The truth and erode our ability to fight, creating a set of it that no narrative or use source can be trusted at all. Some of the ttts in this space wont necessarily come as as a surprise to you but we talked about intrusion and u. S. Government networks and medical organizations, hack and leak operations related to compromise or embarrassing situations, Cyber Attacks against our eroding infrastructure, the targeting of u. S. Persons or elected officials by social media and disinformation, suppression of voter turnout by spreading misinformation regarding polling and voting, manipulation of media through the injection of false stories, and news reporting. And then subsequent application of the disinformation to shape of the discourse. Shape Public Discourse. There are a few overarching similarities regarding the manner in which our two principal adversaries, china and russia, execute these objectives. Both countries use a whole of government approach. And use sophisticated and aggressive efforts to advance their national priorities. However, there are clear differences in the space as well. China and russia very and extent of their aggressiveness and risk tolerance. We see russia is willing to conduct more brazen and disruptive influence operations because of how it perceives its conflict with the west. In some ways, however, china contains its maligned foreign influence operations to its strategic goals of developing a modern National Economy and building its geopolitical prestige to be respected as an equal, if not superior arrival rival and its size to that of the trend. To put it simply, in the space, russia wants to watch us tear ourselves apart, while it seems china, on the other hand, would rather manage our gradual economic decline over the course of generations. So what do we do in this space . The director established the fitf in october of 2017 to bring together the fbis National Security and traditional criminal investigative expertise under one umbrella, to identify and counteract maligned foreign influence, targeting u. S. Institutions and values. At the time we were primarily focused on the russian maligned foreign influence operations. However, the fitf scope has expanded since then to address other global adversaries. China, iran, north korea. Our structure, the fitf structure, bears some resemblance to the Fbis Joint Terrorism Task force, which exists at fbi headquarters in very large fashion but also in all 56 of our field offices. However, while we do work sidebyside with detailed these from various federal agencies in the fitf, our internal structure is a little bit different. The fitf combines personal from across the fbi, including special agents come intelligence, analysts and other professional staff from the fbis counterintelligence, the cyber, counterterrorism, and criminal divisions. Our multidivision task force has the authority to mandate to bridge all fbi programs and equities to combat this threat. In addition to investigative operations in broad intelligence sharing across our state and local partners, the fitf also works hard to build strong partnerships with the private sectors and academia. The fitf Management Team meets irregularly with social media and tech companies. When appropriate, the fbi provides actionable intelligence to social Media Companies to help them fight abuse of their platforms by foreign actors. Our work in this area, one thing that is very important to us, particularly on the cyber side of things is that attribution is key. We do not run around chasing content in addition to having a host of first mac issues. That approach would be inefficient and ineffective First Amendment issues but we dont focus on what the actors say. We spent our time concentrating on who they are, attribution is key. When were able to identify and track foreign actors as a established and use the infrastructure amateur the online presence, the fitf works with social be compass to illuminate and disrupt our adversaries activities. Including at times through actions taken entirely by the companies themselves. To voluntarily remove accounts that violate their terms of service agreements. I have run out of time so i would just say that our adversaries are actively engaged to influence Public Opinion and our electoral processes. It is our responsibility to take the threat seriously, evolve our methods of destruction, and maintain our fierce determination and focus. Thank you for giving them time to speak to you today. [applause] ive already didnt traduced you. Yes, thank you so much. Ive already introduced you. My name is Madeline Mortelmans and of the principal director of the Cyber Policy Office in the office of the secretary of defense. We are responsible for developing guidance and providing advice to the secretary of defense about what the department of defense must be capable of in and through cyberspace. Please to be a to talk about dods role in defending elections is specifically in support of an complementary to our federal government partners and fbi encountering for influence at the department of Homeland Security in sporting elections infrastructure security, so state and local partners. From my viewpoint in the dod state we quickly talk about supported and supporting here in the context of defending elections, the department of defenses and salute in a supporting role, those what it was important for me, for you care for my colleague from the fbi first. So in that what you jump right in and try to get to the just pick the National Defense strategy concludes that for the past decade to offset a military superiority, our adversaries are increasingly using actions below the use of force to undermine our National Security and national interest. Nowhere is this more true than through cyberspace we see adversaries using coordinated, longterm campaigns of malicious cyber activity to harm the United States, our allies and partners, and undermine international order. Their objective is within is to win without war, and the in the event of conflict to leverage the capabilities prior to hostilities and in order to achieve strategic advantage. China, russia, iran and north korea are using and will continue to use cyber to steal information and to prepare to disrupt Critical National infrastructure. But dods interest is not limited to those military operations. Our adversary is also seeking to influence our citizens and undermine Democratic Institutions in order to achieve that strategic advantage that will allow them to win for their national interests. The Intelligence Community assessed they are capable of and they seek to interfere in our voting process, the infrastructure that we use, or to covertly influence our citizens in order to achieve an outcome. The department of defense has now determined as the president directions that helping to defend elections is an enduring mission. But we are part of a broader whole of government effort, an unprecedented level of course nation. And in that way the department of defense is playing a complementary and supporting role to our domestic partners. In this way we are looking to leverage our specific comparative advantage authorities to defend forward. Just as the department of defense projects power in the physical domain, land sea and air we seek to understand our adversaries activities come to shape the environment and to address threats for they reached the homeland we are seeking to do the same things in and through cyberspace in support of our election. Building on our activities in 2018 in defense of the 2010 midterm election, the department of defense is conducting complement activities in support of civilian led efforts, defending forward in order to generate insights come first generate insights about adversary intentions and activities. In this way we are collecting and analyzing data about foreign threats this can take any number of methodology. It includes things like identifying malware and networks, covert influence identities and to better understand whats happening outside of the United States. We do this with partners throughout the global environment. Second, we are enabling our domestic partners to better defend elections. This includes sharing those insights that we generate from outside of the United States with our domestic partners to enable the Network Defense activities. An example would be in 2018 we conducted what we call hunt forward operation, but in fact, partner Network Defense operations with our traditional allies and partners taking insight inside about our adversaries are using their malicious activities in other countries that can in turn be used to better defend our own networks. And finally, thirdly, when appropriate and authorized the department of defense will conduct military operations to degrade, disrupt, or defeat foreign interference or covert influence. This can take any number of forms, but it includes operations that would seek to put the stint in the gears of our adversaries attempting to accomplish their outcome. We can do this, for instance, through exposing their malware or the Network Threats indicators. To date, u. S. Cyber command has publicly exposed eight different examples of how adversaries are seeking to conduct malicious cyber activity against the United States, which enhances our overall defense. We can also take other operations that seek to slow them down. The National Guard bureau, also paired in their support are dhs and fbi and the state and local authorities, thank you. [applause] thank you madeleine and thank you david. So in listening to what we just heard, it was really, i want to highlight a couple things i heard david say, that this idea of mistrust of the government and these are correct actors, malicious actors attempting to do that, pushing consumers towards alternative news sources, selling and confusion about true narratives, destroying our ability to think clearly, clouding the truth, how does that happen . Step back for a minute and step away from elections and talked for a minute just about data and the world we live in. We are surrounded by sensors everywhere. Everything we do, were all carrying these around. Theyre embedded with sensors. We have bits, every environment in which we exist as sensors area i heard somebody maurice talk about a alexa, what are the news results . So we have sensors, we have health and fitness sensors, automobile sensors, theyre all connected to satellites so we are constantly physically tracked, so much data is being aggregated about us and i want to give you this example because it always gives a good perspective for the audience, this is from an actual Patent Application from walmart biometric data the of sensors in a walmart shopping cart handle these sensors would, the sensors would give heart rate, temperature, cart speed and location in your walmart shopping cart. Shout out thanks to my ia y at weisenburger for alerting me to this so in terms of how this intersex we know we have sensors that are recording us, everybodys got their fit bits on, their apples on. What happens is how these sensors are interacting with all these apps that we download and are using on our phones. We have numerous companies, private companies buying, selling, aggregating this data and its intimate data. Im not just talking about whos in this room right now which is being aggregated but really, data that can be used tomanipulate our choices. So if we think about that idea, clouding mistrust , theres part of that is foreign actors but part of that is our self and part of that is all of this content we create allows us to be so easily manipulated so just a screenshot here of facebook, advertising on facebook makes it easy to find the right people,capture their attention and get results that you can do that on any budget. How does that happen . Its effective because its use and sale of your data for microtargeting ads so we understand microtargeted advertising. Microtargeting enables an ad just tailored for you, that Technology Makes it costeffective enough that one person in this room would receive only that version of an ad. So the ability, this is right off of facebook and facebook isnt alone here, they just happen to be such a prominent user of your data. So audience insights, knowing your audience like never before. Aggregate information. Facebooks collecting information from all of our apps. So an example is some women or persons use apps to track their cycles. And some apps track womens cycles withoutletting them know. So what does that matter . How can that be used politically and why do i have a picture of where we are talking about period . That information is shared with facebook so what does that mean . Where does that take us . Lets think about something weve heard about in the news or at least women are aware of is taxes on eminent hygiene. Lets think about microtargeting for a minute. You are in a particular time in your cycle, you might feel more strongly about seeing which states tax your period and you might be more susceptible to content like this and this content can come, i mean, its the ability to manipulate you face on very intimate details about what you are doing, what you are experiencing, where you are so where not just talking your location, who your contacts are. Talking intimate information so we see politicians take advantage of this. We have one representative tweeting out about how he wanted to be charged by the house administrators because he wanted to provide feminine hygiene items for his staffers and people visiting his office. Thats taking political use of this in an advertisement and yes, thats absurd that thats not considered a necessity for women. But it raises this question, when you are gettingmessaging , what is real . We heard from david porter about the selling of mistrust and part of that is this question of how do we determine what is real . We have so much information coming at us on social media. Our newsfeed, its even worse on your mobile phone. Research shows that youre going to scroll through your mobile feed much more quickly this question of what is real , and technology continues to advance and that takes us to deepfakes and theres an indian politician using deepfakes to win new voters and he didnt speak the language so you just use ai, link lipsynching technology and had his, had a deep fake of himself speaking in a language hedidnt speak. Weve seen these transects. Weve heard about the pelosi, weve heard about the obama, theres lots ofthis and its not just something thats coming in the future, its here , ready or not so how is the law handling this . Weve heard people mentionthe First Amendment so the question is is this protected speech . Are deepfakes, our disinformation or misinformation, are they protected speech . Is this protected content . Is this something we are going to say our First Amendment, no law shall abridge the freedom of speech. No lawshall abridge. Fortunately , employers, a little plug for the profession there, lawyers recognize that the First Amendment isnt in fact omnipotent. Its not that all speech must be protected so whats interesting is in the preinternet era, this was so much more clear. We knew that publishers were liable for content and individuals were liable for content that was defamation. If you saysomething about someone thats not true and it causes harm to their reputation they can sue you. We know that the First Amendment doesnt, and these court decisions, its hard to do this in a flash talk but hate speech is not protected, burning a cross on someones yard is not protected. Incitements to violence are not protected. Putting up pictures of positions who work at an abortion clinicwith crosshairs, thats not protected speech. So invasions of privacy are also recognized as a bar that we could protect our privacy when it was violated. If we had a reasonable expectation of privacy and content so remember this is important. Publishers were liable before the internet came along and something happened. And all of these platforms that are Interactive Computer Service providers had a shield now. And so if we think about that source, your information source, we heard a lot about Pay Attention to credible sourcing if you saw something in the New York Times you knew im reading this in the New York Times or the wall street journal and as a publisher, they would be liable for things they repeated so if there was defamation or hate speech or something that wasnt protected, the law had an enforcement mechanism to get rid of it and then along came something that has told of the real strength of the First Amendment and thats the Communications Decency act, section 230 of the Communications Decency act bars Interactive Computer Service providers, i. E. Facebook,google, twitter from liability for content posted by third parties. It destroyed liability as we knew it. It destroyed the ability to control speech as we knew it so we see this referred to in Court Opinions as this wild west that happens online. These are platforms where content is being posted and yet they are completely immune from liability. So its decouples the cda decoupled that historically recognized publisher liability from publishers, i. E. In this case Interactive Computer Services from online content. So as a litigator who has dealt for a long time with cda cases where people are victims of revenge porn or horrific other content, the cda mea