The cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency has frozen all its electoral safety work and examines everything it has done to help the authorities and local officials to guarantee their elections in the past eight years, A learned wired. This decision represents the first major example of the country’s cyber-defense agency to welcome the false allegations of President Donald Trump on electoral fraud and online censorship.
In a memo sent on Friday to all the employees of the CISA and obtained by Wired, the acting director of the CISA, Bridget Bean, said that she commanded “an exam and an evaluation” of each post of the agency linked to elections security and the fight against errors and disinformation, “like each electoral security and [mis-, dis-, and malinformation] product, activity, service and program that has been carried out ”since the federal government designated Electoral systems as a critical infrastructure in 2017.
“The CISA will arouse all election security activities until the completion of this exam,” added Bean. The agency also removes the financing of these activities to The Center for the Sharing and Analysis of Information on the Elections InfrastructureA group funded by the Ministry of Internal Security which served as a coordination body for the election community.
In his memo, Bean confirmed that Cisa had, as Reported for the first time by PoliticoThe employees placed “initially identified to be associated with election safety activities and the MDM program” on administrative leave on February 7.
“It is necessary to save the agency’s electoral security activities to ensure that the CISA focuses exclusively on the execution of its mission of cyber and physical security,” she told employees in the Memo.
While Bean temporarily directs Cisa, she is officially the agency’s executive director, her first career position. First director of the CISA Created the role of executive director to ensure continuity during political transitions. Previously, Bean was one named by Trump to the Federal Emergency Management Agency During his first mandate.
By justifying the internal examination of Cisa, which will end on March 6, Bean pointed out Trump’s January 20 order order On “put an end to federal censorship”. The conservatives argued That the CISA censored their speech by coordinating with technological companies to identify online disinformation in 2020, during the last year of Trump’s first mandate. The CISA denied having carried out a censorship and the Supreme Court of the United States rejected legal action on government work. But following the reaction, Cisa interrupted most conversations With technological platforms on online disinformation and disinformation.
The CISA and the DHS did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
Since 2017, electoral officials of states and premises have been based on CISA expertise and resources – as well as its partnerships with other agencies – to improve their physical and digital security. Thanks to on -site consultations and online advice, the CISA helped administrators in the elections to guarantee voting infrastructure against pirates, to harden polling stations against active shooters and to create survey safeguard plans To cope with the shortages of ballots or the power outages.
Elections supervisors have always had trouble overcoming serious financing challenges, but in recent years, their job has become even more stressful because a meticulous examination of voters has given way to harassment And even death threats. The electoral officials of the two parties have praised the CISA several times for its apolitical support for their work, saying that the recommendations of the agency and the free security services were essential to stimulate their own efforts.
