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This op-ed was originall published in the Times of London on July 16, 2018. Damian Collins is chair of the digital, culture, media and sport select committee, and MP for Folkestone and Hythe
The Internet Research Agency in St Petersburg knows that just like a computer or biological virus, information spreads from one person to another and through mass media to millions. In co-ordinated campaigns, multiple messengers act together to help stories go viral.
The greater the control over the way in which the message is conveyed, the stronger the influence on the target audience and therefore the more likely the virus will take hold and be successfully shared.
Using social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, Russia has an active strategy to infect our western democracies with campaigns of disinformation, with the purpose of spreading doubt and confusion, turning communities against each other and undermining confidence in our public institutions.
Thanks to the hearings in the United States congress we know that during the 2016 presidential election the Russians ran over 3,000 adverts on Facebook and Instagram to promote 120 Facebook pages in a campaign that reached 126 million Americans.
In further evidence from Facebook given to the House of Commons digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS) select committee which I chair, we know that the Russians used sophisticated targeting techniques and created customised audiences to amplify extreme voices in the campaign, particularly those on sensitive topics like race relations and immigration.
Facebook evidence to the select committee also shows that the Russians ran anti-immigration ads targeting users in the UK in the run up to the Brexit referendum. Twitter has confirmed that the Internet Research Agency had active accounts targeting British voters during the referendum as well.
A joint research project by the Universities of Swansea and UC Berkeley in California identified 156,252 Russian accounts tweeting about #Brexit and that they posted over 45,000 Brexit messages in the last 48 hours of the campaign.
Further research by the consultancy 89up has shown that the Kremlin-backed media outlets RT (Russia Today) and Sputnik had more reach on Twitter for anti-EU content than either Vote Leave or Leave.EU, during the referendum campaign.
Yet this analysis is based on looking at accounts we can easily trace back to Russia, but there may be many more. I recently met with the head of cybersecurity at a major UK bank who told me that they are regularly attacked from Russia, but that increasingly this is done by hacking first into servers based in the UK from which the operation is launched. This action is taken to deliberately try and hide the fact that the attack originated in Russia.
In addition to this direct Russian interference in elections, the DCMS committee has also received evidence the leading political donor to the Brexit cause Arron Banks had previously undisclosed meetings with the Russian ambassador and businessmen where possible gold and diamond deals were discussed, although Mr Banks has said that nothing came of these conversations.
Backdoor meetings between Russian businessmen and politicians would appear to belong in a spy movie. But they’re happening in real life and in centre stage. There is a moral imperative to shine a light on them.
Mr Banks? Why did he downplay the importance of these discussions to our committee? Most importantly — and many have asked — where did Mr Banks get the money to help fund Brexit?
We also know that the man at the centre of the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook data scraping scandal, Dr Aleksandr Kogan who was born in the former Soviet Union, was also working at the same time on a project on cyberbullying at the University of St Petersburg, which was sponsored by the Russian government.
Dr Kogan’s work is being investigated by the UK Information Commissioner and they believed that the Facebook data he gathered may have been accessed by third parties in other countries, including Russia.
In the Darwinian battle of ideas being played out in the news feeds of millions of social media account holders, there is no guarantee that the truth will be a more successful virus than a campaign of disinformation.
If anything, the burden of the truth, to inform and persuade, is much greater than a campaign of lies designed to merely shock and confuse. This is a potent threat and we need to do more to act together to defeat it. That is why I am attending a special conference being organised by the Atlantic Council in Washington today discussing the Kremlin’s interference in elections.
This event is bringing together politicians from around the world who have been leading investigations into these issues, including the United States senators Mark Warner and Marco Rubio, and Bob Zimmer and Nathaniel Erskine-Smith from the House of Commons of Canada.
In 1941 Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter setting out their ambitions for the new world order after the war. This included in clause three of the charter that nations should “respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live”. 75
In upholding that principle we believe in liberty, democracy and the rule of law, which in both the USA and Britain guards against foreign interference in our politics and elections.
Yet the mounting evidence of how Russia is using social media to spread fake news and disinformation, shows how easily this principle in the Atlantic Charter is being breached.
Today we need to renew that Charter for the digital age, underlining our commitment to act against the attack by Russia on our democracies and establishing the responsibilities as well of the major tech companies to provide real transparency to users on where the messages they are seeing are originating from.
In addition to this, there needs to be more action against accounts that are proven to be spreading campaigns of disinformation, and to stop foreign agencies from running political adverts during our election campaigns.
This op-ed was originally published in USA TODAY on July 12, 2018
The Senate Intelligence Committee issued a report last week concurring with the U.S. intelligence community’s unanimous assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a massive influence campaign aimed at the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The attack included the targeting of election infrastructure, email hacks, weaponized leaks, overt propaganda and a covert, large-scale disinformation effort on social media feeds like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
In many ways, this threat is not new. The Kremlin has been conducting information warfare or “active measures” against the West for decades. What is new, however, are social media tools with the reach and power to magnify propaganda and false information with a scale and precision that would have been unimaginable back in the days of the Berlin Wall.
The Soviet Politburo could only have dreamed of the capability Russia now has to target voters directly in the U.S., Europe and other democracies with propaganda, misinformation and disinformation. Twenty-first century social media tools have the potential to further erode public confidence in western institutions and undermine the shared sense of facts that is supposed to be the foundation of honest political debate.
In 2016, we were taken by surprise. In 2018, there are no excuses. We must be ready.
Message to Russia as Trump meets Putin
That is why we are teaming up with legislators from Canada and Europe to sound the alarm. Following this week’s NATO summit, parliamentarians from across Europe and North America will meet Monday in Washington, D.C., the same day President Donald Trump and Putin meet in Helsinki.
Our goal must be to demonstrate to the world that the community of democratic nations does not intend to accede to Putin’s or any other authoritarian’s view of the world. We will resist Russia’s aggression. As legislators, we have a responsibility to address that threat — particularly on social media.
First, as elected officials, we have a duty to use our positions to shine a light on Russia’s actions and capabilities. Utilizing our investigative tools and public platforms, legislators must expose the full scale and scope of Russia’s schemes to weaken democracies.
The two of us are currently engaged in a bipartisan effort in the Senate Intelligence Committee to uncover Russia’s activities during the 2016 elections and publicly detail its array of asymmetric capabilities. Similarly, our colleagues in the British Parliament, led by Damian Collins, are conducting an inquiry on “fake news” and how it was used by both foreign and domestic actors to influence the Brexit vote.
But it is not enough simply to shine a bright light on Russian aggression. As legislators, we also are responsible for crafting and passing laws to protect our democracy while also preserving freedom of expression.
More: Donald Trump is right to question NATO
Don't call it 'meddling.' The Russians attacked our democracy.
Blame social media for making us more hasty and emotional. Can we fix this?
There is little doubt that our own government and our laws have not kept pace with technological change. The magnitude of this challenge is poised only to expand with improvements in artificial intelligence, machine learning and related advancements like “deep fake” video manipulation. This technology can literally put words in someone’s mouth, creating a false narrative that can spread across the globe in minutes.
As our committee’s work has helped to establish, a key goal of Russian disinformation is to fracture the ability of open societies to reach social and political consensus — an objective significantly furthered when Americans can no longer "their lying eyes." If we hope to stay resilient against these threats, we’re going to need laws that keep up.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has put forward several bipartisan proposals to improve election security and ensure that the intelligence community does a better job of tracking, sharing and responding to efforts by any foreign power to influence our elections, including through social media.These include making clear to adversaries that we consider attacking our election infrastructure a hostile act and will respond accordingly, and to states that they should replace outdated and vulnerable voting systems as quickly as possible.
As stewards of oversight, we also have a responsibility to ensure our respective governments are ready to track and attack the ongoing threat from influence operations. In the U.S., we are not convinced that the national security community is currently organized to adequately rise to this challenge.
Informed public best defense against Russia
Finally, we have a responsibility as public officials to raise awareness and ensure that the voting public are fully informed of how our adversaries are trying to manipulate us. At the end of the day, there is really no better defense against Russian aggression on social media than an informed citizenry — a voting public that is fully aware of the Kremlin’s attempts to divide us from within and rejects them.
But social media companies also have a civic responsibility to prevent abuse from proliferating on their platforms and to inform users when they’ve been exposed to it.
We in the U.S. have much to learn about Russian tactics from our allies across the Atlantic who have been, and continue to be, on the front lines of Russian information operations. Vladimir Putin wants to divide us — both internally, here at home, and externally, from our transatlantic friends. Next week, legislators from across the NATO alliance will send him a strong and direct message that it won’t work.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., is vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is a member of the Intelligence and Foreign Relations committees. Follow them on Twitter: @MarkWarner and @marcorubio
Warner: ‘This is not the way America leads’
Jun 13 2018
Originally published in Politico
Sen. Mark Warner said he is “embarrassed” for the United States after President Donald Trump’s performance at the G-7 meeting and suggested the president set America’s standing in the world back decades.
“I was frankly embarrassed — embarrassed for our country,” Warner (D-Va.) said on the latest edition of the POLITICO Money podcast. “This is not the way America leads and the way America has led the world through Democratic and Republican administrations since the second World War.”
Warner, mentioned as a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2020, also ripped into Trump’s summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, saying the president gave Kim much of what he wanted and got little to nothing in return.
“One thing we do know is that North Korea came out a real winner. North Korea, which has been aspiring to have a meeting with a U.S. president on an equal footing since the end of the Korean War, achieved its goal,” he said. “In terms of the United States and the West, I think the jury is out. The North Koreans made, I wouldn’t even call it an agreement, but they made vague promises similar to promises that have been made in prior agreements. Whether they will honor them or not, time will tell.”
Warner suggested Trump has a double standard between Iran, where he demands verifiable evidence of denuclearization, and North Korea, where he appears willing to take Kim’s word for now.
“What do you think the reaction of some of my Republican colleagues would have been if a Democratic president had met with the Grand Ayatollah and come out with a meeting where they got these kind of vague assurances but no commitments?” he said.
Warner also chastised Trump for continually arguing that the U.S. has a trade deficit with Canada when the federal government’s own data show the opposite is true. “The president does not have much connection with factual reality, and the fact that he has created this norm where he can say anything even when it’s not factually true, I think that does long-term damage in terms of the president’s credibility with a lot of Americans and, obviously, his credibility with a lot of our allies.”
On a potential presidential run, Warner repeated his previous line that he does not have “the fire in the belly” at the moment to make a run. But he did not rule it out, and he articulated what could easily become the framework of a run.
“What I want to do is finish this Russia investigation. I do want to make sure that we’ve got a national security agenda that protects American values,” he said. “And I’d like the Democratic candidate to articulate a forward-leaning economic agenda that’s pro-growth but also that realizes we need a new social contract and, frankly, that modern American capitalism isn’t working for enough people.”
Warner & Kaine Announce $2.7 Million to Support Nursing Education and Retention at James Madison University
Jun 13 2018
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine announced $2,703,156 in federal funding to support nursing education at James Madison University over the next four years. The funding will be used to recruit, admit, and retain students interested in pursuing nursing and working in underserved primary care environments in Page County.
“At a time when Virginia faces a shortage in nurses, this grant will play an important role in supporting students interested in nursing and placing these qualified individuals at primary care facilities in underserved areas,” the Senators said. “We’re thrilled that the Department of Health and Human Services and JMU have shown a commitment to this important endeavor.”
“This collaboration is a great example of our university’s mission in action, as we seek to apply the knowledge and skills learned in the classroom to the real-world challenges of our community partners outside the classroom,” said Jonathan Alger, President of James Madison University.
“The School of Nursing at James Madison University is excited to work with our clinical partners in Page County to develop a nursing workforce prepared to meet the needs of rural and underserved individuals. Our BSN nursing students will greatly benefit from the opportunity to practice in rural, primary care settings in Page County while impacting the needs of the community as well,” said Julie Sanford, Director and Professor of James Madison University’s School of Nursing.
“The GO Virginia Council for Region 8, covering 16 communities in the Shenandoah Valley, including Page County, has been keenly aware of and concerned about the growing demand for a skilled nursing workforce to support the evolving health care sector of our regional economy. Today’s announcement for James Madison University will reap benefits for the entire region as our federal, state, and local partners come together with our university-based assets to address this critical need,” said George Pace, GO Virginia Region 8 Council Chairman.
The funding was awarded through the Department of Health and Human Services Nurse Education, Practice, Quality and Retention (NEPGQR) Program. The purpose of this grant program is to recruit and train nursing students to practice in community-based primary care teams.
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WASHINGTON –U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, voted to advance the Helping to End Addiction and Lessen (HEAL) Substance Use Disorders Act of 2018. The bipartisan legislation includes four bills written by Sen. Warner to address the opioid crisis by expanding the use of telehealth services to provide substance abuse treatment, and by improving data sharing on substance use disorders for state Medicaid programs. The HEAL Actwas passed out of committee on a bipartisan 27-0 vote and now awaits full consideration on the Senate floor.
“Opioid overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death in Virginia, surpassing car accidents and gun violence. One of the main drivers of the opioid crisis is that too many people lack access to quality substance use disorder treatment,” said Sen. Warner. “Expanding access to telehealth services could not only save lives but equip rural and underserved communities with better tools to fight this epidemic. Since Leader McConnell has announced plans to keep the Senate in session through the month of August, there should be plenty of opportunity for the Senate to take up and pass this important bipartisan bill to help address the opioid crisis.”
Sen. Warner noted in his opening remarks before that Committee that Virginia has suffered greatly from the opioid and addiction epidemic. In 2016, there were 1,460 deaths from overdoses, a 38 percent increase over 2015. Eighty percent of these deaths involved opioid use. (To download video of Sen. Warner’s opening statement, click here.)
About Sen. Warner’s bills:
Telehealth is the provision of health care services via telecommunications technologies, such as live video interactions, that make it easier for healthcare providers to treat patients no matter where they live. However, in order for a Medicare patient to receive reimbursement for substance use disorder treatment, individuals are obligated to receive care from a Medicare approved location known as an originating site. Oftentimes individuals who need treatment live out of reach from the originating site or those centers may be filled at capacity. That is why Sen. Warner, along with Sens. John Thune (R-SD), Ben Cardin (D-MD) and John Cornyn (R-TX), introduced the Expanding Telehealth Response to Ensure Addiction Treatment (eTREAT) Act to reduce the existing barriers to expand telehealth services for substance use disorder treatment. The text is available here.
Virginia is a national leader in telemedicine. The University of Virginia (UVA) Center for Telehealth was launched in 1994 and has since grown into a national model for the health industry. Since then, UVA and its network of 152 telemedicine partners have enabled more than 51,000 patient encounters across more than 60 specialties, saving Virginians roughly 16 million miles of travel. While the center was selected as one of 14 regional telehealth resource centers by the federal government, it still faces barriers to delivering care because outdated federal laws restricts Medicare’s coverage of telehealth services.
"The University of Virginia Health System and our Center for Telehealth commend Senator Warner for his leadership in addressing barriers that prevent patients from getting needed substance abuse treatment in a timely way by eliminating burdensome geographic originating site restrictions in Medicare. The Expanding Telehealth Response to Ensure Addiction Treatment (eTREAT) Act of 2018 will allow telehealth-- demonstrated to be an effective tool to deliver health care-- to provide such evaluation and treatment services to greater numbers of patients nationwide,” said Dr. Karen Rheuban, Director of the UVA Center for Telehealth.
In addition, Sen. Warner’s three other bills aimed at expanding the use of telehealth services for Medicaid patients receiving substance use disorder treatment are also included in the HEAL Act.
The Medicaid Substance Use Disorder Treatment via Telehealth Act will make clear how federal Medicaid funds can be used for substance use disorder treatment through telehealth services. Specifically, the bill will require the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to issue guidance on the reimbursement options available to state Medicaid services and treatment of substance use disorder through telehealth. The text is available here.
In addition, the Telehealth for Children’s Access to Services and Treatment (TeleCAST) Act will help ensure children suffering from substance use disorder receive the assistance they need through telehealth services. The bill will require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to evaluate the population of children who utilize Medicaid treatment for substance use disorder. In addition, the bill requires that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) produce a report on reducing barriers to using telehealth services and remote patient monitoring for pediatric populations under Medicaid. The text is available here.
In 2003, then-Gov. Warner expanded Medicaid coverage for telemedicine statewide, including evaluation and management visits, a range of individual psychotherapies, the full range of consultations, and some clinical services, including in cardiology and obstetrics. Coverage was also expanded to include non-physician providers. Among other benefits, the telehealth expansion allowed individuals in medically underserved and remote areas of Virginia to access quality specialty care that isn’t always available at home.
The final bill, the Opioid Addiction Treatment Programs Enhancement Act, will improve data collection on substance use disorder among Medicaid recipients. The bill will require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to publish comprehensive data on the CMS website regarding the prevalence of substance use disorder within the Medicaid beneficiary population and the services provided for treatment of substance use disorders under Medicaid. By receiving the most up-to-date information, states will be better equipped to combat the growing opioid epidemic by targeting their efforts in communities that need it the most. The text is available here.
In the Senate, Sen. Warner has been working on ways to combat the opioid crisis that has had a devastating effect for communities in rural Southwest Virginia. In March, Sen. Warner voted in favor of the omnibus bill that provided a total of $3.3 billion in increased funding to combat the opioid crisis, including an increase of $2.8 billion in treatment, prevention and research for programs under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to help communities across Virginia and the nation fight against the opioid epidemic. He has also passed into law bipartisan legislation to expand the use of federal telehealth services.
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Warner, Kaine Introduce Resolution Congratulating Washington Capitals on Stanley Cup Victory
Jun 12 2018
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) and Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) today introduced a congressional resolution congratulating the Washington Capitals for winning the 2018 Stanley Cup, the first championship in team history. The House cosponsors are Representatives Don Beyer (D-VA), Anthony Brown (D-MD), Barbara Comstock (R-VA), Gerry Connolly (D-VA), Elijah Cummings (D-MD), John Delaney (D-MD), Andy Harris, M.D. (R-MD), Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Donald McEachin (D-VA), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), Bobby Scott (D-VA), and Scott Taylor (R-VA). The Senate cosponsors are Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD), Tim Kaine (D-VA), and Mark Warner (D-VA).
The sponsors and cosponsors of the resolution released the following statement upon introduction:
“The Washington Capitals’ historic first Stanley Cup deserves the congratulations of the full House and Senate. Our players and coaches overcame challenge after challenge to deliver a season that Caps fans in D.C., Maryland, Virginia, and across the nation will never forget. We look forward to welcoming and celebrating this outstanding team in the parade here in our nation’s capital.”
The full text of the resolution is below.
RESOLUTION
Congratulating the Washington Capitals for winning the 2018 Stanley Cup hockey championship.
Whereas, on June 7, 2018, the Washington Capitals won the 2018 Stanley Cup hockey championship;
Whereas the Capitals, in their 44th year playing in the National Hockey League, won their first Stanley Cup;
Whereas the Capitals defeated the Vegas Golden Knights in the Stanley Cup Finals in 5 games, clinching the series with 4 wins and 1 loss, including 4 wins in a row to close out the series;
Whereas the Capitals overcame 3 series deficits to 3 opponents en route to the Stanley Cup Finals, defeating the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Pittsburgh Penguins, and the Tampa Bay Lightning to clinch the Eastern Conference title and win their second Prince of Wales Trophy;
Whereas the Capitals became the first team from Washington, DC, in the 4 major professional sports leagues in the United States to win a championship since 1992;
Whereas the Capitals overcame years of heartbreak to advance past the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 1998;
Whereas tens of thousands of Capitals fans watched Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals outside of Capital One Arena in Washington, DC;
Whereas Ted Leonsis, chief executive officer of Monumental Sports and owner of the Washington Capitals since 1999, has built a culture of success and contributed greatly to the Washington, DC, community through philanthropy;
Whereas John Walton, radio announcer for the Capitals, is beloved by Capitals fans and prophetically asserted this playoffs, “It’s OK to believe.”;
Whereas Alexander Ovechkin, captain of the Washington Capitals since 2010 and the first overall pick in the 2004 National Hockey League draft, exhibited extraordinary leadership and delivered superstar-caliber play, leading all scorers in the Stanley Cup playoffs with 15 goals and receiving the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player for the 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs;
Whereas during the 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs, Braden Holtby recorded a remarkable 0.922 save percentage and 2 shutouts;
Whereas during the 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs, Evgeny Kuznetsov recorded 32 points, including 12 goals and 20 assists, the second most points scored in a Stanley Cup playoff year since 1997, and was only the fifth player to record 30 or more points in a single Stanley Cup playoff year since 1997;
Whereas Barry Trotz, head coach of the Capitals, and the entire coaching staff kept the Capitals composed and organized, despite facing obstacles and adversity throughout the regular season and Stanley Cup playoffs; and
Whereas the entire Capitals roster banded together as one family to contribute to the Stanley Cup victory, including Nicklas Backstrom, Jay Beagle, Travis Boyd, Madison Bowey, Andre Burakovsky, John Carlson, Alex Chiasson, Brett Connolly, Pheonix Copley, Christian Djoos, Lars Eller, Shane Gersich, Philipp Grubauer, Braden Holtby, Jakub Jerabek, Michal Kempny, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Matt Niskanen, Dmitry Orlov, Brooks Orpik, T.J. Oshie, Alex Ovechkin, Devante Smith-Pelly, Chandler Stephenson, Jakub Vrana, Nathan Walker, and Tom Wilson: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the [House of Representatives/Senate]—
(1) congratulates the Washington Capitals and their dedicated fans for becoming the 2018 National Hockey League Stanley Cup champions; and
(2) respectfully directs the Secretary of the [House/Senate] to transmit an enrolled copy of this resolution to—
(A) the founder, chairman, majority owner, and chief executive officer of Monumental Sports and owner of the Washington Capitals, Ted Leonsis;
(B) the senior vice president and general manager of the Washington Capitals, Brian MacLellan; and
(C) the head coach of the Washington Capitals, Barry Trotz.
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Senate Intel Vice Chairman Warner on North Korea
Jun 12 2018
WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, released the below statement today on President Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong-un of North Korea:
“Diplomacy is the most viable option for pursuing the dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear program. But it’s clear that Kim Jong-un walked away from Singapore with exactly what he wanted – the pomp, circumstance and prestige of a meeting with the President of the United States – while making no specific commitments in return. Whether this will result in a verifiable agreement to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, America and the world will wait to find out.”
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Originally published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch: May 28, 2018
In WWII, the federal government encouraged farmers to grow hemp — a close but non-psychedelic cousin to marijuana. The war effort needed fiber for parachute rope and related purposes.
But hemp, which enjoyed a storied colonial history — both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew the plant for its many industrial uses — fell prey to another conflict: the war on drugs. Although it contains so little THC you would have to smoke a hemp joint the size of a telephone pole to feel any effect, hemp was outlawed because it looks like marijuana. Allowing hemp cultivation would make raiding pot farms more difficult.
This made minimal sense from the start. It makes even less sense now, when many states have legalized medical and even recreational marijuana, and a majority of the public supports decriminalization.
So it is good news that both of Virginia’s senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, have signed onto legislation to remove hemp from the list of controlled substances, so that it may again be cultivated as an agricultural commodity.
Hemp is highly versatile and good for much more than fiber; it can be found in a wide array of products, from shampoos and moisturizers to protein powder and dog treats. In a state hit hard by the decline of tobacco, hemp would offer farmers a valuable alternative with a minimum of disruption to their business model.
In its quintessentially incremental way, the Virginia General Assembly has authorized four small hemp research projects at state universities. This is lawmakers’ way of acknowledging reality without being taken for a bunch of shoeless hippies. But there’s no need to show such faintheartedness. Legalizing hemp doesn’t encourage drug use any more than legalizing root beer encourages drunkenness. Kudos to Warner and Kaine for doing the right thing for common sense and the state’s farming community.
By Senator Mark R. Warner
Originally published in the Tidewater News
We all know the stock market is booming. The economic recovery that began at the end of President Obama’s term has continued to gain steam under President Trump. In cities like Washington, D.C., it is almost like the great recession never happened.
But when you get outside the beltway, to rural communities across Virginia, you get a different picture.
The truth is, rural America continues to feel the lingering symptoms of the financial crisis.
Many rural banks have closed or consolidated. That means farm loans and mortgages are harder to come by. That means it’s harder for entrepreneurs to open a business in their home town.
A big part of the problem is excessive regulations — intended for the largest banks — are making it too expensive, too time consuming for small banks and credit unions to serve consumers, farmers, and small businesses.
That’s why I introduced bipartisan legislation (S.2155) earlier this year, with Sen. Tim Kaine and a bipartisan group of senators, to cut red tape for small community banks and credit unions, create new consumer protections, and help jumpstart Virginia’s economy.
This week, the House of Representatives passed our bill. It now heads to President Trump’s desk for his signature.
While our bill passed both the House and the Senate this year with strong bipartisan majorities, the effort to reform our banking laws to protect main street America’s access to credit has been years in the making.
I was elected to the Senate in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis, at a time when our system needed major reform. As a member of the Banking Committee, I helped write key portions of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill that cracked down on Wall Street’s excesses and reined in the big banks. I’m proud of my vote to pass Dodd-Frank, and I believe our system is safer as a result.
But Congress never gets major legislation 100 percent right the first time.
Eight years later, we know that parts of Dodd-Frank intended to prevent banks from becoming “too-big-to-fail” have actually made some community banks and credit unions “too-small-to-succeed.”
In Virginia, we only lost one community bank and four credit unions during the financial crisis. We’ve lost over a quarter of our community banks and over a third of our credit unions since the passage of Dodd-Frank.
Small community banks and credit unions don’t have big teams of lawyers and accountants to help them comply with government regulations like the big banks do. Some of the community banks I’ve heard from only have one or maybe two loan officers.
Despite their size, community banks and credit unions are at the heart of our economy. According to a 2015 Harvard study, community banks provide over three-quarters of all agricultural loans in our country and half of all private small business loans. They’re the ones who help entrepreneurs open or expand their businesses, help farmers buy new equipment, or help you buy that new car or new house.
The fact is Virginia’s community banks and credit unions didn’t cause the financial crisis, and they didn’t get big taxpayer bailouts either. They shouldn’t be saddled with regulations intended for the biggest banks.
When small community banks and credit unions are spending their time on government paperwork, they’re not issuing mortgages, they’re not making loans to small businesses, and they’re not helping grow our economy.
Our bill begins to fix this, by tailoring regulations so that small banks and credit unions are better able to compete.
What our bill does not do is reduce oversight on the big banks or any foreign financial institutions, but it does include the biggest expansion of consumer protections in quite some time. Here are just a few examples:
For the millions of Americans hit by data breaches like the Equifax hack, it guarantees free credit freezes and unfreezes and year-long fraud alerts.
For active duty service members, it provides free credit monitoring services.
For renters, it provides new protections against unfair evictions.
And for veterans, it prevents credit bureaus from harming their credit scores because of payments delayed by the VA.
While these consumer protections will make a big difference for many Americans, ultimately the changes in our bill are relatively modest. We leave the vast majority of Dodd-Frank in place — and that’s a good thing.
But for main street consumers who depend on their local bank or credit union, and for anyone who believes Congress should put aside partisan politics to get things done, the bill is a big win.
SEN. MARK WARNER, a Democrat, represents Virginia in the United States Senate. He serves on the Senate Banking, Finance, Budget and Rules committees, as well as the Senate Intelligence Committee, where he is vice chairman.
CBS This Morning
March 12, 2018
Alec Baldwin is to some a perfect stand-in for President Trump. But in a digitally-altered video online, the president's face has been digitally stamped onto Baldwin's performance.
It's part of a wave of doctored audio and video now spreading online.
"The idea that someone could put another person's face on an individual's body, that would be like a homerun for anyone who wants to interfere in a political process," said Virginia Senator Mark Warner. He believes manipulated video could be a game-changer in global politics.
"This is now going to be the new reality, surely by 2020, but potentially even as early as this year," he said.
"Derpfakes" is the anonymous YouTuber who has made fake videos of President Trump, Hillary Clinton and Vladimir Putin, based off of performances by the cast of "Saturday Night Live.
In a message to CBS News, he said he does it for "fun." And though he sees the potential for fake news, he adds: "People will have to adapt as the tech is here to stay."
Hany Farid runs a lab at Dartmouth College aimed at exposing digital fakes.
Correspondent Tony Dokoupil asked Farid, "Are we ready for this?"
"No. We are absolutely not ready for this. We are absolutely not ready for it," Farid replied. "On so many different levels, we're not ready for it."
For starters, Dokoupil asked Farid to make a fake video. "I want to replace your face with Nicholas Cage's," he said.
Why Nick Cage? "Just because it's awesome," Farid laughed. "No other reason."
The result: "You can look at that all day long, and that, I tell you, is a pretty compelling fake," Farid said.
The method, recently published online by an anonymous developer, is one of several that Farid is tracking. This program demonstrated in the video below can change facial expressions in real-time.
And there is an Adobe program that can create new audio from written text.
"Right out of the gate, that's terrifying," Farid said. "I mean, that is just terrifying. Now I can create the president of the United States saying just about anything."
Adobe calls this an "early-stage research project." While the company acknowledges the potential for "objectionable use," it believes "the positive impact of technology will always overshadow the negative."
All these methods have legitimate uses in digital video and design. But Farid worries they'll be weaponized, too.
"I think the nightmare situation is a fake video of a politician saying, 'I have launched nuclear weapons against a country.' The other country reacts within minutes, seconds, and we have a global nuclear war," Farid said.
His lab is developing tools to quickly identify fakes. But Farid suspects this is just the beginning of a longer struggle.
"We have a 'fake news' phenomenon that is not going away," he said. "And so add to that fake images, fake audio, fake video, and you have an explosion of what I would call an information war."
Sen. Warner said, "There is no Democrat or a Republican that would be safe from this kind of manipulation. But, boy oh boy, we need as a country to get our act together."
Warner is asking the major tech companies to work with Congress to rein in false news, and now also false video.
CBS News reached out to a number of tech companies for comment and heard back from Reddit and Facebook. Both companies are aware of this false video phenomenon and are looking for ways to regulate it.
