The political crisis in the US is deepening by the day. On Saturday, in an extraordinary intervention, President Trump was caught on tape trying to bully the Secretary of State of Georgia to ‘find’ enough votes to overturn his defeat in the state. On the same day, Vice President Mike Pence said he “shares the concerns of millions of Americans about voter fraud and irregularities in the last election.”
These actions are incredible because as of now, the electors of various states have certified that Joe Biden is the President-elect. None of the state elections are disputed. Trump’s allies have lost nearly 50 law suits challenging the election results, and he has lost twice in the US Supreme Court. The Trump team may be desperate, but to some ears, this is sounding like an attempted constitutional coup.
Passed Omnibus Spending Bill Supports .Gov Web Domains
Applauded by IT and cybersecurity officials, new legislation shifts responsibility for .gov domains from GSA to CISA and mandates outreach and support services for governments to make the transition.
Congress passed a new spending bill with pandemic relief just before the end of 2020, and buried within it was the DOTGOV Online Trust in Government Act, a bipartisan attempt to make it easier for government agencies to set up official websites with a .gov domain, as opposed to other options such as .com or .org. If the bill works as intended, it could help combat fraud and add credibility to government websites, and proponents of the measure consider it a step in the right direction for cybersecurity.
Pearce, through a spokesman, declined to comment for this story.
The former U.S. representative has also been broadcasting conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems, echoing President Donald Trump’s debunked claims that the systems deleted or switched votes for him to votes for his opponent.
Such claims are not only wrong, but they are also dangerous and are “undermining democracy,” Chris Krebs, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said on “60 Minutes.” Krebs was fired by Trump after he disputed the Dominion conspiracy theory and called the 2020 election “the most secure in American history.”
Matthew Masterson, then a senior cybersecurity adviser at the Department of Homeland Security, testifies before a House Judiciary Committee hearing in 2019. He left his post on Friday. (Susan Walsh/AP)
One of the top federal officials responsible for securing the nation s elections is speaking out days after leaving his job with the Department of Homeland Security s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Matthew Masterson was a senior cybersecurity adviser at CISA, primarily responsible for elections, and his departure comes amid persistent, but baseless, claims that the 2020 elections were riddled with fraud. Many of those have come from President Trump, who last month fired Masterson s former boss, Christopher Krebs, after Krebs joined others in calling the 2020 election the most secure in American history. Trump s allegations have been widely disputed by election experts and numerous courts, where his campaign has tried unsuccessfully to overturn the election result
by Grant Gross Print this article
The military bill President Trump vetoed in December contains several cybersecurity provisions that are crucial for protecting government networks, lawmakers and observers said.
The National Defense Authorization Act, which Congress passes easily in most years, includes a provision that would establish a White House national cybersecurity director. Trump eliminated the position, which was created by President Barack Obama.
The bill would also give the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency the power to issue administrative subpoenas to internet service providers when it can’t determine the owner of critical infrastructure with security vulnerabilities.