The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is tracking no “national-level significant incidents” that would affect the security of today’s presidential election, a top agency official said Tuesday morning.
Cait Conley, a CISA senior advisor focused on election infrastructure security, told reporters that the DHS agency is “tracking instances of extreme weather” and minor infrastructure disruptions that are largely expected and tend to be routine for election officials. Conley did not say where these were occurring.
“We are not currently tracking any national-level significant incidents impacting the security of our election infrastructure,” she said in a briefing.
The remarks come as Americans go to the polls to cast their vote in what’s expected to be a deadlocked election between former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Last night, the intelligence community said that it was tracking a slew of Russian and Iranian-affiliated online activity that’s seeking to turn the tide of the election.
“Russia is the most active threat. Influence actors linked to Russia in particular are manufacturing videos and creating fake articles to undermine the legitimacy of the election, instill fear in voters regarding the election process, and suggest Americans are using violence against each other due to political preferences, judging from information available to the IC,” the statement says.
This morning, the FBI warned of instances in which its name and authoritative status was being exploited to peddle false narratives about the safety of the election. One case involves a fabricated newsclip purporting to show a terrorist threat warning, while another is a sham statement saying Americans should “vote remotely” because of terrorism risks at polling stations.
“This video is not authentic and does not accurately represent the current threat posture or polling location safety,” FBI said in a statement.
CISA is running an election-operations room in Arlington, Virginia, where the agency has gathered election coordinating partners plus federal entities, including Postal Service officials and the FBI, Conley said. There are also ten regional election-security advisors on site that represent different parts of the country.
The operations center has lines of communication with the intelligence community. Most of the operations nexus functions in an unclassified manner, but there are classified sections made available in the event staff need briefings on nation-state or cybercriminal operatives seeking to meddle in the election process, she added.
CISA is notably not in active communication with social media firms, a dynamic born out of what eventually became a Supreme Court case that considered whether Biden administration agencies have the ability to stay in contact with social media platforms about removing posts that could contain disinformation.
The court sided with the Biden White House in June, providing agencies a form of legal cover to help take down mis- and disinformation. But CISA has still taken a more cautious approach amid prevailing GOP concerns of content censorship.
“As we’ve said in previous statements, we are not engaging directly with social media companies, but if a threat were to arise that would necessitate us to do so, we would absolutely reach out,” Conley said. “With respect to when we engage [with social platforms], in terms of foreign malign influence or disinformation — at the federal-government level — there is a process that is outlined to do so.”
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