Letter to the Hon. Christopher Wray, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Hon. Kevin McAleenan, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security - Klobuchar Urges Department of Homeland Security and FBI to Establish Election Security Task Force

Letter

Dear Director Wray and Acting-Secretary McAleenan:

I write to urge you to establish a joint task force to combat election interference and the spread of misinformation.

Intelligence officials have confirmed that our elections remain a target. Recently, the Director of National Intelligence warned that ahead of the upcoming elections foreign adversaries, "will use online influence operations to try to weaken democratic institutions, undermine U.S. alliances and partnerships and shape policy outcomes in the United States." These disinformation campaigns are designed to divide Americans and mislead voters. The 2016 and 2018 elections illustrated how foreign agents manipulated platforms to spread disinformation.

Between 2013 and 2018, Russia's Internet Research Agency (IRA) operated Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter campaigns that reached tens of millions of users in the United States. Those accounts spread divisive content meant to pit Americans against each other, and they transmitted misleading information designed to disenfranchise minority groups. Over 30 million users, between 2015 and 2017, shared the IRA's Facebook and Instagram posts. The IRA's strategy linked multiple social media accounts that had a significant number of followers and maintained personas on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. In order to try to legitimize their accounts, the IRA created websites and linked those to their social media accounts, and in some cases purchased Google ads to promote those associated websites. These accounts promoted each other's posts across platforms. While platforms took steps to remove fake accounts, the campaigns continued on other platforms and also resurfaced on platforms that had removed them.

Targeted social media campaigns do not exist in a vacuum. We must take action to stop this from happening again. As Congress works to pass legislation to increase online transparency and accountability, there is action that your agencies can take right now. When adversaries are conducting such strategically planned and implemented operations, relying on a single platform to take unilateral action by removing content is not effective. To stop the spread of these campaigns, content must be targeted and dealt with across platforms and this can only be achieved through collaboration and information-sharing.

A task force combining the efforts of your agencies, tech companies, state and local election officials, with additional support from journalists and independent researchers would be an effective way to combat the spread of disinformation. The public and private sector must approach disinformation campaigns in the same collaborative way that they work to remove illegal content such as child pornography and content from terrorist organizations. The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism proved extremely successful as there is significantly less terrorist content available across social media websites, particularly from the Islamic State, al-Qaida, and Boko Haram. Given these successes, it seems that a cross-platform task force related to elections and disinformation is both achievable and quintessential.

I know you have taken many steps to combat election interference. I commend those actions, but there is still work to do. To better understand how you are preparing for the next elections and your work to counter disinformation, I respectfully ask you to provide us with the following information:

What are your detailed plans to prevent and counter disinformation campaigns ahead of the next elections?
Please provide details assessing the feasibility of a task force. What necessary steps must be taken to establishment a task force and how quickly can it be created?
How are you working to coordinate your existing efforts with social media companies?
Some of the major tech companies have recently set up regional operations and hired additional staff to handle election related concerns for regions with upcoming elections, particularly in Europe and Asia. How are your agencies taking similar action with respect to our elections and communication with state election officials?
The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) recently wrote to Facebook and Twitter urging further engagement with state and local election officials. What steps can you take to help increase communication and cooperation between your agencies and social media companies to ensure that state and local election officials -- the people on the front lines of our elections -- have the information that they need?
Sincerely,

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