Category Archives: DNI

US blames Iran for threatening emails sent to Florida voters

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Iran is been behind a series of intimidating emails sent to registered Democratic voters in Florida in recent days, the U.S. government has assessed. The emails, which appeared to be sent by the Proud Boys, a designated hate group supportive of President Trump, threatened voters to “Vote for Trump or else!” as Motherboard first reported. “You will vote for Trump on Election Day or we will come after you,” said some of the emails received by registered Democrats. The series of messages were “spoofed” as part of an influence campaign aimed at interfering in the U.S. election, American officials said. Voters in Alaska and Pennsylvania have also received emails like those received in Florida, according to The Washington Post. “We have already seen Iran sending spoofed emails designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest,” Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said during a press conference Wednesday. “You may have seen some reporting on this in the […]

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Congress wants to know who is using spyware against the US

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A 2021 intelligence funding draft bill mandates a report on surveillance vendors and which countries or other actors are using spyware. Continue reading Congress wants to know who is using spyware against the US→

Mueller report confirms Trump lobbied top intel officials to refute Russia stories

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President Donald Trump pushed top intelligence officials to refute information tied to the investigations into links between his 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, according to information publicly released Thursday in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report. According to the report, Trump phoned then-NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers on March 26, 2017 to complain the investigation was “messing up” his ability to get things done with Russia, as far as Rogers recalls. The president also asked Rogers if there was anything he could do to refute news stories linking him to Russia. Richard Ledgett, former NSA deputy director who was reportedly present for the exchange, drafted a memo about the substance of the call. He and Rogers both signed it and locked it in a safe. Ledgett “said it was the most unusual thing he had experienced in 40 years of government service,” the report states. By the time the phone call […]

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Trump’s refusal to call out Russian hacking provokes swift, sharp backlash

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President Donald Trump drew sharp criticism Monday from former intelligence officials and lawmakers after refusing to acknowledge or condemn Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election while standing alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin. Following a closed-door tête-à-tête in Helsinki, Finland, the two leaders held a joint 45-minute press conference. During the wide-ranging session, among other things, the sitting U.S. president publicly declined to back the unanimous findings of his own U.S. intelligence community – that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, through a series of cyberattacks and carefully orchestrated information campaigns. “They said they think it’s Russia; I have asked President Putin, he just said ‘It’s not Russia,” Trump said. “I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.” Within an hour, former intelligence chiefs were panning Trump and his statements at the press […]

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Intel bill puts DNI in charge of countering Russian election meddling

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The nation’s top intelligence official will have to assess spy agencies’ response to Russian election meddling last year, devise a whole-of-government strategy for combatting similar effort in the future, if a Senate bill that advanced this week becomes law. The bill, S.1761, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018, passed out of committee this week with a single vote dissenting. The bill in its current form would require a number of reports to Congress on a variety of issues regarding cybersecurity incidents targeting the federal government in the last year. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore, said in a statement he voted no, “over a provision that could set a troubling constitutional precedent” — by identifying Wikileaks and its senior leaders as “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors.” “My concern,” he said, “is that the use of the novel phrase ‘non-state hostile intelligence service’ may have legal, […]

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DNI: Chinese hacking against U.S. companies is ‘ongoing’ but ‘significantly reduced’

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Chinese hacking against U.S. targets is ongoing but “at volumes significantly lower” than before the landmark agreement reached in 2015 between Beijing and Washington D.C., according to the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. Former President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed a deal in 2015 after cyberattacks that included widespread intellectual property theft for commercial gain, along with soft attribution that prompted threats of sanctions and other retaliation. Coats’ comments came in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday during a hearing on worldwide military threats faced by the United States. Almost two years after the agreement was signed, Coats’ assessment notes significant progress on the cybersecurity front between the world’s two biggest economies. “We assess that Beijing will continue actively targeting the U.S. government, its allies, and U.S. companies for cyber espionage,” Coats said in his written testimony. “Private-sector security experts continue to identify ongoing cyber […]

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Former top spy says U.S. not positioned to fight information wars in cyberspace

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When U.S. officials realized last year that Russian intelligence services’ hacking into the IT systems of the Democratic National Committee was just one part of a full-featured information warfare operation, they faced a number of immediate problems, a former White House insider said Wednesday. James Clapper, who was director of national intelligence under President Barack Obama, said the first dilemma was well-understood: how to warn the American people about the Russian effort to meddle with the election without appearing to put a thumb on the scale. There was a second and much less well-understood problem, though: how to fight back. “We don’t really have a good way to respond” to the efforts like those that were designed to damage Democratic candidate Hilary Clinton, Clapper said at Gigamon’s Public Sector Cybersecurity Summit. The information warfare created fake news as well as the real thing — like the stories that came out of the documents dumped from the DNC hack. […]

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Top U.S. intelligence official: Media is wrong about low morale

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The issue of sinking morale within the U.S. intelligence community is a myth fabricated by the media, said a top U.S. intelligence official who spoke Thursday at the National Press Club. “I am in the intelligence community, I have spent time in the FBI, in NCSC now and CIA, and I don’t see a dip […]

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Top U.S. intelligence official: Media is wrong about low morale

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The issue of sinking morale within the U.S. intelligence community is a myth fabricated by the media, said a top U.S. intelligence official who spoke Thursday at the National Press Club. “I am in the intelligence community, I have spent time in the FBI, in NCSC now and CIA, and I don’t see a dip […]

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