Justice Department plans to alert public to foreign operations targeting U.S. democracy
Washington Post, 19 July 2018, Ellen Nakashima
The Washington Post’s Ellen Nakashima wrote a nice piece on the U.S. government’s efforts with foreign influence operations as presented at the recent Aspen Security Forum. Some highlights:
- …exposing schemes to the public is an important way to neutralize them
- The American people have a right to know if foreign governments are targeting them with propaganda
- Public attribution of foreign influence operations can help to counter and mitigate the harm caused by foreign-government-sponsored disinformation
- Justice established a Cyber Digital Task Force
- FBI established a Foreign Influence Task Force
The White House has now intentionally removed the part of the question asked by a reporter and answered by Putin admitting he favored Trump and tasked their government workers to interfere with the US election from the transcript – including deleting part of the video and audio. In Russia, they removed the whole question and answer. The warning could not be more clear. But the question is what we the people and information professionals can do about it. It’s no longer just foreign operations – it’s the US government acting against the truth being told to the American people in their official transcripts and recordings.