A report released by the bipartisan leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday (July 25), one of the more bipartisan committees in Congress, says the government should come up with an "overarching cyber doctrine." 

That was one of the recommendations in a voluminous report on Russian election meddling focused on infrastructure.

The report concluded that the U.S. should make it clear to its adversaries, in a sort of "this could mean war" declaration, that it will treat an attack on election infrastructure as a hostile act, whose response may not be limited to cyber activity. 

Further, it said, "[i]deally, this principle of deterrence should be included in an overarching cyber doctrine for the U.S. Government. That doctrine should clearly delineate cyberespionage, cybercrime, and cyber attacks.  

"Further, a classified portion of the doctrine should establish what the U.S. Government believes to be its escalation ladder in the cyber realm—what tools does it have, what tools should it pursue, and what should the limits of cyber war be. "[P]olicymakers should consider what steps the U.S. will need to take to outstrip the capabilities of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and other emerging hostile actors in the cyber domain," it said.  

It also suggests the world community needs to get together to talk about cyber norms, "[j]ust as the international community has established norms and treaties about the use of technologies and weapons systems." 

It said the U.S. should lead the conversation about both the norms and the limits of cyber activities (say, declaring tampering with nuclear reactors off limits, as the world did with chemical warfare after the First World War).  

The report was released by Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.). 

Attorney General Bill Barr signaled to Congress Wednesday (May 1) that he thought social media companies were doing a better job of policing their platforms in the wake of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

That came during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Barr said it was because of our robust First Amendment and the way we now communicate that Russians were able to affect the dialog "in a way they have never been able to do before." He said there have long been efforts by foreign powers to meddle in elections, but they used to be easier to detect.

Barr said it was the technology and "democratization" of information that made the danger of such meddling "far more insidious." He said that meddling meant getting access to "effectively our whole communications system" including business systems and infrastructure.

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Asked by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) whether the government was able to work with the different social media giants to help counter some of that and whether those companies were already "stepping up to this challenge" and making sure they were also pushing back against foreign adversaries. "[Y]es I think the private companies are stepping up their game and being more responsible in addressing it," said Barr.

Republican Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) was not so sanguine about Big Tech. She said that as she looked at social media, they looked as though they were either willing to turn a blind eye to fake Russian accounts--pointing out some had been paid in rubles--or were negligent. Either way, she said she hoped the Justice Department had a game plan to "rein in" those social media platforms for the 2020 election.

Blackburn did not ask Barr to comment on that, and he did not volunteer an observation.

The Justice Department has made it clear that Russian-backed elements tried, and continue to try, to influence U.S. elections, including advocating for the election or defeat of particular candidates, both in the 2016 election and the upcoming 2018 midterms, using a variety of tools including "activists, advertisements on social media platforms, registration of domain names, the purchase of proxy servers, and 'promoting news postings on social networks.'"

That is according to the Department of Justice, which Friday (Oct. 19) charged a Russian national with interfering with the U.S. political system.

President Donald Trump has in the past appeared skeptical about the extent of Russian election interference, but there were no hints of skepticism in the statements of Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney G. Zachary Terwilliger of the Eastern District of Virginia and FBI Director Christopher Wray, who collectively announced the criminal complaint, unsealed Friday in Alexandria, Va.

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But two findings, or more specifically the absence of findings, do square with the President's views on Russian election meddling: "The criminal complaint does not include any allegation that Khusyaynova or the broader conspiracy had any effect on the outcome of an election," DOJ said, nor does it "allege that any American knowingly participated in the Project Lakhta operation."

And while social media giants have been in the sites of Congress over too little data security, too much data sharing and too many breaches and the Administration and Republicans over accusations of bias against conservatives, DOJ gave Twitter and Facebook a shout out for their "exceptional cooperation" in the investigation. Both companies have told Congress they are committed to rooting out fake news and bogus accounts and other content meant to sew discord. 

“This case serves as a stark reminder to all Americans: Our foreign adversaries continue their efforts to interfere in our democracy by creating social and political division, spreading distrust in our political system, and advocating for the support or defeat of particular political candidates,” said Wray.

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“Today’s charges allege that Russian national Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova conspired with others who were part of a Russian influence campaign to interfere with U.S. democracy,” said Demers. “The strategic goal of this alleged conspiracy, which continues to this day, is to sow discord in the U.S. political system and to undermine faith in our democratic institutions.”

The complaint alleges that Khusyaynova was the chief accountant for Project Lakhta, funded by oligarch Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin and companies he controls.

The activity targeted audiences in Russia, the U.S., the E.U. and the Ukraine, among others, according to DOJ. The project had an operating budget of $35 million, including $10 million for U.S. operations for the first six months of 2018.

DOJ said the effort was not just to spread distrust of specific U.S. candidates and the U.S. political system in general in an "information war," but "to defraud the United States by impeding the lawful functions of government agencies in administering relevant federal requirements."

DOJ said they took extraordinary steps to appear to be American political activists, including using VPNs to disguise their activities and hide their Russian origins and creating thousands of social media and email accounts to amplify divisive content. 

Among the topics addressed were immigration, gun control/Second Amendment, the Confederate flag, race relations, LGBT issues, the Women’s March, and even the NFL national anthem debate. Campaigns were often anchored to events, like the Charleston church shooting, Las Vegas concert shooting, the Unite the Right demonstration in Charlottesville and police shootings of unarmed black men, as well as "the personnel and policy decisions of the current U.S. presidential administration."

DOJ said activities were not exclusively targeted at one ideological view, but rather were designed to create "political intensity" or "aggravate conflict" between the races.

“This new indictment by the Justice Department demonstrates the serious nature of these ongoing attacks on our democratic process," said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "I commend the career officials at DOJ who continue to work tirelessly to stop foreign actors from sowing division and spreading distrust in our political system. This is why the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation has been focused on some of the dangers posed on social media platforms,"

“But the threat is not over. As the criminal complaints notes, these attacks continue to this day. It is critical for Congress to step up and immediately act to employ much-needed guardrails on social media. And as I've said before, these companies need to work with Congress so we can update our laws to better protect against attacks on our democratic institutions.”

Trying to determine online friend from foe, and who makes that call, is an enormous, perhaps impossible task, and implicates both online and traditional news and information outlets. But the problem starts with non-neutral social media platforms.

That was a big takeaway from the Hill Wednesday (Aug. 1).

"I just want to be clear, as the author of Sec. 230 [of the Communications Decency Act], the days when these 'pipes' are considered neutral are over because the whole point of 230 was to have a shield and a sword, and the sword hasn't been used," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Wednesday. 

Section 230 provides liability carve-outs for the content posted on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook (the "pipes" in this case a designation more often reserved for ISPs, which are regulated) under the theory they were simply the online public square for those ideas and that to make them liable would blow up their business model. 

The witnesses for the Intelligence Committee hearing on "foreign influence operations and their use of social media platforms" did not include any of the major social platforms being discussed. They were instead academics and researchers: Dr. Todd Helmus, senior behavioral scientist, RAND Corp.; Renee DiResta, director of research, New Knowledge; John Kelly, CEO, Graphika; Laura Rosenberger, director, Alliance for Securing Democracy at The German Marshall Fund of the United States; and Dr. Philip Howard, director, Oxford Internet Institute.

Rosenberger echoed the idea of edge provider non-neutrality: "These platforms are not neutral pipes. Information is not being served up without some kind of algorithm deciding, for most of the platforms, what is served up at the top."

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), chair of the committee, said nothing less than the integrity of democratic institutions is at stake. Burr summed up the challenge, asking, "How do you keep the good while getting rid of the bad?" 

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Burr said that was the fundamental question before not just the committee but the American people. He called it a complex problem that "intertwines" First Amendment freedoms, corporate responsibility, regulations, and the right of innovators to profit from their innovation.

Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) said he thought the takeaway from all the testimony was how difficult the problem is. "We know the problem," he said. "We have bad [foreign] actors putting out bad information. The difficulty is segregating those people from Americans who have the right to do this, whether or not it is disgusting or untrue or with a bad motive. It is protected by the First Amendment."

Who decides who are the bad actors, he asked, and how do you protect the anonymity of, say, activists in authoritarian regimes while trying to fight bad actors? 

"How in the world do you do this?" Risch said. "The takeaway here has got to be that this is just an enormous, if not an impossible, thing."

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Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) pointed out that the traditional media were also part of the problem, unwittingly amplifying fake news and social media posts.

Rosenberger agreed. She pointed out that a Twitter account created by Russian meddler IRA focused on the NFL "take a knee" controversy had been cited by more than a dozen major news outlets, including the BBC, Huffington Post and Wired.

Collins said reading about such posts in credible sources make people more likely to believe them.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chair of the Intelligence Committee, took aim at the edge, as well, but took some of the edge off.

Related: Sen. Warner Says Facebook Page Deletions Show Ongoing Election Meddling Threat

"All the evidence this Committee has seen to date suggests that the platform companies – namely, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google and YouTube – still have a lot of work to do," Warner said, but then added, sounding like a parent disciplining an unruly child, "I’ve been hard on them – that’s true. But it’s because I know they can do better to protect our democracy. They have the creativity, expertise, resources and technological
capability to get ahead of these malicious actors."

And while Wednesday's hearing focused on academics and researchers, Warner said executives from Facebook, Twitter and Google will be in attendance for a hearing Sept. 5 to provide "the plans they have in place, to press them to do more, and to work together to address this challenge."

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats left no doubt Tuesday (Feb. 13) that Russia will continue to use social media and other propaganda tools to influence elections and sew dissent in the U.S., and that communications networks and government needed to work together to combat that and other threats.

That came in in the open portion of a Feb. 13 hearing in the Senate Intelligence Committee on worldwide security threats, a hearing that featured an all-star cast of intelligence officials and a strong focus on potential existential threats posed by cyber attacks.

Coats began his threat assessment with cyber, saying attacks would continue from Russia, China, South Korea and Iran, the major players, but from criminals, terrorist and other non-state actors. Committee ranking member Mark Warner (D-Va.), said Coats' leading off with cyber was appropriate given that ongoing threat.

Coats said to assume interference from Russia and maybe others in upcoming national, state and local elections. He said the more transparency the government can provide to the American people that this is a real threat that is going to happen, the better.

Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said that IT and communications firm contractors supporting private and government networks have been a major target of cyber attacks. He asked Admiral Michael Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, if the government was sharing enough threat information with private companies. Rogers said he thought information was being shared on events as they occurred, but suggested the door swung both ways and the government needed more info from the private sector. He said that, looking at IoT, the cybersecurity problem was going to get "exponentially worse."

Robert Cardillo, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, said government and industry needed to "lock arms" and cooperate, but that he was optimistic that would happen.

Sen. Warner said he was concerned about the use of social media by bad actors and asked what single agency was in charge with identifying and countering that threat.

Coats said no single agency, but said that they were getting more support from the private sector (edge providers primarily).

FBI Director Christopher Ray said he had notice more "forward leaning" engagement with the private sector. He also said social media needs to better police itself.

Warner said those companies were slow to react and had more work to do.

Related: U.S. Unprepared to Combat Weaponized Social Media

Warner said he was also worried about China-owned tech companies. Coats said vetting such companies was a top priority. Warner also said he was concerned that there were no security requirements for government purchases of IoT devices.

Wray said the FBI had been providing "defensive briefings" to larger U.S. telecom companies to recognize the threats. He said he was gratified by the response of those companies, but that smaller companies needed more education about what to be on the lookout for.

Sen. Jim Risch (R-Ida.) took issue with Warner's suggestion that the country was no more ready for Russian meddling now than before the 2016 election. He said the Russian's had been "attempting" to meddle in the country's affairs, using cheap, ineffective techniques and that the American people were ready to handle those "attempts" to manipulate them. Some Republicans are reluctant to grant the success of such meddling.