No images? Click here [link removed]

Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers (C) of the National Security Division, FBI Director Christopher Wray (R) and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia G. Zachary Terwilliger (L) host a press conference on a national security matter at the Department of Justice on October 7, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)

Election security remains a major concern in the lead-up to November 3, as adversarial nation states, including Russia and China, attempt to influence and undermine American democracy.

John Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the U.S Department of Justice, joined Hudson's Dan McKivergan this week for a discussion on ensuring election integrity in the United States and addressing other strategic threats. Assistant AG Demers leads DOJ’s efforts to combat terrorism and espionage, foreign-directed election interference, cybercrime, and other threats to U.S. national security. In addition, he leads the Department’s China Initiative, created in 2018 to counter Beijing’s illicit activities taking place inside the United States.

See key takeaways from Assistant AG Demers below, and in case you missed it, watch our event this week with U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy [[link removed]] on the U.S. Army's artificial intelligence initiatives, and a conversation with Senator Tom Cotton [[link removed]] on the future of U.S. global leadership.

Watch Online [[link removed]] Read the Transcript [[link removed]]

Key Quotes [[link removed]]

Highlighted takeaways from Assistant Attorney General John Demers' remarks at Hudson Institute. Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.

1. Russia’s new interference tactic for the 2020 election cycle:

You saw the reports about the online newspaper [Peace Data] that was being funded by the Russian government. We didn't really see that in 2016, but we're seeing it now. At this time in 2016, we were well into the Russian hacking and dumping efforts. We still have a month to go [before elections] and so we have to remain vigilant on that front. But [due to] the work of the Bureau, the Department of Homeland Security, and the intelligence community, we are so much more aware of this threat than we were four years ago. And the work that they're doing with the campaigns, with the parties to help secure the infrastructure of those organizations, has made them harder targets. Doesn't mean it's impossible. Everything has vulnerabilities to it, but a lot of work and focus has gone into it.

2. One of Assistant AG Demers’ greatest concerns ahead of the elections:

The kind of influence operation that has concerned me the most is the “hack and dump” operation because individuals' personal email accounts, even their work email accounts, are a vulnerable target. [Emails released by hackers are] very difficult for the news folks to resist, and even if they do resist it at this point, the internet will have it all out on there. [The emails are considered] true facts, even if they're illegitimately obtained. One of the first uses in the U.S. was the Sony Media hack and dump that was done by North Korea in retaliation for the movie that they considered to be offensive to their leader. And it's very effective. Sony suffered for that hack and dump, its relationships with other businesses and the individual actors suffered.

3. Adversaries seek to undermine American faith in the electoral system:

This is more of a DHS focus than ours, but it's going to be nearly impossible for anybody to change votes in a meaningful way without the U.S. government knowing it. But if [adversaries] can mess around just a little bit, it undermines people's faith in the process. If this election is close and some states are contested, that can undermine Americans' faith in the system overall and their faith that the outcome actually reflects the votes that were counted. Those are the two things that concern me the most as we go through this election soon.

4. The DOJ has placed a renewed focus on illicit nation state activity:

Before 9/11, the thought was that the law enforcement functions of national security, like the prosecutors, had to be kept separate from the intelligence functions of national security for civil liberties purposes. [Since then,] we had a reorganization here in the National Security Division to bring all these individuals who in the past have been told not to work together, [who could only] share information in very controlled ways and limited circumstances, to be working together and sharing information freely. [There has been] a big shift from an almost exclusively counter-terrorist focus to a heavy emphasis on nation state activity. We have China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Those are the main nation state threat actors that we talk about. And if you look back at our cases over the last several years, you'll see that most of them fall within those four countries. China is number one among those four in terms of activity.

5. Chinese economic espionage has altered the DOJ's enforcement strategies:

The China Initiative arose from the intelligence that [we] were seeing on an almost daily basis regarding China's theft of intellectual property. And that was different from traditional political espionage, which we've been dealing with all the time. Even before we started the initiative, 80% of our economic espionage cases resulted back to China. 60% of all of our theft of trade secrets cases resulted back to China.

We wanted to arm [attorneys general] with information that was not classified so that they could go out and do outreach to the private sector, to the academic community. [With] 94 U.S. attorney's offices around the country, they should really be doing that locally. But it's very hard if you get classified briefings to know, well, what can I say when I leave this room? [So we have been] going out and developing these relationships with the Bureau so that when something happened at one of those companies or universities, [they] would feel comfortable coming forward, because we can't combat this problem of Chinese economic espionage without the cooperation of the private sector and universities.

6. State and local governments are being targeted by China's covert influence campaigns:

We see, for instance, the Chinese developing relationships not just at the federal level [in the U.S.], but at the state and local level. That's very unusual for a nation state. It takes a lot of sophistication and resources to pull that off. But they're targeting individuals who they think politically have a bright future ahead of them or who are influential with figures who have political power here in DC. All to the goal of supporting their policy priorities. For instance, not wanting folks to criticize them about Hong Kong. Not wanting politicians to criticize them about their treatment of the Uyghurs and Muslim minority populations in China. On those issues and many others, Taiwan, Tibet, et cetera, they'll use their economic levers of power and political connections to try to keep criticism of them to a minimum so they can continue those activities undisturbed.

7. Domestic terrorism is a component of the DOJ's national security efforts:

We don't designate domestic groups as terrorist groups. And a big part of that is because we're concerned about the First Amendment implications of taking that approach to domestic terrorism. Organizationally and tactically, the approach we've been taking is to call a spade a spade. If it's terrorism, let's call it terrorism even if we don't have a terrorism charge. We're taking a more proactive, disruptive approach to domestic terrorism.

[After 9/11, there was a shift] on counter-terrorism matters to be more proactive about disrupting terrorist activity before it happens. That's the approach we're now applying on the domestic terrorism side. That means sometimes charging someone who we think has been plotting or talking, maybe buying weapons. But [we are] charging them early, not waiting to see how that plot develops, but going in. Maybe they are felons in possession of a firearm, at least you've disrupted that plot. And that's something.

Watch Online [[link removed]] Read the Transcript [[link removed]]

Go Deeper: Cybercrime by Nation States

Read [[link removed]]

China Uses the U.N. to Expand Its Surveillance Reach [[link removed]]

While the U.S. is trying to limit data flows to Beijing, the United Nations Secretariat in New York is working with Beijing to set up joint global data hubs based in China, notes Hudson's Claudia Rosett in The Wall Street Journal. The U.N. badge of legitimacy would make it easier for Beijing to secure flows of data from member states, influence U.N. standards, shape the results—and project the Chinese Communist Party’s techno-tyranny around the world.

Read [[link removed]]

Stop Foreign Cybercriminals From Masquerading as Diplomats [[link removed]]

This summer, North Korean state hackers sent COVID-19-themed phishing emails to more than five million American individuals and businesses in the United States, hoping to steal their personal and financial data. Writing in Newsweek, Hudson's Harold Furchtgott-Roth and Kirk Arner argue that legislation is needed to allow private parties to bring complaints in federal courts against foreign state actors responsible for cyberattacks on the United States.

Watch [[link removed]]

U.S. Representative Jim Langevin on the Pandemic’s Impact on the National Security Landscape [[link removed]]

Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI), Chairman of the House's Subcommittee on Intelligence and Emerging Threats and Capabilities, sat down with Hudson's Bryan Clark to examine the ongoing cybersecurity challenges faced by the U.S. during the pandemic, and the emerging threat environment that U.S. forces will face in the coming years.

Hudson Institute

1201 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Fourth Floor

Washington, D.C. 20004 Share [link removed] Tweet [link removed] Forward [link removed] Preferences [link removed] | Unsubscribe [link removed]