Dear John,
In the 2018 election cycle, NDN's Simon Rosenberg built and oversaw the countering disinformation operation at the DCCC - the first ever of its kind at a national party committee.
Since then, NDN has been at the forefront of the discussion about how the US and other nations can best protect their elections, domestic discourse, and citizens, working to prevent "Moscow Rules" from becoming the norm here and in democracies throughout the world. While some progress has been made, we have an awful lot of work to do as new accounts of renewed Russian hacking and influence operations against the US have been reported in recent days.
We send along some of the highlights of our work over the past year, below. If you are interested in learning more about our thinking, start with national security expert Richard Clarke's interview with Simon on his Future State podcast (episode 20). It does a good job at covering most of the major issues we are wrestling with these days.
Top Lines
Trump Needs To Re-Open The FEC Right Now - Simon Rosenberg, NDN, 10/9/19 - On the same day that the Administration learned about the whistleblower complaint alleging felony level US election law violations by the President in the Ukraine scandal, the independent body overseeing US election law was shut down. It must re-open.
Re-Imagining The Parties In An Age Of Hacking, Disinformation - Simon Rosenberg, Medium, 9/7/19 - New digital threats will require US political parties to start seeing themselves as front line actors in our national effort to protect our elections and discourse. Some thoughts on how the parties can re-imagine themselves to meet these challenges head on.
GOP Bringing “Moscow Rules” On Disinformation To American Politics - Simon Rosenberg, Medium, 7/26/19 - A series of events over the past several months raises questions about whether using Russian style disinformation tactics has become a core part of the GOP’s electoral strategy in 2020.
Biden, Democratic State Parties Embrace Call To Forgo Illicit Campaign Tactics - Simon Rosenberg, NDN, 6/18/19 - Vice President Biden and the Chairs of the State Democratic Parties have now advanced the idea of a pledge to forgo illicit campaign tactics. Is another encouraging sign that American has begun to take the necessary steps to combat foreign manipulation of our democracy.
Three Things We Need To Do Now To Protect Our Elections In 2020 - Simon Rosenberg, Medium, 4/10/19 - America’s leaders should prioritize three things to protect our elections in the run-up to 2020: require paper ballots and audits, protect candidates from hacking and disinformation, and enter a pact to forgo the use of illicit campaign tactics.
Protecting The 2020 Dem Primary From Disinformation, Bots, And Hacking- Simon Rosenberg, NDN, 1/29/19- Democrats must come together now to prevent what happened in 2016 from happening again this time. NDN is calling for all 2020s to sign a pledge forgoing use of illicit campaign tactics in the Democratic Presidential Primary.
Trump Doesn't Take Russian Electoral Interference Seriously. This Is What Democrats Did To Oppose It In 2018 - Simon Rosenberg and Aaron Trujillo, NBC News, 12/18/18 - The U.S. and its politics are not powerless to stop the kind of foreign hacking and disinformation tactics we saw in 2016. In the 2018 midterms, the DCCC developed a series of tools and strategies for reducing the influence and impact of malicious actors. Far more can now be done to protect our democracy and our discourse — and doing so should be a very high priority for the new Congress in 2019.
Best, Chris
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