Committee Report From the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, ``Hijacking Our Heroes: Exploiting Veterans Through Disinformation on Social Media''
Floor Speech
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Mr. TAKANO. Madam Speaker, I rise today as Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, to bring attention to an important issue facing our nation's veterans.
During a hearing held on November 13 of last year, the Committee heard about the risks faced by our nation's veterans when using social media. Based on the results of that hearing, as well as additional research and analysis, my Committee has prepared a report that not only details the risks faced by veterans, but also outlines a series of policy options and other solutions. The executive summary of the report, ``Hijacking Our Heroes: Exploiting Veterans through Disinformation on Social Media,'' is below and the full text of the report is available at: https://veterans.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Hijacking%20Our%20Heroes.pdf.
The threat of foreign individuals and organizations influencing United States (U.S.) elections by manipulating social media has been a persistent and growing issue since before the 2016 election year. The threat was a significant concern during the 2020 elections.
Recent investigations and analysis document the broad proliferation of online influence campaigns that originate overseas. This includes the use of ``spoofing,'' or the act of disguising an electronic communication from an unknown source as being from a known, trusted source. A subset of these operations target the veteran and military service member communities in order to misappropriate their voices, authority and credibility. The pervasiveness of social media, as well as the nature of the specific threat to our election integrity and the sowing of political discord makes this a critical issue affecting both veterans and those who value veterans' voices. As described by Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Mark Takano (D-CA), ``the issue of protecting our elections from foreign influence is one of critical importance to all Americans and preserving the power of veterans' voices should be of equal concern to us all.
On Wednesday, November 13, 2019, the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs held an investigative hearing to examine the nature and scope of threats posed to the veterans' community through ``internet spoofing.'' Experts testified that stolen, misappropriated, or fraudulently created social media accounts can be used to target veterans for the purposes of disseminating political propaganda and fake news in order to influence elections. The witnesses also described romance scams and commercial fraud being perpetrated using spoofing techniques. Representatives of three major social media platforms--Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter--discussed how they are addressing this threat, particularly considering the 2020 elections, and described best practices for information sharing, protective measures, and law enforcement cooperation. The Committee later held a briefing on January 14, 2020, with representatives from several components of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that handle law enforcement for online crimes.
Ranking Member Dr. David P. Roe (R-TN) noted during the hearing, ``The evidence is clear that veterans have their identity misappropriated and that they, like other social media users, could be targets for propaganda or scams.'' Although everyone who uses the internet is subject to online scams, spamming, phishing, identity theft, and other such risks, veterans are particularly susceptible to internet spoofing based on their higher propensity for political engagement (including running for office, volunteering, and sharing political opinions and information). For the purposes of disseminating political propaganda or exerting influence on dividing Americans on sensitive political ``wedge issues,'' veterans are targeted because of their close identification with strong national security policies, patriotism, personal sacrifice, and honor.
Chairman Takano stated during the hearing, ``By impersonating veterans, these foreign actors are effectively eroding the hard-earned power and integrity of veterans' voices.''
Veterans are more likely to be engaged in their communities, be perceived as leaders, and can exert influence on political matters (particularly with respect to defense and national security matters). Therefore, a successful spoofing scam that results in a veteran or Veteran Service Organization (VSO) unknowingly distributing or endorsing a piece of disinformation can yield greatly increased, and sometimes even exponential, results due to the added credibility imparted to that disinformation by virtue of its approval by the veteran or VSO. With each successive endorsement or share, the credibility of the disinformation snowballs. The collective association with actual veterans and VSOs makes it increasingly unlikely that the disinformation will be closely scrutinized, questioned, or eventually exposed as fraudulent or misleading. Moreover, scammers also try to spoof veterans to gain leverage over them. Many veterans move into jobs requiring security clearances or within the federal government after they leave the military--those positions can be jeopardized if the veteran is compromised through financial fraud, identity theft, or otherwise becomes susceptible to blackmail.
Internet spoofing became a visible problem in the context of the 2016 U.S. election, when foreign disinformation spread widely across social media, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, among others. However, disinformation on social media and information operations conducted by sophisticated actors have occurred for far longer. In the past few years, foreign information operations have targeted divisive political issues within American society and have sought to manipulate and divide political and social communities. Unfortunately, our military and veterans' communities are no exception. Moreover, the incidents of foreign spoofing increased following the 2016 election, and industry experts project that these numbers will continue to increase through 2020 and beyond. Russia's Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian company which has engaged in online influence operations, more commonly known as a ``troll farm,'' dramatically expanded its information operations after the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections, both in terms of volume and intensity. Russia and Iran are the most prominent state actors in this context, but recent work has identified additional state actors, such as China and Saudi Arabia, using information operations to target communities and topics of interests.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence published a five-volume bipartisan report focused on Russia's influence operations. The second volume focused on Russia's use of social media platforms to influence the election, while the third volume focused on the shortcomings of Obama Administration efforts to combat the ongoing attacks. The third volume highlighted the lack of legislative or regulatory action to combat a known threat emanating from Russia and its intelligence services. The Senate Report sheds light on the broader issues of misinformation campaigns and predatory schemes targeting veterans presented in a report prepared by the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA).
Industry analysts, journalists, and law enforcement agree that the problems of internet spoofing and foreign influence exerted through social media continue to grow at an alarming pace. However, neither the major platforms nor the FBI were able to identify an obvious or comprehensive solution to this ongoing problem. Both continue to devote significant resources towards combatting spoofing. However, the foreign entities who perpetrate much of this illicit activity are becoming more sophisticated in their schemes and are targeting broader swaths of internet users to more quickly and efficiently disseminate their fraudulent messaging before they are identified and deactivated.
Facebook and Twitter note that automated systems can struggle to differentiate authentic images and accounts from fraudulent, unauthorized, or duplicated accounts and thereby risk erroneously flagging and removing legitimate accounts. The platforms have chosen to err on the side of minimizing false negatives by relying upon patterns of suspicious activity and certain tactics or techniques, rather than on other identifying data (e.g., duplicative names or images, geolocation information, or ostensible organizational affiliations). Suspicious activity patterns, such as irregular, repetitive, or voluminous posting, triggers additional layers of review, including an examination of the geolocation data in order to assess where the suspicious activity may be originating. The final review and removal decisions sometimes warrant human examination, but often removals are made without any human review. Although these layered review processes may be effective in protecting legitimate users, they undoubtedly also add a significant gap in removal time for fraudulent accounts, which provides a window within which spoofers can continue to operate.
Law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI, are constrained in their abilities to efficiently identify and eliminate spoofers because the agencies only have limited access to the data held by the social media platforms. Often these agencies do not receive important information until after the platforms have already removed a spoofed account, at which point law enforcement is unable to actively monitor and trace the account in real time.
The ability of spoofers to operate from overseas, anonymously, or by using fraudulent or concealed identities requires law enforcement to rely upon account identification data and detailed activity patterns in order to accurately identify or locate the potential spoofer. However, Title II of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) (18 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 2701-2713), known as the Stored Communications Act, requires a government entity to serve a subpoena on social media platforms to compel the production of certain relevant information. Requiring a time-consuming legal process to obtain identification data hampers the ability of law enforcement to respond quickly or to fully understand the scope of a potential spoofing campaign. Therefore, the law enforcement agencies recommend increasing the amount and level of detail that the platforms can easily provide to the authorities.
Past attempts to address this problem have been piecemeal in nature and have proven ineffective to date. This fragmented approach has prevented any wholesale, systemic efforts to tighten rules or law enforcement protocols. Incremental adjustments have been made by individual platforms, which leaves an irregular landscape where motivated, corrupt actors may still be able to exploit weaknesses among the platforms.
Based on discussions with representatives of law enforcement, and considering the issues raised by the social media platforms during the hearing, the Committee believes that there are additional measures needed to address the growing threats posed by spoofing. Our recommendations fall into two broad categories.
The first category is oriented at users of social media and is defensive in nature, such as teaching users how to be aware of the dangers posed by spoofers on social media and training them how to protect themselves through heightened vigilance, healthy skepticism, and adherence to basic principles of cyber-hygiene.
The second category is aimed at putting the social media platforms and law enforcement on the offensive and developing robust mechanisms to more effectively identify and quickly eliminate foreign-based spoofers. While the first category is likely to be less costly and easier to implement, the second category may ultimately prove to be more effective in bringing the threat under control.
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