Interference, but her confidence and defensive strategies in the 2020 election and beyond. Im carrie cordero, the center for a new american security. We have two sessions this morning. This session will run until 10 45 a. M. Eastern, and then i hope youll join us again at 11 30 a. M. Eastern for a session i will be moderating on foreign influence and voter attitudes. Todays conversations are part of a broader collaboration between the center for a new americanee security, the center for ethics and the rule of law, which is a part of pam law, at the end for public center, also of the university of pennsylvania. Before handed over to the moderator, this discussion is being live streamed and you can post your comments and questions on twitter using the hashtag protect democracy 2020. Our team will be monitoring the hashtag and will show your questions with our moderator. Foreign influence in our civic life was top of mine for the countries founders. America may have been caught offguard in 2016 but theres no reason that falling for the same tricks again twice. Were need to understand the influences around us, take collective steps to counter them, and work to strengthen our democracy. Our cnas and appc collaboration is our effort to do just that. I am not going to turn the mic over to the extraordinary professor claire finkelstein, my friend in fact, faculty director for ethics and the rule of law at the university of pennsylvania has Carey Law School who is a leading voice on the intersection of law, ethics and national security. Over to claire who introduce our guests for this session. Thank you so much. Its a pleasure to have this collaboration with cns and appc. There is no more important topic to do that Election Security as we approach the 2020s general election and look back at what is happened in the last four years and contemplate the lesson from the 2016 and the 2018 elections. It is critical that different stakeholders, experts, academics, practitioners come together to think hard about the security of our democracy and about where we need to be moving forward as we approach the election and beyond. I am delighted today to have two of the greatest experts on this topic and friends and colleagues as well. Kathleen jamieson who is at ise director of the annenberg Public Policy and the author of a very important book called cyber war, that dealt with the 2016 elections. Im delighted to have kathleen here. And director James Clapper was the director of the office of the director of National Intelligence from 20012006. Am also pleased to say he is an executive board member on the center of ethics and the rule of law of which i am the faculty director. I would like to jump right in to our conversation, and then going to moderate the conversation with director clapper and professor Kathleen Hall jamieson in an informal conversational manner, inviting them to jump in at any point back, if then we will field your questions. Im going to raise a few topics for discussion and in the first instance let me just pitching this to jim clapper. Jim, the general review of what we know about the 2016 election and the dangers that led up to it are something that you spoken about consistently, written about, discussed widely. But just give us a sense as we approach the topic of Election Securityan in 2020, what are the lessons we need to have learned from the 2016 election, and what should we be look at a particular from drawing fromul those questions for the upcoming general election . Thanks to you and cns and others for hosting this very timely session i Election Security. With respect to 2016 i think start with a premise that the russians have a long history come russians andio soviets befe longish of anything in elections, there is an other peoples. Ce the expectation i think was of course we expected sort of the ambient low some reconnaissance as well as perhaps active intervention. Normally not all that difficult to detect. 2016 though was, they took a tool to the new low and, of course, the capitalized on the technology and notably social media. So they had never experienced the depth, scope and aggressiveness of an attack on our fundamental system as we did in 2016. Multipronged which included a very sophisticated Propaganda Campaign on two principal networks, funded by thea, russin government. In addition toy of course the hacking, well known about that, and the timely dumping of emails. But to me the most disturbing thing which i think we are still unprepared for is the social media assault. Mueller report volume one cites the fact that the russians reached 420 million americans, i think that was the number one facebook alone. The russians exploited our polarization, divisiveness and very well and t had messages for everybody, black lives matter, white supremacists, whatever group there was, the exploited their grievances and helped, i believe, to suppress in certain cases voting. Bearing in mind the election came down to less than 80,000 votes in three key states that russians targeted. In looking back i wish we had been more aggressive about publicizing this. There were contemporaneously reasons for not doing that initially harbored by president obama at the time, was quite reasonable. One concerned about magnifying or amplifying with the russians were doing, and then i think the bigger point president obama was very concerned about the perception, the optic of his putting his hand on the scale in favor of one can against another against the backdrop of the accusations already been madet y then candidate trump that the election would be rigged. Of course now others have gone to school on what the russians did so we have chinese and iranians involved. But the primary threat to me continues to be the russians. The chinese and iranians i think have other ambitions. What concerns me is the problem of the russians who will have gone to school on the revelations that been made public about their activities in 2016. They are going to make every effort they can to hide their tracks, and so theyve are at it again i am convinced, but its going to be harder to detect,o i will stop there. Let me invite kathleen and say in your book cyber war, you try to analyze what the not social Media Campaign could actually have thrown the 2016 election as has been suggested since the victory was quite narrow, that may be the case. Do you agree that can you talk about whether or not, in fact, you think it did . I dont think the social Media Campaign did. What i know in the First Edition was the election was found, that is there engaging in activities consistent with the Trump Campaign sneads. There were time to mobilizee constituencies you need to mobilize like evangelical catholics for example. Theyre trying to demobilize black americans and theyre trying to shift votes where they could to thirdparty candidate jill stein. We knew that from early evidence available there but it on the edition came out, we had a complete block of all the twitter content of a facebook was much less revelatory. What we could tell from that and from the additional materials that it been disclosed by the platforms between First Edition and second edition, second edition just came out in june, we were able analyze the extensive content that was there, that very large multimillion number. Most of which is not direct electoral content. If you look at the amount of exposure that they had they would have had to have reached high levels of susceptible individuals in large numbers to have created a decisive impact. They didntnu have enough reachd and he didnt have enough electorally directed content and socially to do that. They created some of that on the margin. However, their hack released content was to much of effective and thats will be conducted at a clear effect on in the american electoral system because they change the agenda and that change in media agenda was across time for more visible to the american electorate overall than anything on social media. As we know when you send immediate agenda in the direction of disadvantages one candidate because you create tha message and balance against that candidate you increase likelihoodal influence voters wl change. 2016 was unusual in that high number of influence of all voters usually the electorate is pretty locked in by the conventions, wasnt in 2016. We had High Percentage of independence, a High Percentagew of people who didnt like either candidate and coming into the time which hacked content was most visible we had high level of early voting. As a result the likelihood the russian influence was to the hacked content that was released to wikileaks is much higher than a social media influence. Finally there may have been russian disinformation that may have influenced jim comeys decision made public indictment of Hillary Clinton although not charging and some in effect make public to reopen the investigation. That reopen laptop investigate strange immediate agenda again decisive against Hillary Clinton the voting patterns in the last week turned against her decisively. They couldve been a combination of a hacked media use of that and be hacked content. And the comey disclosure. If theres any rule, then the case becomes far more decisive. This represents a levit of the ship you were saying between the First Edition of the second edition of your book based on new information you obtained . The First Edition basically said when you socialnd media activity was based on sound three of the election, the content was persuasive, logical amplifying things are in the american electorate. There was enough to create a message and bows but the First Edition did know was how many people were reached by electoral relevant content. We didnt have enough relevant content. Once we saw all of what was there we didnt see all of what was there before the First Edition was out. We largest on the advertise content. Looking at everything we can, we can know anything about it but there wasnt enough of the intellect orally rather than reaching enough create the impact. The hacked content on the other hand, had incredible clear impact on Meeting Agenda which createing powerful and message in balance against clinton. Thats powerful. With evidence from our surveys that those people who were shifting the votes across time were shifting them consistent with the patterns of media change associate with the hacked content release. In the second and third debates hacked content issues in ways that takes it out of context. Its immediate problem as much as a russian intervention problemm but in the second and third debates the perception Hillary Clinton says one thing and public and another in private both inferences drawn from hacked content as used by debate moderated in the debates. Those people that that that come difference between those who watched the debate and didnt are less likely to vote for Hillary Clinton. Thats a clear evidence of impact than anything we can say about the trolls. Jim, let me ask you about the hacking part of this. What did we know when did we know, what kathleen is saying right now, how influential the hacked content was and what it . Dve been done about we didnt know nearly, and we had a month to put together our ica so we didnt have the level detail that you just heard at the time. I wish we had but we didnt. Some of this, frankly, came from the sort of inmate instinctive reluctance to monitor Domestic Social media, and so we didnt have quite the inside. We knew about the hacking and all that but but i dont know t were able towe gauge in the shot time we had with the impact was. In my book i assert, which i wrote, published two years ago, that based on what i saw that i felt sure the russians really make the difference in swinging the election towards donald trump and away from Hillary Clinton. And i just heard some very specific imperial goal evidence that makes that case. But we didnt have the detail or specificity four is ago that looking back we knoww now. I would commend, for example, the first part of the Mueller Report which doesnt get a lot of attention, and the extensive technical detail that the decision was made to publish. We were as intelligence people traditionally are concerned about sources and methods. The mold report when the toothpicks into detail about the technical basis and the evidentiary basis for extended russian interference. So allll these things, this is a good thing, that have come out since the assessment we did which we put together in one month. Jim, could i have one follow up with you, jim and i will come back to you kathleen. The hacking that took place, there were supposedly hacking of the rnc, not just the dnc. But we never saw an email dump from the rnc. What exactly were d think the russians thinking when they hacked the dnc and then released them on to wikileaks, as far s wewe know . I dont know what they were thinking. Im not a mind reader of the russians i assume they felt there was political hay to be made here, since they clearly, and this starts with putin himself had aa very strong animus for both clintons but specifically hillary since he held responsible for attempting a full revolution against him in their elections in 2011. I guess they just made a strategic decision that whatever they could do that wouldnt in any way embarrass her and damage her candidacy, they would do. But i cant tell you what they were actually thinking. The timing i think, kathleen, this is what you are saying, the tiny was a big part of the impact with media amplifying that content and having to assure, ironically, that it had the impact the russians were seeking. I would ask this question of mr. Clapper. On october 7 did the Intelligence Community mean to convey that the russians were behind the hacking of the dnc only and not behind the podesta hacking . Because what happened on octobes Hollywood Tape being released on that day, your Intelligence Report comes out, then, you get the access Hollywood Tape and in the same day the podesta hacked content is done. The question of journalistic standpoint is whether journalists to understand on the intelligence briefing that morning that that briefing in compass back at the podesta content, or was it only focus on the earlier dnc hack . It was only focus on the earlier hack. And so a journalist without necessarily have having able ty dan at the podesta hacked content was russian in origin when it was used in the media cycle to counterbalance the access Hollywood Tape and that story . Well, we didnt factor in all the stuff att the time, you kno, the access Hollywood Tape obviously caught us by surprise. A week or two at least before it was actually released because we did have to haggle over the language again, protecting source putin personally and all of those kinds of things and ran it through the interagency. And just was happenstance that we got all of that done and publicly released that statement on the 7th of october and of course, as i said, the message was emasculated by the access Hollywood Tape. Well, and thats the first clear evidence of the russians changing the media agenda because had you had that announcement by the Intelligence Community and the access Hollywood Tape, remember the second debate is october 9th two days later would have been an antitrump media agenda with examined on television, what do you know about these russians. For practical purposes, the Intelligence Community reports dropped below the first page and out of the media agenda on the sunday news shows and as a result was not seen featured prominently by the media as it began to cover the rest of the hacked content dropped week by week throughout the rest of the election. Thes first clear electoral effective of the russians through Julian Assange is to create an equivalence media, that results in the down playing of the intelligence media report and a parallel between what does donald trump say in private and do in public. And what does Hillary Clinton say in public and in private, stay in private. And you have a counter balancing of the hacked content against the access Hollywood Tape and the Intelligence Community, donald trump could have lost his place at the top of the ticket, but not only the counter balancing which is why its so important to know whether the reporters could reasonably surmise the russians were behind the hacking of the p podesta content was hacked or not and when did they tell the press that. I dont i do not recall specifically the date and time that we realiz realized, we were aware of the pod desta tapes, i dont remember the sequence there. My how were the social media platforms treated not as important as protecting our infrastructure, but extremely important. But the press could not know that the podesta was hacked and you couldnt say all through october and november, russia hacked every time they had the podesta content and why werent you saying to the Intelligence Community why wasnt it russian hacked. Lets go on to what we can anticipate in the next 50 days. We havent seen that kind of hacking, dumping, this time around, and maybe its yet to come. But lets stick, since youve highlighted that ckathleen, with the hacking side of things. Jim, what have we done from what you know, obviously youre not in office anymore, but from public reports or anything else that you know, what have we done to protect ourselves against this kind of hacking content in the runup to the 2020 election . Well, i think the first thing thats important, is obviously, theres a lot more awareness and sensitivity to, you know, the whole threat posed by the russians. So, im sure a lot has been done at the state and local level to improve Cyber Security. Thats all important. And its probablien even some places, im sure, better than others so i think that this is the greater awareness of it and if it were to occur, i would hope i dont know, that there would be a more aggressive publicity about it. And i i do think that there could easily be another such effort made by the russians. Im part of an effort called cyber dome, which is a group of people that want to volunteer nonprofit basis, are trying to help the campaigns and those affiliated with the campaigns to secure their networks and i think there are a lot of efforts going on. You listen to chris from dhs, they feel confident that theyre much better prepared and im sure they are, but what the primary cant gauge how effective thats going to be, nor can i forsee exactly what other things that we havent thought of, that the russians might do. So one of the questions that kathleens discussion raises is such a hack and dump were to occur in the next 50 days, are we prepared to manage the fallout from that in a more effective way than we did the last time . And is the media as a society and particularly the media, is the media prepared to identify or at least be suspicious to a greater degree than they were in 2016, of such information coming out in order to potentially label it as kathleen says, hacked content. When you say media, there are there are, you know, wide variances in the spectrum. So, i dont know the answer to your question about how well the media is prepared or the public. I dont know. Im frankly concerned about how the government reacts. Right, so whats your thought about that, jim . And then im going to turn back to kathleen and ask her the same question. Well, you know, the appearance, at least, of sort of muzzling or at least, i think, slanting the message a bit that weve received so far, i cant say im i have a level of confidence about is how much of this will be shared with the media, the American Public or anybody, even the congress, for that matter. Kathleen, do you think were better prepared to deal with this kind of hack and dump, this time around than we were in 2016 . I dont know. And we know that there are attempts to hack right now. So the question, are we going to see this happening sometime in the next week . Of the failure in 2016 is a failure of journalistic norm, in fairness to reporters, that he had 150,000 content dropped on them, but to fail to say they hadnt independently verified, which is the journalistic norm, theyre to verify they hadnt. They did not track is back to julieweulian assanges wikileakd he had opposed the campaign of Hillary Clinton. As a result they did not look as they should have at the timing of releases by assange, which was highly strategic, which was designed to do maximum damage to the democrats and in the process, because i think of the speed of the moment and simply being overwhelmed, they also, i believe, inadvertently took key pieces of hacked content out of context, Hillary Clintons statement said sometimes you have to say one thing in public and another in private was from the context, a discussion of Steven Spielbergs film lincoln, its nothing to do with banks, im saying one thing in public and the other in private. And that she was saying such things. She was not. The press took the open borders, open trade, is what she said. I stand for open trade and opened borders. She said open trade and open borders sometime in the future in the western hemisphere and in the same sentence, referred specifically to energy. When the press reduced those two she confessed one thing in prieflt and one thing in public and then into open trade and open borders they created a disadvantage to her in the second and third baits with audiences over 60 million to each and thats why that debate finding, that debate to viewers and nonviewers, and presence of control, that shes more likely to say one thing in public and another in private is so damaging. When you think that, youre less likely to vote for her in the presence of all the other stimulus, so theres a strong indictment of the press violating its own norm under the pressure of the moment with an enormous amount of content to deal with in a highly polarized environment. Have they learned the lesson . I dont know unless theyre stress tested. I hope we dont know the answer and hope we dont have another stance. Kathleen you said in 2016 the social Media Campaign did not by itself throw the election, but is there potential in 2020 when the social media interference has, if anything, gotten more sophisticated, as jim mentioned earlier, other countries have gotten into the act . Have they learned, the russians in particular have learned how to make their social media impact more effective . I think we ought to take director clappers statement you dont fight the last war as theyre adapting very, very seriously, but what we can say is were adapting, too. The social media platforms have now put in place clear protections. Far more difficult for a Foreign National to buy advertising, blatantly illegal in our system and when some of those ads were purchased in rubles that should have been a clue something was going on in 2016, but now its very, very difficult to do that. You need i. D. Numbers and an address, and you can in theory do it, but theyre now shutting accounts and looking for inauthentic behavior. And with the trafficking of material on youtube, and in the past there was no identifying of a state actor behind youtube posting. Now when you see rt posting material, that rt has a substantial amount of public visibility and see the bottom of the screen that rt is tied to the russian government. Now, remember thats mandated. Thats mandated because its registered under the foreign registration act. No, youtube is doing that for all government sponsored content and doing it for pbs, too, but it gives you one more cue. We know audiences judge messages through the source of the message. And in the past with that absence of that, you could just think rt was one more media outlet. You wouldnt have known that you had a russian government behind it and if you see rt now in your Cable Systems in your home, in your hotels, or you hear sputnik on air, you dont actually have the same protection that you have with the youtube posting of those videos. There are big changes and theyre important. Thats right. Jim. How do you see the social media side of the risk in the runup to the 2020 election . Well, as kathleen indicated, there have been some demonstrable improvements and theyre now doing things that, you know, they didnt do in the runup to the 2016 election. Hopefully, those things will help. And also, i have to recognize that the volume of material that they need to screen and hopefully point out. I dont do social media so i cant gauge how effective that is. Its a monument job and i will tell you, given First Amendment considerations, i wouldnt want to be the one to have to write the rules on what to screen, its a difficult problem. Its certainly better than it was in the prior in the previous elections. Before we talk a little bit about what social Media Companies can do and the private sector can do in more detail, id like to talk about election day in particular. And talk about some of the risks from disinformation that could occur. Let me give you a scenario. So, lets imagine that people are many people are voting in person who would otherwise have done mailin ballots because theyre concerned about whats going on with the post office, theyre concerned about the reliability of mailin battles and so they, in spite fears of the pandemic, they flock to the polls. And then there is a social media meme that says, puts out some disinformation. For example, theres an active shooter in such and such a polling location, or someone has been discovered to have, you know, active Coronavirus Infection and that polling station is infected. Lets imagine this is russian sourced disinformation. What can we do in the runup to the election to guard against that effect . It could have a powerful effect of dissuading people from voting. Well, if youre asking me, i suppose this is a responsibility both of the government and the media and given the decentralized nature of our Voting System this would have to be done on a local level and thats where, i think, the rubber is going to meet the road on the potential or contrived threats to the safety of the voting process. And i just think about my own case where i live and what would have to be, but local election foreclosures would have to do to be alert to such a situation and then be able to verify or corroborate or not what has been postulated. And thats going to be a difficult task, particularly if, you know, if the russians only do it a few places, thats manageable. But if its widespread, i cant say how well we will collectively react to that. It could be quite daunting, and could have demonstrable impact on the outcome of the election. And this really lies at the state, doesnt it . Because were unlikely to see any kind of leadership from the federal government to protect against such disinformation, given the political climate, given what we know about this president. So, the question is, whether or not the states are up to the task of policing the disinformation and its impact on voter turnout. Kathleen, do you have any thoughts about that . Yeah, first the concern here is not simply foreign interference. This is a concern of domestic actors as well and its more likely that youll have something happening domestically amplified than the foreign actors would initiate because youd need a reasonable amount of local information to understand how to play that tactic out. This is the reason that its so important that local news be trusted by its audiences. Because if were told, for example, in philadelphia that there is the threat to the mt. Ayre voting station i would vote in my area. The i need to trust local news will be there to verify and that we have the vigilance and the community to alerted social news that the social media string is saying theres a threat. Fortunately, theres still high confidence in local news, but here is the worry that i have. We knew in 2016 that we had what i called a sleeper account. Thats the accounts that didnt engage in any form of propaganda or election related activity. They didnt look if they were trying to amass audiences in order to persuade them. They look like a normal news account. They were laying low to activate at some point as a sleeper would have in order to plant information. And they have local news and havent been caught by the social media platforms and theyre not giving the cues that might make them detectible. This is a possibility that those sites are trusted and as a result the sites are competing with legitimate local news, its more important than ever that our local news stations are in touch with every source of of Accurate Information and disinformation as we approach election day, trust local news, here are the ones you can trust. Anything on social media that is a local news outlet, theyve created imposter sites often called fake news, a label i would like to dispatch from everybodys vocabulary, and id like vd veneral disease, dont want to catch it, transmit is, et cetera. And the news, and pretending theyre news by taking the form of a news site. Exact, abc. Com. Com was set up in 2016 to look like abc. The danger, people think theyre going to reputable news, but theyre going to an imposter site and say anything that doesnt have this same local. And you dont see jim gardner channel 6, come to us. Come to us, come to the channels you know, because the danger, you go for verification and get a sleeper site and as a result you get deceived and dont vote. And so what kathleen is at that talking about is a concerning scenario of imposter news sites helping to magnify disinformation or put out disinformation, really would require intense coordination between local voting sites, local Law Enforcements, and media. Do we have anything in our Intelligence Community apparatus that would allow for that kind of coordination and outreach . And sort of, what is the state of the ic right now in terms of its robustness on the federal level for assisting in these efforts . I have no idea. I dont the formal structure would be i mean, i would look frankly to the fbi which has, through their 56 field offices, so, they have probably the best network of local liaison with local officials, particularly Law Enforcement, of anyone. The part of Homeland Security operates, i think, some 77. At least a number was the problem when i left the government in 17, fusion centers, which worked with the fbi. So i would hope, but i dont i have no idea, that theres been some planning done and some scenarios on what they would do. One other factor i would mention is, you know, the effect of states being red or blue and in a red state, how aggressive would a governor, a republican governor be about public sizi publicizing russian efforts to disrupt social media, i have no idea. I know its out there. We do know that the federal government supplied in the wake of the 2016 election, funds to help shore up the security. However, a number of states actually turned down those fund, particularly red states, were not actually interested in the and there are bills languishing in the senate right now to enhance Election Security and of course, theyre not going anywhere before the election. So for my part, im very concerned about even in spite of the lessons that weve learned in 2016, just how current we are given the partisan, charged partisan environment of this election and the scenarios that youve suggested occurred, how well react to them. Again, its all basically local. And i think the point about the media being our National Conscience is a good one. And hopefully the media will step up and in these situations, because i think thats going to be our most important bulwark of defense. Will let me ask you about the fbi in this regard. We have a president who attacked the Intelligence Community relentlessly since 2016 and indeed is currently engaged through his attorney general in investigations, counter investigations of a number of members of the Intelligence Community. Do we think that that has or let me ask you, to what degree has that really crippled the ability of the ic to respond to anything that comes up and others who may insist there was an impressive report out of the Senate Intelligence committee, bipartisan report, that did identify a number of threats to our security and reviewed the 2016 election situation. Do you think that this is enough robustness between our, you know, congressional committees and our, what remains of our ic to address any of this on the federal level . Again, i dont know the inside baseball here, but it has to have an implicitly Chilling Effect on people at the individual i just read in the media today, apartment live ive been subpoenaed by senator johnsons committee and here we are four years later and wasnt too much away from the election. So when people see that or they s see, as in the case of dan coates, who was telling truth to power and as a result, you know, was removed essentially as dni. So people see that and its hard to gauge because its kind of a subjective thing and boils down to what individual intelligence people think and do in a given situation, and its, you know, very hard to forecast that. Well, on that note id like to get into some of the questions from our audience. So i have a document here that will present some of your questions, you can please forward those questions and i will be delighted to present them to our extraordinary speakers. And while you do that, let me just mention, theres a real role for the Economic Community here to be vigilant as we begin our early voting and through election day to monitor all of the social media traffic thats relevant to their media market so they can help flag this to reputable local media outlet to disseminate widely, the reasons you should be an i believe to trust them and also the reasons you should be wary of alternative strains of influence, particularly about your voting. Now, i think i need to remind members of our audience how to send your questions in. Youll want to use twitter and theres a hash tag, protecting democracy 2020. And please feel free to send your questions to that hash tag and i will convey them to our speakers. And i think i have some questions coming in, while im waiting for those to come in, im going to continue our conversation, just a little bit. Lets talk briefly about voter suppression. One of the things thats changed dramatically since 2016 is that we, of course, have donald trump in the white house, who is running for reelection. In 2016 the president of the United States was not himself running for reelection. So that means that, you know, the head of our executive branch has a vested interest in the outcome of the election and in the runup to this election, there has about and lot of activity on the part of the white house and various cabinet secretaries trying to support the reelection bid of donald trump. What can we expect to see with regard to things that the executive branch uniquely has the ability to influence . And one of the things im thinking about is security on election day and the threat to actually send Law Enforcement to polls. Jim, have you given any thought to that and whether or not that would have a Chilling Effect . Now, as i had it, that actually would not be legal and that there would have to be some kind of threat who justify, as well as a request from local officials to bring federal officials in. However, the possibility of fake security threats disinformation di kirk lat circulating could be similar to what happened in portland coming to polling stations. Any thought for that . Ive thought about it. You know, when the threat was made about sending federal Law Enforcement to polling places, well, theres an awful lot of poll places in this country, so for one, it would be simple limitation, physical limitations, theres not that many people that get sent to polling places and i also think that in many, many cases that local officials would react quite negativetively to that and certainly would raise a stink, i think, if they hadnt requested anything. But i think for minorities, particularly if federal police in portland show up, that could have certainly an intimidating effect on voters. So you know, i hope it doesnt happen. Given the bent of our department of justice and particularly the attorney general, i think look for opportunities to do just that though. And so, thats another concern i have is about, you know, potential federal intervention in what is essentially a locally conducted activity. Id like to raise a question in a different fashion, which we are so polarized now and we have so many instances in which some individual legitimately or not has attacked the integrity of agencies we had in the past and can we trust a vaccine. Was 2016 so polarized, director clapper, when were you putting the statement out from the Intelligence Community you were concerned it wouldnt be believed because people are assuming youre simply operatives ever the Obama Administration . Thats simply true and your point about Government Entities that formerly normally have been trusted will not be. There could, i think, easily be a suspicious about anything which is i dont think we have that situation as stark into the 2016 as it is now because if anything, polarization has gotten worse. I have a go ahead, kathleen. When i was first writing the First Edition of cyber war and we knew less than we have now. Im clear what the russians were behind because there were some people channel challenging the intelligence, you cant trust them theyre obama operatives. And i remember they said these are the same people that told us there were weapons of mass destruction. And perhaps theyre not competent and my logic went like this. If an agency made mistakes like weapons of mass destruction, it would be so much more careful than it had been in the past and even though it had been in the past, and inadvertently got it wrong. Before we had the evidence i was premising on the book that it was the russian. In the absence of confirmation, beyond what has spoken by the community. People opinion the academic community, suspicions raised about these processes, who do you trust now . In 2020, if somebody said the russians are doing x, would we believe that they are . Ar would the news media. And to trust what they know and our whole system breaks down. I would just say that thats one reason why i was personally cautious and conservative because i was around in, i think it was october of 2002 and my fingerprints were on the National Intelligence estimate about weapons of mass destruction in iraq, i was then director of what was called the National Mapping agency and i was present for the National Council meeting that ended up approving that nie, although it did have some very compelling dissents that got fast forward to 2015, 2016 is one reason why i personally was very careful about what we said and what we and the conference levels that we ascribed to the assertions that we made about russian interference and that was particularly the case with respect to the Intelligence Community and we focused in 2017. Let me ask questions that the audience is asking. The first question i want to ask, how secure are american Voting Machines . Now, let me sort of rephrase this question a little bit. Because, you know, some of them are strictly electronic balloting and theres a big difference between electronic and paper ballots. And then of course, there were the states with electronic balloting with paper backup. This is a very technical subject. Jim, do you have any thoughts . Let me just say one more thing about it, in 2016 there were reports about hacking into Voter Registration rolls. But we didnt have at least even with further information, widespread reports of attempts to hack into actual to manipulate actual votes. Actually, clare, we made the statement and the assessment that we saw no evidence of tampering with Voting Machines or voter tallies. That isnt to say that didnt happen. We didnt see the evident of it. And this time there will be heightened awareness of this. What ive read, and i cant verify this, but theres a very High Percentage of voters of voting processes where theres paper ballot backups. Ive would hope that that would be a buttress against tampering. But its certainly quite possible. One of the things that concerned us was we saw the russians reconnoitering, almost noisy about it like sometimes they wanted us to know they were doing it. Voter registration, for example, theres all kind of mischief manipulating them, but they never did anything with it and the supposition was, this is a sleeper thing and that perhaps they were doing it to understand how to penetrate and if they wanted to manipulate later. I dont know if thats the case or not. I do think though, that there is a greater sense of awareness and heightened sensitivity about efforts on the part of the russians or for that matter anybody else to try to manipulate the voter tallies. And its a changed game in 2020 because of the connections, ill just leave it that way dd between foreign maligned actors and those who are actually who have vested interest inside the United States, that level of coordination or potential coordination. Is that a game changer for 2020 . Well, it could be. I mentioned, i talked about this in my book, about the striking parallels and similarities between things that the russians were doing and saying, and that the Trump Campaign was doing the same. Particularly with respect to Hillary Clinton and specifically her health and striking parallels, similarities. Im not suggesting the cword or anything, but how much of that well see in 2020, i dont know, but would he we certainly shunting shouldnt be shocked to see similarities. Are you aware whether local media have set up portals to receive and investigate tips . And quince about to i would encourage everyone who has access to local media structures to do that. What can they do specifically . If i were running the major media outlet in any local news environment and we know some stigses are far more popular and news outlets are more popular. I would open a tip line and public size it and the same way they open Consumer Health lines, so they have Consumer Health lines, if you think youve been defrauded contact this line and our Investigative Reporter will see whether or not and they put the piece on news to show they helped. I think they sudden consider this a Consumer Health line and i would encourage every local media outlet if it has an audience to do it. And to set up a capacity around election day itself is particularly worried about the physical voting on election day and how the effective disinformation on it, that you dont have a second chance, once election day is past, youre out of the game. To let people raise concerns that they have read about, heard about and then have regular onair breakins to engage in we know scholarly to debunks it. And thats an argument for a local community that has done this Research Partners to try to protect our local electorate. And one of the things we havent talked about at all that could also be a help here is systems that have been set up, in some states could be more widespread to verify voting after the fact. And theres an Organization Called verified voting and we have at least one from that organization who will be speaking to us in our afternoon round tables about how verification of voting could work. And one of the things, of course, thats worrisome is that the there will be an initial readout of the election on november 3rd and the tally is coming from the mailin and the absentee ballots that could affect that readout. If you then on top of it have verification procedures to verify the votes that have been cast that could get revised tallies further. This could be a very drawnout process in which, you know, if its a close election, we really wont know for quite a while and if the initial sense is that one candidate or another has won and then that changes, how that will play, you know, whether or not people will be prepared to accept and have confidence in the announced results of the election. We also need to think systematically Going Forward because early voting is now going to become far more normal across all of our elections about changing the patterns of reporting and having the state systematically think about when they start to tally the votes that they have. And how they tally because people, for the most port are able, i believe, and im talking with law professors and i know ive got people there, to revoke a vote once casted. One problem with tallying, and a state allows you, no, i want to cast another vote. Who you would you do that with early vote tallying. We need to think these things and protect the individual, too, if they want new revelations to cast that before election day. Thats complex and hasnt been systematically discussed. I worry well have it decided on the fly. Let me get a couple of other questions here before we are out of time. Has misinformation related to the coronavirus pandemic created an even more hostile hospital hospitable condition and kathleen youre concerned about Conspiracy Theory and weve heard from the attorney general to the degree even members of the cabinet seem to subscribe to conspiracy theories, what about the link between coronavirus misinformation and Election Security . Well, first we know the rushes shun have been spreading conspiracy theories. We have been focused on russian disinformation about electionings. Theyve spread it about gmo, 5gs, vaccinations and coronavirus. Theyre engaged in any move that makes the United States look bad, as always have as director clapper has pointed out in the seminar. You have conspiracy theories more active than they have been in some domaindomains. And this is a health domain. But it could affect the likelihood that you cast the ballot. How do they sinn ene ene ener synergyze. Youre less likely to take a flu vaccine or contact traced. If a vaccine is proven, quote, unquote, proven to be effective by fda standards that youll take the vaccine. What happens if you harness the Conspiracy Theory with the election and something to do with covid. Would that in fact be affecting those individuals . The worry is that the answer might be yes. Jim, do you have any im sorry . Do you want to add anything on that . I think that that allows me to make a point that i think is kind of important because just to make at least in my mind, a clear distinction between Cyber Security and the fisecurity and the voter apparatus and the means which which votes are cast, compiled, computed and reported. Thats all very important, but to me, there is a second major bin here or category which i would call for lack of a better term, cognitive security. This has to do with the resisting what is, you know, promulgated on the internet, social media and otherwise and getting people to request what they read on the internet. And i know, i think weve done precious little preparation for improving our cognitive security. Its very subjective. I do think at least for me, there are two distinct categories of concern that i have, one the cyber administrative physical security versus more subjective cognitive or intellectual security. You know, of questioning the conspiracies and other falsehoods that are spread on social media. And that concept of cognitive security is an incredibly important one, we may not have caught up to where we need to be and in shoring up our cognitive in advance of 2020. I hope its something that we will be looking at in the future. Let me get one more question in here from our audience, which is what, if any, is the impact of foreign election interference on elections for officers other than that of the president in 2020 . Do foreign governments only care about the white house or should we be looking at state and local elections, as well and sort of, how far down do they go . I think in russians minds the most important election is the one for president. Thats the one they look at. I suppose they could, if they chose to, specifically perhaps for senatorial elections, involved. I think in their mind the most important they think is the president. And thats why, we sort of pat ourselves on the back, i guess, how well things went at the mid terms in 2018. I dont really think that that was a real good index for the extent of the russian interference because i dont think they were that interested. Right. So thats an important lesson. We were sort of saying to ourselves though, look, we got through 2018. No major evidence. We must have improved. But as you point out. It may not be our improvement, but their lack of interest. The russian content did disclose congressional level data used in at least one of the campaigns at 2016 at the congressional level. Thats helpful. Now, this morning a former dni, dan coates, called for a Bipartisan Congressional Commission to oversee the election and guarantee the integrity of the vote count. Do we think that would be a helpful measure or do we, you know, how reliable would that be . Should congress get into the act . Would that be an effective thing for them to do . Well the thought i would offer is, of course, its a good idea, but im not sure if there is time left to organize something of that magnitude, particularly this late in the process. Kathleen. I would raise the question in this polarized environment do we have people who are considered nonpartisan enough and trusted enough by both sides to actually staff one. Do we have people like governor cain and congressman hamilton that headed up the 9 11 commission, yes, theyre people whose judgment i would trust and were so polarized now and may have put it impossible to put in place any structure that would not be channelled by someone for a venal partisan end. I fear thats a changed game from 2016 even the degree of polarization is so extreme and the level of mistrust so high. Jim you mentioned that you recently were subpoenaed, im sorry to hear that. And what i read in the paper, i havent heard anything official about it. Thats interesting. We know that the attorney general is working on a report through durham that may come out and there are several other attorney generals as well as the three Senate Committees that we talked about, a fbi investigation. Do we, should we be anticipating that some major report could drop between now and the election that would have a very similar impact to what the hacked he mails had . And when you get the timing exactly right, you release that and before people have a chance to really digest the reliability of what they have read, it throws the election. I dont know, i assume thats the certainly thats the president s objective that there will be some bombshell that will be dropped about actions people took in 2016. But, you know, i dont know. I guess, the message i take away from this is what we were supposed to get done was to have ignored the russian interference. If that was if wed done that and everything would have been hunkydory. I guess thats the message here. Of the counter investigations, yes. And there is a real concern, you might remember that bill barr, when he was recently testifying, was asked whether or not he would refrain from issuing any reports that might impact the election and the immediate runup to the election and ask potentially for a vote for an impactful durham report. And he said, i do not promise that. So that he might very well be doing that, however, durham himself has said that these investigations take a long time and he may not be done with the report in time for the election. Again, thats all i know is what i read in the media. I dont know what to read into all that and whether or not durham was to come out with something. I dont know. We are pretty much out of time. There will be a 45 minute break now. The next panel, which will be moderated by my colleague, carrie cordero, will feature robert gates, who is senior fellow at cnas, scott, department of secretary of state of connecticut. The president and ceo of the Leadership Conference on civil and human rights. Bill cristal, directing on bulwark and doctor for alliance of security and the german marshall fund. A very large panel only the next one. This has been a fab list and fascinating conference conversation between the two of you and ive known both of you, and i was excite having both of you in the same room, a virtual room, and kathleen for your work and jim for your work for the country and continuing is deeply appreciated. Thank you for this conversation. We hope to all of our members of our audience that youll be back in 45 minutes for the next Panel Moderated by carrie cordero. Thank you to our partners for in extraordinary conference today. With the ongoing Global Pandemic and many schools shifting to online learning, cspans student cam competition begins to provide students with a platform, to engage in a national conversation. Were asking middle and High School Students to pro he dues a five minute documentary, exploring what they want in 2021. This is to choose facts, and the constitution was giving them including those times as shown in the 5th and 8th amendment. And there are issues of equality. It needs reformed. When youth are given the opportunity and the skills to become enveloped voters and engaged citizens, the results, because democracy must be learned. From inequity and decades long waits for legal documents to a tumultuous path to citizenship or children who were born here about you parents migrated. There are 1,000 cash prizes including a grand prize of 5,000. Submit for january, 2021. For Contest Rules and information how to get started, go to student cam. Org. President donald trump and former vicepresident joe biden are set to debate tuesday, september 29th. Biden supports Cutting Police funding and end cash bail. Just last week, bradley accepted the endorsement of the pro criminal antipolice portland district attorney, who has a policy of releasing rioters, vandals, criminals and violent extremists without charge. He lied to the american people. He knowingly and willingly lied about the threat imposed to the country for months. He had the information, he knew how dangerous it was, and while this deadly disease ripped through our nation, he failed to do his job on purpose. The life and death betrayal of the american people. Watch live coverage of the first president ial debate tuesday, september 29th cspan at 9 p. M. Eastern and watch all of cspans debate coverage live or on demand at cspan. Org debates and quickly follow all president ial and vicepresident ial debates in our library, there is candidate videos and go to cspan. Org debates or listen live on the cspan radio app. Cspan, your unfiltered view of politics. Political reporters joined in a discussion about election strategies, polling, and different messaging from the biden and Trump Campaigns. The conversation covered issues like the coronavirus pandemic and protests around the country. The institute of politics at Harvards Kennedy school hosted this event. This evening, we have four Outstanding National political reporters who are joining us. Were delighted to have you here and we look forward to your questions. In a special way we recommend the College Class of 2024 as you begin your journey here at harvard. We wish you all the very best and hope youll be engaged in politics, attending forums and working fellows and the range of programs that we have. We welcome you to campus to Kennedy School as well. We look forward t
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