the American People are all of a sudden getting movies that are like top gun this summer that are affected by what the chinese think and what we think. I understand your point. And getting stars to count went. Thats different than russia. That is different than affecting our speech here in the United States but in terms of specifics that you are talking about, so the number of one, two and three that they do it is different than russia is through weve tolerated the global time timeso the Confucius Institute and the reason im conflating them all is because they basically work for the same organization organo that is to be here posing as news reporters, but really you pick up your newspaper and the Washington Post indicated the china daily out of it and its really just propagating the chinese line about the ideological worldview which by definition undermines our own view. Its not the authoritarian worldview. Its a deceitful worldview and it just has no business here in the United States. Theres a big difference between russia and china and its resources. The chinese in no doubt have a far greater capability to not just play the margins especially the Digital Domain which is relatively cheap. Its very cheap to build the baath army and control 50 accounts or so etc. What they have been giving on the parts of the old and correct me if i am mistaken its actually coopting local Media Organizations that are then putting out information in the local languages that is a positive take on china in general and that process is a longterm strategy where the russians are playing a short or medium term strategy. I completely agree with my colleague was completely dismantled the ability to message and reach the populations in the fron frontlie states. We still have the morale of this but these entities are set up to fight 20th century information wars. We are not in the 20th century anymore, so we may want to consider something that the u. S. Iea has to be a 21st Century Digital because the place we are falling behind in the digital space. We dont have the coordination as we heard earlier between the Tech Companies and at the end of the day it isnt just about content. Its about the Distribution System that enables the amplification iamplification ofe identification of the content and the precise micro targeted delivery of content to the specific vulnerable situation. That is what we have to fight. To finish before it has affected the chairman, it isnt your idea. Its important they are doing important tasks, but getting the looming threat they are not equipped to deal with what we are facing nearterm and far. Its a good start but we need to do more. First and foremost is the question weve been discussing and then theres the political mandate question. There needs to be an undersecretary level position to own this problem and until we have that i dont think we are going to get the kind of interagency whole of government sponsored that we are looking for. I am reassured by what is gabrielle has done in that organization is encouraged by the budget request into the ambitious plans. But i think it is somewhat personality driven getting things done at a higher level, so i dont disagree with you without having someone that has the ability to work at the agency level because they have responsibility and authority would be helpful kicking it up to a higher level. I would say in the case of the secretary of state, he testified in this room where you are sitting and was very supportive and is one of the reasons that hes been successful. That may not be the case in the future. Quickly, what you are seeing in ththe approaches and we need toe cognizant of that one story that ive heard recently may be disinformation but i dont think so is with regards to chinas activities. We talked about this earlier and i think this is one reason im encouraged but again they want to get another vote in africa that was on the question about media and it was actually acquiring Media Companies and providing people a network and nightly news in the morning news that they didnt otherwise have was all based on china interest in propagating their own narrative so on the one hand, its great that the communities thanks for the Chinese Government have a better infrastructure or in this case media infrastructure but not if its going to be disinformation. As opposed to what you are saying about russia its more taking the coronavirus and creating a distrust and disinformation. Is that true, mr. Blumenthal . It is true and its worse than that. So, companies that are well did they have Training Programs for african journalists and sometimes they are the only source of information in these countries. They are going out and i would say its the entire spectrum to the companies becoming more prevalent in the rest of the world. They are just maintaining or opening up in the countries were talking about. Mostly training journalists and also teaching other dictators how to search their content is another big one. So this is a huge challenge. They are not equipped to handle that so lets take a country that has this opportunity in the Network Setup and it is more i would assume those countries into the regional organizations of the countries to understand what the threat is and provide assistance so they dont have to rely on us. Is that the answer come is that more of the state Department Function backs delete the we also have those that have been really ahead of the curve in the Human Rights Watch and they are the ones that came out with the first reports and analysis on this power that identified exactly what im identifying which is they are training generations of others on the party line or i should say they support dictatorships in their own countries. So, the National Endowment for democracy has a role, freedom house, the state department, some of these intelligence agencies have a role. If we can get if the American People could get a real sort of network map of which Chinese Party organization is funding which Media Organization or which Training Program for journalists, the first level of transparency would help us a l lot. That is part of the issue we are dealing with china including here in the Confucius Institute and the programs weve heard a lot of recently. On the ngo issue i know both of you are involved in the Ngo Community and Civil Society more broadly at the socalled fact check which i agree with you if we can continue to support this kind of organizations, some of whom may not be precisely aligned on the way to approach this best practice but on the other hand, they are out there doing incredible work we cant afford to give as a country and often they are state actors themselves so in the baltics as we talked about earlier. Can you talk a little bit about that and how we can leverage more of that among the smaller democracies to get them to be more effective . Thank you for that question. What we havent discussed is the funding capability to the organizations and i think that is critical with quite a bit of work especially over the Baltic States and elsewhere to give the small groups that dont have funding otherwise to be able to carry out this important work and i think this signals the kind of advantag advantage thate in the democracy. Look at russia and china and their approaches topdown. Our approach will never be the face we have tspace we had to re structure in a decentralized way to give them the independence to be able to do their work and the ability to maintain should be increased in the next budgetary because its been so critical to they getting this kind of organic response to disinformation efforts. One thing i mentioned earlier the countries have been the target of these attacks especially ukraine and the other Baltic States have built better resilience. They tried and failed for a reason. Nobody took it seriously because there was a high level of Public Awareness that this was a russian funded media outlet and nobody paid attention to it. That is something we can learn from and something that i think the European Countries can learn from so i wouldnt look at it as a place we need to support and fund but also a place we can take some lessons home. Great points in screening and providing help to some of these ngos and other members of the Civil Society for that resilience and some of the smaller democracies. A difficult vote, mr. Chairman and that means at some point we have to leave here so i want to ask if you had the chance if you got two senators here, are you concerned, were read, were alarmed at the americans response as it stands now to what china too with chind other foreign nationals, you said the playbook isnt just worrisome because they are Getting Better but also because the playbook is being copied by other countries and so you can see more and more of these spreading so i want you to know are you worried or just sound the alarm of modernday paul revere the chinese are coming to the russians are coming, wake up because you are not doing enough. Where are you guys . If you are talking about the alarm scale i would say between concerned and alarmed. I dont think we should panic. We have the greatest economy in the world and Alliance Structure in the world. We are capable of responding to this end of the reason i am concerned is not because im concerned about the inability to respond. We are very capable but im concerned that such a partisan issue we havent been able to get the kind of momentum that we need to be able to respond in the way that we should. I do not want us to go to the panic alarm mode. Its where we need to get our act together at home to respond effectively. When i wake up in the morning and agreed that we are tapping Chinese Media from being in the United States were using the missions to kick them out of the United States, when i see that the fbi and the Justice Department is actually going after both influencers as well as espionage im happy we are slowly waking up, but it is alarming and the idea that china is engaged in a comprehensive is in china as a whole with the communist party is engaged in this effort to undermine the position in the world and training others to be dictatorships and in the 19th party reports to say they want to hold the world order based on the chinese values it is alarming and we are getting started. You look at even the elite Public Awareness of the concerted effort to undermine content and free speech and basic values we are just not there yet. Im sorry, i know my history of the cold war. We took it very seriously. It was like a whole nation state bipartisan commitment to stopping the spread of. This is a great story. We are flying over because they were ready to put the sanction for these principles and ideas and hes coming in from china and their message was we dont care what you do. So, i am alarmed to be frank that the chinese are looking at this as a 25 or 50 year process and we are seeing this in cycles still not even having a consensus on the depth of the problem. We are still dealing with this wood stove piping but you do planet earth right now is in a battle between authoritarian governments and free democracies. And frankly what is our scorecard in the last ten years, i mean i could go through hungary and start naming countries that are shifting more towards authoritarianism. We are seeing interference with everything from elections to the eu, madagascar. I dont do with the sophistication that capabilities are matching the thread and i see firsthand now to get the privilege on the committee from what i witnessed on an concerned about the ability to keep up right now. And it seems to me even though the great patriots in the administration from the very committed folks that we are not taking this threat as seriously as we should. And with that if you would like to comment on anything i said in my one minute and 40 seconds left. I agree with all of that and i would say it is even worse because theyve been doing this since the end of the cold war and the massacres and they identified us as a main threat to the regime that has been going on for a long time. The one positive note i say they fought back with a massive Disinformation Campaign working with twitter and google and facebook and we helped them and they are still out on the streets protesting. The closer to china the more they see the problem, but in general i agree with you. Thank you very much. I agree as well. We need the combination of these activities across the world that is a cause for alarm in the leadership in the world and in the longterm health of democracies. And i think that also speaks to the point of why every country matters if they have to be there before they are. That is where we are starting to lose ground. We are not identifying vulnerable areas and forming a strategy for the population as a portable country and its not just about ukraine. Its a variety of countries around the world and also countries like ukraine matter a lot for those like taiwan matter so much and deserve continued support on the strategic level. Its important for the congressional record she brought her mother here to back her up. You thought this was so important with the generational strength. Can you say her name for the record . This is my mom and she brought me here from the soviet union. Im always grateful for that. What a Great American story. Thank you very much. Thank you both of you for the helpful testimony. On a more positive note i look around the world and i see all of these activities and they are troubling to be sure, but to the point about democracies, we have an alternate weapon which is the strength of people and voices being heard and bottomup rather than topdown and i look at what is happening in ukraine just in the last five years. I look at what is happening in places like bolivia and more recently and macedonia despite the massive efforts. There are some Success Stories anthat we should learn from thoe not that we are done in any of those countries by the way. We have a lot of work to do, but we have to figure out how to organize and that is why we started. Its not going to solve all the problems. As you said there is no one solution for testimony has been helpful to get a better idea. The one issue we didnt address regarding the social media platforms and you mentioned how google and facebook and twitter have been helpful with regards to taiwan but they also played a role that isnt as helpful as we are talking about more honestly to figure out how to push back and ensure the right information is out there for people to make decisions on their own and promote more freedom and democracy. Thank you for being here today. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]