Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testified before a Senate hearing earlier this month. During her May 15 hearing, she identified Russia as the biggest foreign threat to this year’s US election.
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Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testified before a Senate hearing earlier this month. During her May 15 hearing, she identified Russia as the biggest foreign threat to this year’s US election.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
US elections face more threats than ever from foreign actors, enabled by the rapid development of artificial intelligencethe country’s top intelligence official told lawmakers on Wednesday.
Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told the Senate Intelligence Committee at a hearing about the risks to the 2024 election. But she also said the federal government “has never been better prepared.” ” to protect elections, thanks to lessons learned since Russia tried to influence voters in 2016.
This year, “Russia remains the most active foreign threat to our election,” Haines said. Use the “vast multimedia influence engine” included state media, intelligence services and online trollsRussia’s goals “include undermining trust in US democratic institutions, exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US, and reducing Western support for Ukraine”.
But it’s a crowded field, with ChinaIran and other foreign actors are also trying to influence American votersHaines added.
Additionally, she said the emergence of new AI technologies could create realistic “deep fakes” targeting candidates and commercial companies through which foreign actors could The ability to launder money for their activities is facilitating more complex influence operations that are larger in scale and more difficult to distribute.
Wednesday’s hearing is the first in a series focusing on the election, said the committee’s chairman, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), as lawmakers seek to avoid repeat of 2016, when Russian interference caused lawmakers, officials and social media executives to quit. -protect.
“Since then, the barriers to entry for foreign malign influence have become extremely small,” Warner said. Foreign adversaries have more incentive to interfere in U.S. politics in an effort to shape their own national interests, he added, and at the same time, Americans’ faith in institutions has eroded across the political spectrum.
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, the committee’s top Republican, questioned how the people tasked with protecting the election themselves were received in an atmosphere of mistrust. trust. He raised the specter of a fake video targeting himself or another candidate in the days before November’s election.
“Who is in charge of letting people know, this thing is fake, this thing is not real?” he asks. “And I wonder, who is responsible for this, what are we doing to protect the reputation of the entity that is… saying that, so that the other side doesn’t come out and say, ‘Your government we’re intervening’.” in the election’?”
Haines said in some cases it would make more sense for her or other federal agencies to debunk false claims, while in other cases it would be better for state or local officials to debunk false claims. Phuong should speak up.
