{"id":7792,"date":"2025-02-21T16:26:09","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T16:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/trump-dismantles-government-fight-against-foreign-influence-operations\/"},"modified":"2025-02-21T16:26:09","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T16:26:09","slug":"trump-dismantles-government-fight-against-foreign-influence-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/trump-dismantles-government-fight-against-foreign-influence-operations\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Dismantles Government Fight Against Foreign Influence Operations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Trump administration is targeting government officials who had been flagging foreign interference in U.S. elections, despite ongoing concerns that adversaries are stoking political and social divisions by spreading propaganda and disinformation online, current and former government officials said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The administration has already reassigned several dozen officials working on the issue at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and forced out others at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, they said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The cuts have focused on people who were not only combating false content online but also working on broader safeguards to protect elections from cyberattacks or other attempts to disrupt voting systems. In last year\u2019s election, the teams tracked and publicized numerous influence operations from Russia, China and Iran to blunt their impact on unsuspecting voters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Experts are alarmed that the cuts could leave the United States defenseless against covert foreign influence operations and embolden foreign adversaries seeking to <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/10\/29\/technology\/election-interference-russia-china-iran.html\" title=\"\">disrupt democratic governments<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Arizona\u2019s secretary of state, Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, warned in a letter to President Trump that the cuts were comparable to shutting down the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ahead of hurricane season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThis decision undermines Arizona\u2019s election security,\u201d he wrote, \u201cat a time when our enemies around the world are using online tools to push their agendas and ideologies into our very homes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Trump and other officials have said that in the guise of fighting misinformation and disinformation, the government had infringed on free speech rights of Americans. Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary at Department of Homeland Security, said that the cybersecurity agency \u201cis undertaking an evaluation of how it has executed its election security mission with a particular focus on any work related to mis-, dis- and malinformation,\u201d and that while that is continuing, personnel who had worked on those issues \u201chave been placed on administrative leave.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Acting on one of Mr. Trump\u2019s <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2025\/01\/restoring-freedom-of-speech-and-ending-federal-censorship\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">first executive orders<\/a>, Attorney General Pam Bondi on Feb. 5 shut down an F.B.I. task force that had been formed after Russia intervened in the 2016 presidential election and reassigned several dozen officials and agents who had been involved, the officials said. The F.B.I. confirmed in a statement the agency \u201chas fully complied\u201d with Ms. Bondi\u2019s directive to disband the task force.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">CISA has also forced out more than a dozen officials who had been monitoring foreign influence operations targeting the nation\u2019s elections. They were among the more than 130 positions eliminated in total at the agency, according to a department statement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Friday, an internal memorandum from the agency\u2019s acting director, Bridget E. Bean, announced the suspension of funding for a program that coordinated election security on the federal, state and local levels.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Even before Mr. Trump returned to the White House, Republicans on Capitol Hill had refused to renew the mandate for the State Department\u2019s <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/12\/14\/technology\/state-department-disinformation-criticism.html\" title=\"\">Global Engagement Center<\/a>, the most prominent government agency fighting propaganda from Russia and China. It shut down in December. Many of its staff of 125 have since been reassigned, while others have left or not had their contracts renewed, officials said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In recent years, many Republicans have been skeptical of warnings about disinformation campaigns. They accused Democrats of demonizing political views with which they disagreed as \u201cRussian propaganda,\u201d and they viewed warnings about \u201cdisinformation\u201d as a way to pressure social media companies to censor speech supporting Mr. Trump\u2019s views.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In one of his first major foreign policy speeches as vice president, JD Vance said that the Biden administration had \u201cbullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Republican supporters of Mr. Trump had telegraphed many of the administration\u2019s steps ahead of his election. But the breadth and speed of the efforts to abolish the teams put in place to fight malign activity online have surprised those involved, including engineers at companies like Google and Meta, who have for years regularly exchanged information with government officials, including during Mr. Trump\u2019s first term.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">CISA has already removed a \u201c<a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cisa.gov\/rumor-vs-reality\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Rumor v. Reality<\/a>\u201d page on its website, which had provided tips to dispel disinformation about the reliability of the voting process. The internal memorandum from Ms. Bean, first <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/cisa-election-security-freeze-memo\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">reported<\/a> by Wired, said that the agency would also conduct a review to correct \u201cany past activities identified as past misconduct by the federal government related to censorship of protected speech.\u201d Some officials at the State Department have been told to stop using the word \u201cdisinformation\u201d in memos, one official there said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The new director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has made repeated promises to depoliticize the spy agencies. American officials briefed on her plans say that will include a review of the work done by the office\u2019s Foreign Malign Influence Center, which was established by Congress in 2022.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That office, along with the F.B.I. and the cybersecurity agency, regularly disclosed foreign influence operations during last year\u2019s presidential campaign, including one from Iran that targeted Mr. Trump, which officials said was trying to prevent his re-election. Many of the officials involved with the efforts to warn the public about foreign influence campaigns at the time emphasized that the work was nonpartisan, and that they had avoided calling out Americans who amplified foreign narratives because of the right to free speech.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A recent report by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish research organization in Washington, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fdd.org\/analysis\/2024\/12\/18\/america-resilient-in-the-face-of-aggressive-foreign-malign-influence-targeting-the-2024-u-s-elections\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">credited the government effort<\/a> for blunting the impact of foreign influence ahead of November\u2019s election by informing voters, for example, that <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/10\/23\/business\/media\/election-disinformation.html\" title=\"\">numerous videos<\/a> being spread online were created by Russia and showed fake people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe U.S. government should continue to treat foreign malign influence as a national security issue,\u201d the report said, calling for the agencies to receive \u201cthe proper funding to continue their work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Instead, the new administration has followed the recommendations of Project 2025, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2025\/02\/14\/us\/politics\/project-2025-trump-actions.html\" title=\"\">the conservative blueprint<\/a> for restructuring the federal government from which Mr. Trump sought to distance himself during the presidential campaign and has now embraced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Project 2025 called for the closing of the election security unit at CISA, as well as the F.B.I.\u2019s task force. Republicans in Congress and several states have also waged <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/03\/17\/us\/politics\/trump-disinformation-2024-social-media.html\" title=\"\">a legal and political campaign<\/a> against what they claimed was a sweeping \u201ccensorship industrial complex\u201d under the Biden administration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI think that they may have drunk their own Kool-Aid in terms of believing that there is this kind of censorship industrial complex that all these people were involved in,\u201d Lawrence Norden, a vice president at the progressive Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, said, referring to the officials now shutting down the teams. \u201cI\u2019m not sure that they fully understand who everybody is and what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Lance Hunter, a professor at Augusta University in Georgia, said that eliminating defenses against foreign influence campaigns would leave the United States more vulnerable to them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cForeign influence operations are often conducted to attempt to increase the appearance of government ineffectiveness and instability in the country,\u201d he said. \u201cThey are also carried out to disrupt elections and increase division and polarization in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">During his visit to Europe last week, however, Mr. Vance belittled the idea that a foreign adversary like Russia could sway an election in a strong democratic nation, referring to <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/12\/06\/world\/europe\/romania-election-court.html\" title=\"\">accusations<\/a> that resulted in Romania overturning the first round of voting in its election.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIf your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousands of dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country,\u201d Mr. Vance said, \u201cthen it wasn\u2019t very strong to begin with.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Adam Goldman<!-- --> and <!-- -->Robert Draper<!-- --> contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/20\/business\/trump-foreign-influence-election-interference.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Trump administration is targeting government officials who had been flagging foreign interference in U.S. elections, despite ongoing concerns that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[349,2893,2892,114,2896,1373,2352,2894,1528,2895,1327,932,852,118,113,2353,109,111],"class_list":["post-7792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-china","tag-cybersecurity-and-infrastructure-security-agency","tag-cyberwarfare-and-defense","tag-donald-j","tag-espionage-and-intelligence-services","tag-federal-bureau-of-investigation","tag-gabbard","tag-global-engagement-center","tag-iran","tag-office-of-the-director-of-national-intelligence","tag-propaganda","tag-rumors-and-misinformation","tag-russia","tag-social-media","tag-trump","tag-tulsi-1981","tag-united-states-international-relations","tag-united-states-politics-and-government"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - 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