Russian Meddling

Thomas Semanic

2-20-18

Dr. Muck

Russian Meddling

As we all now know, the Russians did interfere in the 2016 election and are continuing to meddle in other areas of our political system like using social media to divide the public on as many issues as possible. There is not much doubt that they will try and meddle in the 2018, the 2020 election, and beyond. Robert Mueller has already found evidence that they are posting more about gun violence in regard to the Florida shooting and the Memo controversy in Congress. The experts have basically said we are under attack, the question is now that we have these indictments from Mueller, what are we going to do about it? How should we respond to prevent the Russians from doing what they are doing? Emily Stewart from Vox Analysis highlights nine national security experts and what they think should be done. Let’s analyze those and then I will discuss what I think we need to do to stop the Russians

            First, Lawrence Norden, deputy director, Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law talks about voter security. We need to move to more voter marked paper and update any software. We need to also regulate political ads on the internet the same way we do with T.V ads.

            Second, Matthew Waxman, faculty chair, National Security Law Program at Columbia University looks at the President and how he needs to acknowledge this as a major issue and support solutions for the issue. The Russians will be more likely to continue to do this if they do not fear any significant consequence.

            Third, Glenn Carle, former CIA officer and deputy officer on the National Intelligence Council discusses government funding counter intelligence to detect and stop foreign invaders. He also discusses regulating voting procedures more so we can detect things like this easier.
            Fourth, Claire Finkelstein, director, Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania also hammers the commander in chief for not acting and taking this matter more seriously. She talks about social media needing to be licensed by the federal government to run ads and to update any online software regarding voting.

            Fifth, Adam Segal, chair in emerging technologies and national security, Council on Foreign Relations calls for sanctions against Russia and wants to educate people on identifying fake news.

            Sixth, Michael Sulmeyer, director, Belfer Center’s Cyber Security Project at Harvard Kennedy School talks about having a force posture so that our cyber mission forces can take action abroad to disrupt and degrade efforts to interfere in our elections. He wants more regulation in information spreading.

            Seventh, Paul David Fidler, law professor, Indiana University calls for the President and Congress to take leadership on this matter. He also calls upon the citizens to recognize facts and not dispute them.

            Eighth, Kenneth Geers, senior fellow, the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative wants to increase security, fund counterintelligence, and ban cyber espionage.

            Finally, Paulo Shakarian, director, Arizona State University Cyber-Socio Intelligent System Laboratory wants to fund defense systems and operationalize new technology to defend the internet.

            Overall, I think there are things we can do to stop or at least limit foreign invaders from trying to destroy our democracy. Many of the experts I read about did not mention sanctions against Russia. I would like to see economic sanctions against Russia because it produces a consequence for the wrongdoing. It has to be a tough sanction too otherwise it will not incentivize Russia to stop what they are doing. I also would like to propose we eliminate any version of online voting. I feel like there are too many security issues with that. We need to stick to marked-paper voting ballots. I also think we need to regulate internet ads the same way we would a television ad. If the federal government regulated internet the same we would recognize what ads would be “faulty” or “off” and would be able to stop them from airing. Social media is rapidly growing and plenty of people especially more extreme voters utilize it. Russia knows this and that is why they use social media, it is easier to access and able to target those extreme voters. We need to regulate internet advertisements. Finally, I think paying more attention to counterintelligence and funding defense teams to research, detect, and prevent foreign invaders from producing social media outlets like the Russians did would be effective. There is hope in my mind that we can accomplish some of these things because there is plenty of bipartisan support and currently our bills circling through as we speak. However, I agree that it would be nice for President Trump to come out and recognize that the Russians are threatening our democracy and supportive of actions against what they have done. A statement could push Congress to act fast and ease the American peoples mind just a little about Trump’s alleged ties with Russia.

            https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/19/17023240/election-2018-russia-interference-stop-prevent