Have access to fast, reliable internet. Cspan, howard my cable up next director of National Intelligence avril haines testifies about some of the potential foreign threats to the 2024 elections. She addresses why thesehr threas which could come from russia, china or iran have become more complex to manage. She is joined by other Security Officials including cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director jan easterly at the Senate Intelligence committee hearing. Im going to call this hearing to order at about welcome todays witnesses. What want them at the outset we are finishing up one vote. Photograph of another one, go to the process of people slipping in and out. I think you understand. Our Witnesses Today are outlays come director of National Intelligence, jan issue to come corrective subs get into for secretary zinke agency, cisa, and lisa knapp, assistant director for nationals could break at the fbi. Welcome to all of you. Todays hearing built on this committee is bipartisan effort since 2016 to educate the public on the intentions of foreign adversaries seeking to undermine the integrity of our democratic systems, and to ensure that u. S. Government is postured to protect our elections from those foreign threats. Interagency task force is tasked with protecting from to my forms of election interference weve seen since 2016. Interference efforts often cyber enabled that target election infrastructure, and separately, influence efforts that seek to affect elections through covert or other illegal tactics. Since 2016 2060 we have heh open and closed hearings ahead of each federal election. This is the first open hearing of this mobile becoming. Now i want to start by recalling the fact i fear times since 2016 sica was so long ago that the publicic perception past one election has to often address something that was trivial or not majorly. But as his committees exhausted bipartisan investigation into russias meddling in 2016 election showed, and as declassified intelligence assessment showed, foreign influenced efforts go well beyond simple online trolling or traditional propaganda. For an election efforts in the last eight years have among other things involved efforts to infiltrate both online and inperson a range of use organization on both sides of the political spectrum with the goal of stoking Political Polarization in the United States and promoting social and racial strife. Weve seen as both successful impersonations of youth political social with the russian i remember way back in 2016 having twitter and Facebook Accounts for the tennessee gop black lives matter both of those accounts were actually bigger than the real organizations. Weve seen harassment and sting operations against u. S. Candidates. Itwe saw last cycle with the prc influence operatives try to set up a a sting operation to buly and humiliate a congressional candidate of chinese heritage. We seen successful effort to actually organize realworld political rallies. Back in 2016 again. One almost come to realize violence. Russian efforts orchestrated simultaneous rallies in houston, one with an antimuslim event taking place at exactly the same time and place as a muslim cultural event. Likely Law Enforcement intervene. Weve also seen personalized emails sent in 2020 by iranian influence actors posing as proud boys which the Trump Administration leadership did a good job of pointing out. Globally, we have seen many of the same foreign influence actors aggressively meddling in the elections of our democratic allies. The prcs influence actors aggressively sought to shape the outcome of taiwans election earlier this year, including promoting narratives that election had been rigged as election day neared more recently, literally in the last few weeks, check in belgium officials have disclose effort of russianoo operatives to shape the outcome of junes eu elections with the goal of undermining european support for ukraine. And a wide range of me opensource research and other sources has similar pointed two russian influence operations in slovakia, when the cases that i find particularly interest to act country that would russia invaded said a person slovaks supported ukraine. A few years later, due to russian efforts, now a prorussian presence and bluetooth that 5 of the slovaks have told sankey think the United States started the war in ukraine. We seen recently as well deepfakes of the moldavian president heaven widely circulated. And fresh off the press just a couple hours amok when asked our witnesses to testify but a new russian effort geared at some are saying that zelensky and the cia are working on trying to undermine again our elections in this year. The barriers to entry for formal line influence of enforcer become incredibly small. Since 2016 weve seen declassified intelligence assessments made a whole host of influence actors who have engaged in at least p contemplad election influence and interference activities. Not only russia comes out on a van or prc also cuba, venezuela, pterosaur musicians like hezbollah and range of foreignnd hactivists and profit motivated ricyber criminals. One of the things and i think this hearing is important, in many ways our adversaries could be more sophisticated and aggressive in both scale and scope in this election even that in prior years. Let me tell you why i think thats the case. First, our adversaries are more incentivizes ever to intervene in our election. Because they can understand that it o could affect their particur national interest. In the case of russia, putin could he understands influencing Public Opinion and shaping elections in the United States is a cheap way to the road american and western support for ukraine. Similarly, weve seen the conflict between israel and hamas has been a Fertile Ground for disinformation since octobe. Second, the scale and sophistication of these sorts of attacks against our elections can now be accelerated by ai tools. The truth is, the kind of audio and videoeo manipulation that en as recently as four years ago and clearly pictures go was still a challenge. Now can happen at a f speed and scale due to ai tools that are unprecedented. And literally theres not a week oror month that goes by that the ai video and audio tools dont continue to improve. I just find a personal note i fear that caucuses inability to pass any new guardrails in the last 18 months congresses for ai mr. Verrilli could post acute problem. Weve seen fake video of President Trump embracing dr. Fauci. Weve seen adios of President Biden telling people to use different voting day in New Hampshire. The truth is these tools are out there and growing in their danger. Third, we seen unfortunately increasingly large numbers of americans of all political stripes across the political spectrum who simply dont trust u. S. Institutions from federal agencies and Law Enforcement to Mainstream Media who increasingly rely on the wildest conspiracy theories imaginable that pop up on the web. And forth, since 2022 weve two weve seen a concerted Litigation Campaign that assad undermine the federal governments ability to share on any kind of voluntary basis vital trait information with social media platforms. And, unfortunately, since 2022 weve seen from some of those same social media platforms considerable disinvestment and in certain cases utter disinterest and platform integrity by some of the social Media Companies. And an area where vice chairman and and i portray closer together we seen the rise of a down social media platform tiktok with ownership based in the country that is clearly adversarial in terms of their intense on our elections. It is these kinds of attempts by foreign actors and adversaries to sow so disinformation, uy covers in elections and seed this court that americans can expect their federal agencies, both Law Enforcement and intelligence, to help detect and defeat. Weve got to do a better job of making sure americans of all political stripes understand what is there a probably coming their way to open the next less than 16 months. Less than six months. I hope todays witnesses can provide a comprehensive overview of these and current threats and anything that may be emerging. And what we can do in a Collaborative Cooperative bipartisan way to make sure that the public is aware of this i think dramatic threat to our democracy. With that alternate the vice chairman. Thanks for calling this hearing and thank you for being here on this important topic. By the weights will will begin with is the next quarter century but its hopefully one we get to learn from experience on. I always seem to at the outset to sort of because i know this will be discussed as an election threats to the election is about topic and always, always bifurcated to things. Theres election interference which is trying to hack into the voter database for messing with the early reporting unofficial reporting system of the state, things of that nature. Thats more easilyy understood. And then there is the sole topic of influence is that just an election. Its also in other debates. With the elements of that during covid. We see during policy debates here on a range of topics. The propaganda has always been a weapon of war. I think today you can do it at scale faster more convincing and in ways w that spread very quicy and are difficult to contain. In particular, we seen this coldly. I mean weve seen increasing amount of damage thats been done to the reputation of the United States in parts of africa by very active effort to undermine, make life very difficult for our diplomats to serve in the region. Our military personnel andil soe of these countries where the russians have moved in and gained greater influence. So all that is happening at a globalal scale, and the chairman has already talked about some of the countries that effaced effort to meddle in their elections and try to influence and steer the outcome in some cases successfully. Today i thinkei the focus is gog on how this can be used in an election and the policy debates lets focus on elections for a moment. The reason why i want to really focus on that is i think will hear a lot about the tools available, the capabilities that someone has to put how to ai video to spread narratives that encircled to knock down and so the weaponization of this information. What i think i hope to learn more about is when this happens, if this happens, whos in charge of responding to it . Have we thought to the process of what do we do when one of the scenario occurs . I dont think ive question of whos in charge and have we would respond, who would take the leap ino know it hurricane s head towards the United States the National Hurricane center is going to put meteorologist on the air were going to describe to us this is eric encompasses what looks like him how strong is going to be what gets you can put up forecast issue warnings and republicans democrats will take the appropriate steps that Something Like that were headed toward her election i dont know whos in charge of putting it out there. More importantly, i think no matter who puts it out there, the candidate or issue on the other side of it, their followers are going to question whether its a government interfering in the election themselves and us not helpful as an. Example uses as an example because its a very recent one with a laptop situation happen, the hunter by laptop, a number of formerr intelligence officials, i get it, they perform, no longer employed beneath these agencies, but the title carries weight all signed a letter say this is all the hallmarks of a Russian Disinformation Campaign. We know that was not a Disinformation Campaign. I do i get it to the particulars of what was on. We just dont know it will start a Russian Disinformation Campaign but result of it was, social Media Companies would not allow anyone to post the articles and a was a media blackout. It could not be reported in any of it except one place. What happens as result whether o that influence or not, the result of net is we have some segment of the country who repeatedly says things like the Intelligence Community interfered even though these were formers but that title why that is relevant is because no matter who this Disinformation Campaign is geared after, the other side isr good to say the people issuing the warnings are people that are interfering in the elections on behalf of the candidate they favor. We are in a real quandary but i think where to begin by understanding it something would happen to come ifrr tomorrow the was a video very convincing the other candidate, lets not say president , lets the u. S. Senate or congress and the video comes out with 72 hours to go before election day of that candidate saying some racist comment or doing something horrifying, but its fake. Who is in charge of letting people know this thing is they . This thing is not real. So that we can have people who dont go to the ballot box believing something thats not real israel. Thats influence our election and asked myself what was in charge of the come when we can to protect the credibility of the entity that is, the web it is in charge of saying it so that the other side does not come out and say our own government is indifferent in the election . I think well can be struggled with this forhi a long time because the russians are the best ad, have been doing it a long time so they know and they perfected it, but every election cycle more and more cast of characters are joining the parade here in terms of getting into this business. I think in the years to come we will see more and more nationstates and maybe nonstate actors begin to not just come after us in our election in our political process with those of other countries as well. This issue is not going away anytime soon. Its only going to tell it, get worse and we need to begin to lay out some parameters about how regard respond tot the same in the coordinator when we know ahead of time as opposed to the ad hoc basis in which this has been handled in years past. In terms of responding to the disinformation piece of it. Its a tough one to handle but its one that a think where to get a handle on. I agree. Im not sure i think director haines going to lead us all. Sounds good. Thank you very much, chairman warner, Ranking Member rubio, and members of the committee. I really appreciate having the opportunity to briefed on the Intelligence Community elections pretty work alongside by colleagues at cisa and fbi who were leading efforts to take action to secure our elections alongside the exploding a state and local officials who on the front lines of this work. The u. S. Government efforts to protect our elections have improved significantly since the 2016 president ial election and even as the Threat Landscape is becoming increasingly complicated it is my view the u. S. Government has never been better prepared to address the challenge. Protecting our democratic processes from foreign influence or interference is an absolute priority for the Intelligence Community. Our effortse effectively organie by foreign maligned insulin citricic or fmi see which houses the election threats executive and election threats lead to coordinate and integrate the activities and initiatives and programs in this role. Ni fundamentally we support the federal government, particularly fifth amendment and the fbi at the work to secure our elections as well as state and local Election Officials across the country who action manage and secure the election infrastructure on a a daytoday basis. We do so by ensuring our resources online to promote collection and analysis so we we able to identify and mitigate foreign threats to our elections and communicate our assessments to our federal partners, to in congress, to state and local officials and to thehe American People. We also facilitate a notification framework that ensures with relevant intelligence is collected concerning a foreign influence operation aimed at our election appropriate notice is given to those are being targeted so they can take action. While most of these notifications are nonpublic the are as you both indicated sinners in which public notifications are appropriate and is doing so with render the foreign influence operation less effective and that is part of that mandate. Of course exposing a form factors effort is only one way in which we count election threats. We support Law Enforcement community as the addition of election influence operations through legal action including the disruption of Illicit Financial Networks and we also support cybercom as a convex range of Cyber Operation to ensure foreign adversaries cannot use our Digital Infrastructure to attack our elections. Using every tool we have iss critical as the challenge is expanded. Over the last several years we seenen really three trends that makes the Threat Landscape more diverse and more complex. First, there are an increasing number of foreign actors including nonstate entities who are looking to engage in election influence activities. Second, there are more commercial firms to which state actors are able to conduct