Our event today its not just democracy, integrity and elections but in the 2020 elections. Wewe have a time horizon of 14 months. I think michael put it off very well, in terms of what the scenario looks like, its sort of a butterfly ballot on steroids, if we have a close election, if we have a contested result and even just a couple of counties and there has been a Disinformation Campaign that is exposed that may have skewed the results, what i worry about is i dont know how we quite survived second election here in the country, a second president ial election that comes into serious question and at pan america we come at this at slightly different angle, we are freespeech organization and we see guardians of open discourse and of truth and we are not digital specialists, we are not election specialists, we are an organization of writers and journalists and editors and publishers and people who are invested in the quality of our discourse and our ability to sort facts from falsehood and all of that we see as very much at stake in this debate, so we are delighted to be partnering with the fec today and as we move forward, for us just one other point, for us the International Context weighs very heavily, our traditional work is work on behalf of imperilled writers and freedom of expression around the world and so to see and recognize these dangers here in our own country and the kind of alienation from the truth, sort of sense of resignation that ellen invoked in her early quote this morning from gary to even contemplate the idea that that could be in our country is a new level of alarm or new level and sense of urgency for us as an organization. Susan and others said the first session theres no Silver Bullet, thats obvious. And the hurdles to solutions, you know, weve already begun to explicate and i think theres serious of things that make it even more complicated, one is the time horizon that we face, 14 months away, so many things we heard about this morning, you know, longterm endeavors or getting past political impact, you know, we havent really talked about the politicization of these debates and the fact that when you talk about platforms taking down content, you know, that becomes highly politicized and we have seen that just in the last week on the issue of abortion. Questions of principle and viewpoints of neutrality, firstamendment precept in this country that really comes into play but they are discretionary in the midst of collective of how to draw the lines and reconcile these principles, you know, and yet we do it with a ticking clock, the tactics are not necessarily technological sophisticated and thats true but i think cull culturally are sophisticated. We never imagine that russians could target a Small Community of people in texas and get them to show up to a rally and figure out what to amplify and what to turn down tune down, micro targeting and invisibility of the tactics and the fact that, you know, solution that outlines is compelling but theres also point about how much of this goes on on messaging platforms that do not see the light of day where nobody, maybe equipped to identify, each identify what is going on and then the commercial, someone asked the question, where the Media Companies, there are some representatives, a lot of media covering this event which is great and invited quite a lot of media representatives to speak to us as a group and, you know, we didnt get many responses, you know, it is its a difficult issue and when weve had conversations about this question of the Mainstream Media amplifying stories, are they prepared to deal with Something Like the wikileaks data dump and email dumps during the 2016 election and what would be different, you know, we havent gotten a really compelling answer, i dont think that think asking far along, i know amy will talk about some of the work that shes is doing, so many hurdles to mounting an Effective Response particularly in the next 14 months but im glad to say we have a terrific panel lined up to talk about this, i will try to keep time so we have a chance so you can come in with questions and comments, we will hear from representative Stephanie Murphy of florida who is a leader on the issues and outspoken voice but the thought leader and legislative leader, we have director of strategic projects for microsoft, democracy program, spencer boyer, Washington Office at center for justice and former National Intelligence officer, amy who is fork Bureau Editor for first draft and aclu and press club, lauren, democracy, work to go counter efforts by russia to undermine Democratic Institution and tera, contributor for New York Times and producer of the podcast and media representative, we look forward to her remarks, i will turn it over first to representative murphy and then the rest of our panel and we will open it up, thank you. All right, good morning, thank you, susan, thank you to the host of this event, im really honored to be here and to offer perspectives from congress, there are roughly about 40 Election Security bills pending in congress right now and during the Panel Conversation id love to talk more about it and talk about a bit of the prospects for success of some of the bills and hopefully surprise pleasantly some of the most pessimistic folks, the audience today but what id like to do is open with broader themes right now, you know, ive i really try to take a leading role when it comes to protecting our democratic processes for personal reasons, i have a National Security background having worked at the department of defense under george w. Bush and at the time the main threat that the country was facing from other nations was potential use of traditional weapons of war, as knowledged evolved the nature of conflict has evolved as well, so today our adversaries are more likely to use malware than missiles to advance their interest and undermine ours. The security challenges we confront will only become more complex, for example, son they will be able to spread misinformation, disinformation through hyperrealistic but forged video and audio and we are just beginning to understand that threat but we are here today because one of the favorite tactics of our of autocratic governments is to use cyber tools to chisel away at foundations of our democracy, the free and Fair Elections, they seek preferred candidate and undermine voters confidence and or on the claim that democracy is the best form of government and we know that in the runup in 2016. And they proved in some cases, Computer Networks of state and local Election Officials and this they were in a position to be able to alter Voter Registration databases and perhaps even vote tabulation system and that leads to the second reason im passionate about this issue and thats that i represent the swing part of the swing state of florida. Florida was a focus of russias effort in the 2016 election and the state will likely continue to be central to any foreign effort to intervene in 2020, our country has a target on its back and florida Election Officials and voters are the bulls eye, for me its an issue that hits home. After all florida is the home of misprinted ballots and other, other very challenging situations when that state is always so narrowly captured. Finally, i believe that politics is the art of the possible and as pragmatic democrat from the moderate wing, from a moderate district with National Security credentials im hopeful that my voice will resinate and that i will be well positioned to be able to work with republicans towards legislative response to this threat in addition to working with my democratic colleagues, i think our goal should be to enact into law the best of the bipartisan Election Security bills that are pending in congress and, you know, some stuff we should take ourself evident, Congress Must provide federal, state and local agencies to harden infrastructure and agencies should hire cyber tech to fight against threat. You know, the assault on our democracy in 2016 not unlike the 9 11 attack exposed gaps in our defensive that adversaries exploited. The difference in the home game away game and they used the differences and authorities in the setup how we defend our country and exploited the cracks in the system, so we have some work to do there. In addition, i think congress has to reduce the barriers that make it harder for information to flow between government and state and locals responsible for infrastructure, one challenge is that these officials often lack the required security clearance, so we need to streamline that process. Robust resources, better personal sharing across Government Agencies is necessary but thats not sufficient to produce the kind of comprehensive american strategy that we are looking for, we need a whole Society Approach in which the private sector and regular citizens comprehend the threat and commit to do their part to combat it, for Tech Companies, you know, their platforms have become the battlefield in this bloodless conflict and i spent years in the private sector and believe that Corporate Social Responsibility should include a sense of corporate patriotism and the firms can do more to mitigate the problem without congressional mandate and without compromising american values, they need to help us enforce the laws that exist and our laws prohibit foreign dollars in our elections and if that means a modest hit to their bottom line, i think its a small sacrifice for a larger purpose. And ultimately we need to recognize that when it comes to information warfare, it is the 215 million eligible voters in this country that are in the front lines of this fight. Its their vote that foreign powers are seeking to influence through false online content and stolen data dump, its their ability to vote and risk if foreign actors penetrate Computer Networks, a key component of our strategy should be to arm voters of knowledge of the nature and severity of the threat they face and the best defense against disinformation is accurate information. When our enemies seek for confusion, we should speak with clarity and canned candor and i think there are two real reasons why Civic Education hasnt occurred to the extent that it should and both are within our power to fix, the first is our National Security establishments sort of tension for secrecy, its culture of classification, its default position of not sharing detailed threat information with the American People and in the context of other National Security challenges when youre talking about kinetic warfare, kinetic action, it might make sense, the tendency of the government did he feel defeating, how do we expect to take seriously russia going into 2020 when we dont release detailed information about russia, what russia did in 2016 until 3 years after the fact and then only in heavily redacted report published not by federal agencies but by special counsel which was oneoff event in Senate Committee report. Those are the two sources of disinformation and continues to be difficult to get that information out to the public, so simply put while taking caution not to jeopardize, our government should air on the side of telling citizens more and not less when foreign powers interfere with our democracy. Our citizens can then counter the threat by scrutinizing the information they view online by checking Voter Registration data to confirm it wasnt tampered with and by Holding Accountable state and local officials who failed to protect election infrastructure and that leads me to the second reason why Civic Education has fallen short and also key factor to explaining why congress hasnt passed more Election Security bills and this would be my final point. The problem isnt the topic of Election Security, the problem is that the topic of Election Security has been poisoned by partison politics and this is a bad thing, but significant percentage of Republican Voters dont believe russia interfered at all. Those who dosome dont seem upset about it as others have pointed out, the u. S. Will never muster a whole of Society Response if the whole of society doesnt first acknowledge the problem. In order to close the partisan divide, republicans and dental contracts in congress have to Work Together to reframe Election Security as nonpartisan issue, for Republican Leaders what this means is that they have to publicly endorse our intelligence communities conclusion that moscow meddled in our elections in 2016 and will do so again in 2020. It means clearly stating that u. S. Elections should be contest between candidates, ideas and values decided by our citizens in accordance to laws and means pointing out that american patriots of every political stripe should view attempts by foreign power to manipulate democratic process as an attack on our security and sovereignty, period. As for democratic leaders, we have to stop relitigating the results of the 2016 election and publicly accept that donald trump won. And im hopeful that this would give republicans the political space they need to accept that russia interfered in the election without fear that such acceptance will be pounced upon bipartisans determine today question to president s legitimacy. If leaders of the two parties fulfill the respective responsibilities i think it will facilitate the passage of bipartisan Election Security legislation and that has to be the overwriting goal, we have a narrow window of opportunity to create the space to be able to do so. Thank you. [applause] your comments are so logical and coherent and make so much sense and i hope in the discussion we will come back to exactly how you think that can be operationalized and sequenced and which pieces of that we might be able to accomplish in the months ahead, spencer blare over to you. Well, thank you, susan and thank you to all the cosponsors for having me, ive been asked to open thing up on my end by discussing lessons learn from my time in the Intelligence Community or as we call it the ic that might be applicable for news organizations and social media forms trying to figure out how to get a handle on disinformation as we head towards 2020 and i think its a great question because actually no one has ever asked me this before, so let me just do 3 things in my allotted 5 minutes, no more than 6, one described what Intelligence Analysts actually do compared to policy analysts to get us on the same page, two, discuss how intel analysis is impacted for good or will by political and policy leaders and 3, how this relates to what traditional and social media organizations are grappling with today, so given that i was a Deputy Assistant secretary of state for european and duration affairs right before coming the National Intelligence officer for europe in the National Intelligence council which is part of the office of director of National Intelligence, i experienced the policy versus intel role firsthand in short order and the bottom line is this, if youre a policy official and, again, some of you may noticed but to get everybody together here, your job is to figure out what needs to be done in regional and context and implement, when you are an intelligence official your job is to report the best analysis of the fact that is you have so that senior policymakers can make informed decisions and hopefully the best decisions on a particular issue. So in other words, your job is to report the most relevant information either in written or oral form and then to shut up which is very, very hard to do, ive learned from my own experience, you might see policymakers about to make a terrible mistake, but its not your job in the Intelligence Community to say, for god sakes stop, dont do that, now, might be clear from the intelligence that option a is the best option available but everyone in the situation room is coalescing around option 2, youre not being paid as an official to try to convince them otherwise, also in the National Intelligence council which is like the think tank of the Intelligence Community, your job is to try to integrate the analysis of the entire Intelligence Community in your particular area, so a rough analogy should be impartial news veteran that is trying to give information so others can make informed decisions for themselves, policy official is more like an oped writer or commentator who is trying to figure out the trusted information but then figure out how to digest it and make use of it and get it out there and have a sp