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In the government shutdown crisis that Congress moved to resolve on Monday, or at least put on pause, there were so-called leaders who saw an opportunity to score cheap political points. Others went AWOL from their duty to help end the standoff. And then there were some, Republican and Democrat alike, who tried to make government work.
Among the unfortunate new lows of the episode: Vice President Pence using soldiers as political props, attacking Democrats as he spoke to U.S. troops in the Middle East. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, whose job of protecting the United States should be above politics, choosing to pile on instead: “Benefits for millions of illegal immigrants instead of paying Americans who put their lives at risk daily to protect ours? I don’t think so.” And, sadly, President Trump himself, approving an attack ad that accused Democrats of being “complicit” in murders committed by undocumented immigrants. All of this nastiness eroded rather than built the trust needed to end the dispute.
Then there were those who could have helped to end the standoff and failed to do so. That starts, again, with Mr. Trump, who repeatedly appeared ready to make deals before the shutdown began but backed away each time. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) also sat by, unwilling to make simple commitments that would have broken the logjam. An assurance that House leaders would allow an up-or-down vote on “dreamers” legislation would have helped unlock negotiations earlier. It also would have been the right thing to do.
By contrast, a bipartisan group of 25 senators spent the weekend talking instead of excoriating one another. This included Democrats who had voted earlier to keep the government open, such as Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), and Republicans who had voted to force the standoff, such as Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.). The talks resulted in compromise; Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) ultimately promised to bring an immigration bill to an up-or-down vote in the Senate within three weeks, and Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) joined most other Democrats in voting to reopen the government with that commitment in hand. Partisans on both sides could find grounds for displeasure, but the bargain was reasonable. If the deal does not result in the passage of an immigration bill, Democrats still have leverage over federal funding next month.
From here, that core group of moderate, dealmaking lawmakers should feel empowered. The broad middle in both houses of Congress should no longer wait for direction from a chaotic White House or spineless congressional leadership. They may discover that they have more in common with members of the other party also interested in competent, responsive government than they do with the ideologues in their own camp.
Because what distinguishes the senators working toward a solution, including Virginia Democrats Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine, is not a lack of ideals but an interest in achieving positive change — including, most importantly, for hundreds of thousands of dreamers. These are law-abiding immigrants, brought here as small children, eager to contribute to the only country most of them have ever known. They need solutions, not political one-upmanship.
WASHINGTON — Today U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, spoke on the floor of the U.S. Senate to warn of threats to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and highlight the constitutional crisis that would likely ensue if the President were to interfere in the Mueller probe. In recent weeks, a growing chorus of voices in Congress, the media, and the White House have begun pushing a coordinated narrative undermining the credibility of the Special Counsel’s investigation and the FBI itself. Sen. Warner today responded to these “troubling” signs that the President may be considering firing Mr. Mueller or top FBI/DOJ brass, pardoning potential witnesses, or otherwise interfering in Mueller’s investigation.
Sen. Warner called on Senators from both parties to “make a clear and unambiguous statement: that any attempt by this President to remove Special Counsel Mueller from his position, or to pardon key witnesses in an effort to shield them from accountability or shut down the investigation, would be a gross abuse of power and a flagrant violation of Executive branch responsibilities and authorities.”
He continued: “These are red lines, and we simply cannot allow them to be crossed.”
Senator Warner’s remarks as prepared for delivery follow:
Mr. President –
I rise today concerned about threats to the Special Counsel’s critical investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Over the last several weeks, a growing chorus of irresponsible and reckless voices have called for President Trump to shut down Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation. At first, these calls came from the fringes of our political discourse – those who would refuse to put our country and our security before base political instincts. Earlier this year, many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle were right to push back on those misdirected calls and urge that the Special Counsel be allowed to do his job without interference.
However, in recent weeks, those voices seem to be growing in stridency and in volume. Just this weekend, one major news organization suggested that Special Counsel Mueller could be involved in a “coup” against this President. One senior advisor at the White House has now outrageously alleged, “The fix was in against Donald Trump from the beginning.”
These statements are reckless. They are inappropriate. And they are extremely worrying.
They are also at odds with the President’s own lawyers, who have pledged to cooperate with the Special Counsel.
Beyond being irresponsible, the seemingly coordinated nature of these claims should alarm us all – particularly since, in recent days, these baseless accusations have been repeated by several members of the House of Representatives.
I believe it is up to every member of this institution, Republican or Democrat, to make a clear and unambiguous statement: that any attempt by this President to remove Special Counsel Mueller from his position, or to pardon key witnesses in an effort to shield them from accountability or shut down the investigation, would be a gross abuse of power and a flagrant violation of Executive branch responsibilities and authorities. These are red lines, and we simply cannot allow them to be crossed.
Let’s remember why Special Counsel Mueller was appointed in the first place – and why it remains so critical that he be permitted to finish his job, without obstruction.
Recall, last spring, we were all reeling from a series of confounding actions by this President, beginning with the firing of FBI Director Jim Comey on May 9, 2017. Mr. Comey was fired just two months after publicly revealing the FBI’s ongoing investigation of the Trump campaign, and – as we would find out later – after several attempts by this President to improperly influence Director Comey.
Try to put yourself back into those dangerous days. Director Comey’s dismissal was met with confusion and widespread condemnation. We needed a stabilizing action from our nation’s law enforcement leadership. We needed some certainty that the facts would be found and brought to light – regardless of what they were.
Eight days after Mr. Comey’s firing, Trump appointee and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller to oversee the investigation into “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump” and “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.”
His appointment reassured Americans that there would be a full and thorough law enforcement investigation. The announcement was met with support on both sides of the aisle and received nearly universal praise. In fact, many of the same people who are attacking him today praised Mr. Mueller’s appointment just months ago.
Indeed, there is much to praise. The fact is that Robert Mueller has impeccable credentials as a man of the law. He has assembled a team that includes some of the nation’s best investigators, and he is leading this investigation with the professionalism that it deserves.
Mr. Mueller is a decorated Vietnam War veteran and a lifelong Republican, appointed to his current role by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, also a Republican. In fact, all of the major players to date in this investigation – former Director Comey, current FBI Director Wray, Rosenstein, and even Attorney General Sessions, who has recused himself – are all Republicans. The charges of Democratic political bias are baseless, given the makeup of the leadership team.
In recent weeks, much has been made of some political opinions expressed by an FBI agent during the election last year. This specious line of argument conveniently ignores the fact that, as soon as Mr. Mueller learned about those comments, he immediately removed the agent in question from the investigation. If anything, this incident only adds to Mr. Mueller’s credibility as a fair and independent investigator.
Mr. President, I stand here as the Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. We are in the midst of our own investigation into the Russian incursion, and I’m proud of the way Chairman Burr and our Committee members have taken on this difficult task. We’ve made tremendous progress in uncovering the facts of Russian interference in our elections. Our Committee’s work helped expose a dark underbelly of disinformation on our social media platforms. We have successfully pressed for the full accounting of Russian cyber efforts to target our state election systems. And, despite the initial denials of any Russian contacts during the election, this Committee’s efforts have helped uncover numerous and troubling high-level engagements between the Trump campaign and Russian affiliates – many of which have only been revealed in recent months.
We’ve got some work to do yet. But, this Committee has gone out of its way to ensure continued bipartisan backing for this effort, and I’m committed to seeing this through.
However, it should be very clear that our Committee cannot and will not stand as a substitute for Mr. Mueller’s investigation. As Chairman Burr and I have noted on numerous occasions, the FBI is responsible for determining any criminal activities related to this inquiry. As such, Mueller has already moved to indict two individuals and has negotiated two additional guilty pleas. This is an investigative path reserved solely for law enforcement, and it is essential that it be permitted to go on unimpeded.
The country no doubt remains severely divided on the question of the last election; however, the national security threat facing us today should demand that we rise above the partisan differences. No matter the political divide, surely each of us – and all Americans – should want to know the truth of what happened during last year’s election. And, no doubt, we all want to know as quickly as possible.
The President has long called the investigation into Russian meddling into the 2016 election a witch hunt, and he has done much to discredit the Intelligence Community’s unanimous assessment of Russian interference in our election. The failure of this White House to lead a whole-of-government approach to prevent this type of election interference in the future – either by Russia or some other adversary – defies understanding. The President’s refusal to accept the Intelligence Community’s assessment and his blatant disregard for ensuring Russia never again infiltrates our election process has been unnerving and cause for significant concern.
In recent days, the President has said he is not considering removing Special Counsel Mueller. But the President’s track record on this front is a source of concern. I’m certain many of my colleagues believed that he wouldn’t possibly fire Mr. Comey, either.
Firing Mr. Mueller or any of the top brass involved in this investigation would not only call into question this Administration’s commitment to the truth and the rule of law. It also has the potential to provoke a constitutional crisis. In the United States of America, no one is above the law. Not even the President. Congress must make clear to the President that firing the Special Counsel, or interfering with his investigation by issuing pardons of essential witnesses, is unacceptable, and would have immediate and significant consequences.
I hope my concerns are unfounded, but there are troubling signs. It is critical that we as elected officials, and as citizens, speak up against these threats now…before it is too late.
Thank you, Mr. President.
###
Warner on Senate Floor: Pass the DREAM Act Now
Dec 14 2017
Opening Statement of Vice Chairman Warner from Senate Intel Open Hearing with Social Media Representatives
Nov 01 2017
As Prepared for Delivery
In this age of social media, you can’t afford to waste too much time – or too many characters – in getting the point across, so I’ll get straight to the bottom line.
Russian operatives are attempting to infiltrate and manipulate social media to hijack the national conversation and to make Americans angry, to set us against ourselves, and to undermine our democracy. They did it during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. They are still doing it now. And not one of us is doing enough to stop it.
That is why we are here today.
In many ways, this threat is not new. Russians have been conducting information warfare for decades.
But what is new is the advent of social media tools with the power to magnify propaganda and fake news on a scale that was unimaginable back in the days of the Berlin Wall. Today’s tools seem almost purpose-built for Russian disinformation techniques.
Russia’s playbook is simple, but formidable. It works like this:
- Disinformation agents set up thousands of fake accounts, groups and pages across a wide array of platforms.
- These fake accounts populate content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, LinkedIn, and others.
- Each of these fake accounts spend months developing networks of real people to follow and like their content, boosted by tools like paid ads and automated bots. Most of their real-life followers have no idea they are caught up in this web.
- These networks are later utilized to push an array of disinformation, including stolen emails, state-led propaganda (like RT and Sputnik), fake news, and divisive content.
The goal here is to get this content into the news feeds of as many potentially receptive Americans as possible and to covertly and subtly push them in the direction the Kremlin wants them to go.
As one who deeply respects the tech industry and was involved in the tech business for twenty years, it has taken me some time to really understand this threat. Even I struggle to keep up with the language and mechanics. The difference between bots, trolls, and fake accounts. How they generate Likes, Tweets, and Shares. And how all of these players and actions are combined into an online ecosystem.
What is clear, however, is that this playbook offers a tremendous bang for the disinformation buck.
With just a small amount of money, adversaries use hackers to steal and weaponize data, trolls to craft disinformation, fake accounts to build networks, bots to drive traffic, and ads to target new audiences. They can force propaganda into the mainstream and wreak havoc on our online discourse. That’s a big return on investment.
So where do we go from here?
It will take all of us – the platform companies, the United States government, and the American people – to deal with this new and evolving threat.
The social media and innovative tools each of you have developed have changed our world for the better.
You have transformed the way we do everything from shopping for groceries to growing our small businesses. But Russia’s actions are further exposing the dark underbelly of the ecosystem you have created. And there is no doubt that their successful campaign will be replicated by other adversaries – both nation states and terrorists – that wish to do harm to democracies around the globe.
As such, each of you here today needs to commit more resources to identifying bad actors and, when possible, preventing them from abusing our social media ecosystem.
Thanks in part to pressure from this Committee, each company has uncovered some evidence of the ways Russians exploited their platforms during the 2016 election.
For Facebook, much of the attention has been focused on the paid ads Russian trolls targeted to Americans. However, these ads are just the tip of a very large iceberg. The real story is the amount of misinformation and divisive content that was pushed for free on Russian-backed pages, which then spread widely on the News Feeds of tens of millions of Americans.
According to data Facebook has provided, 120 Russian-backed Pages built a network of over [3.3] million real people.
From these now-suspended Pages, 80,000 organic unpaid posts reached an estimated 126 million real people. That is an astonishing reach from just one group in St. Petersburg. And I doubt that the so-called Internet Research Agency represents the only Russian trolls out there. Facebook has more work to do to see how deep this goes, including looking into the reach of the IRA-backed Instagram posts, which represent another 120,000 pieces of content – more Russian content on Instagram than even Facebook.
The anonymity provided by Twitter and the speed by which it shares news makes it an ideal tool to spread disinformation.
According to one study, during the 2016 campaign, junk news actually outperformed real news in some battleground states in the lead-up to Election Day.[1] Another study found that bots generated one out of every five political messages posted on Twitter over the entire presidential campaign.[2]
I’m concerned that Twitter seems to be vastly under-estimating the number of fake accounts and bots pushing disinformation. Independent researchers have estimated that up to 15% of Twitter accounts – or potentially 48 million accounts – are fake or automated.[3]
Despite evidence of significant incursion and outreach from researchers, Twitter has, to date, only uncovered a small percentage of that activity. Though, I am pleased to see, Twitter, that your number has been rising in recent weeks.
Google’s search algorithms continue to have problems in surfacing fake news or propaganda. Though we can’t necessarily attribute to the Russian effort, false stories and unsubstantiated rumors were elevated on Google Search during the recent mass shooting in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, YouTube has become RT’s go-to platform. Google has now uncovered 1100 videos associated with this campaign. Much more of your content was likely spread through other platforms.
It is not just the platforms that need to do more. The U.S. government has thus far proven incapable of adapting to meet this 21st century challenge. Unfortunately, I believe this effort is suffering, in part, because of a lack of leadership at the top. We have a President who remains unwilling to acknowledge the threat that Russia poses to our democracy. President Trump should stop actively delegitimizing American journalism and acknowledge this real threat posed by Russian propaganda.
Congress, too, must do more. We need to recognize that current law was not built to address these threats. I have partnered with Senators Klobuchar and McCain on a light-touch, legislative approach, which I hope my colleagues will review.
The Honest Ads Act is a national security bill intended to protect our elections from foreign influence.
Finally – but perhaps most importantly – the American people also need to be aware of what is happening on our news feeds. We all need to take a more discerning approach to what we are reading and sharing, and who we are connecting with online. We need to recognize that the person at the other end of that Facebook or Twitter argument may not be a real person at all.
The fact is that this Russian weapon has already proven its success and cost effectiveness.
We can be assured that other adversaries, including foreign intelligence operatives and potentially terrorist organizations, are reading their playbook and already taking action. We must act.
To our witnesses today, I hope you will detail what you saw in this last election and tell us what steps you will undertake to get ready for the next one. We welcome your participation and encourage your commitment to addressing this shared responsibility.
[1] Oxford Internet Institute (Phil Howard): “Social Media, News and Political Information During the U.S. Election: Was Polarizing Content Concentrated in Swing States?” (September 28, 2017);
[2] USC: “Social Bots Distort the 2016 U.S. Presidential election Online Discussion,” (November 2016)
[3] University of Southern California and Indiana University: “Online Human-bot Interactions: Detection, Estimation, and Characterization” (March 2017).
Boston Globe: An overdue effort on Internet ads
Oct 30 2017
As Americans have learned since the last election, Internet ads can race halfway around the world before truth-squadders are even aware of their existence, much less who paid for them. But we now know that in the 2016 campaign cycle, at least 3,000 digital ads that ran on Facebook were linked to Russia, and more than 450 Facebook profiles were tied to Russian operatives, who spent an estimated $100,000 on those ads. And that Russians also spent considerable sums for advertising on Gmail and YouTube.
That’s valuable information to have, but it is scant comfort to learn it long months after the votes were counted. This country must do better to safeguard future elections.
The Federal Election Commission, never good at acting until it has to, in part because it often finds itself in partisan gridlock, has been caught flatfooted by the outside deluge of online ads. So, too, were the social media companies themselves. Embarrassed by post-election revelations, they are now promising to do more on their own to scrutinize ads, perhaps as a way to forestall new laws or regulations. Expect them to underline their planned ad-policing efforts when executives from Facebook, Google, and Twitter testify before House and Senate intelligence committees on Wednesday. But given their past asleep-at-the-switch performances and the too-little, too-late nature of those initiatves, leaving ad oversight to them is hardly a promising course.
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Now Senators Amy Klobuchar, Mark Warner, and John McCain have stepped up with a bill that would apply the laws that govern broadcast political advertisements to the Internet ad sector.
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Specifically, paid Internet ads related to campaigns or elections would have to have clear and conspicuous disclaimers saying what entity was paying for them, the same way TV, radio, and print ads do. Further, those ads would have to include easy access to the name and street address, telephone number, or web address of the ad purchaser.
Facebook Will Disclose More on Political Ads, Similar to TV (1)
Facebook Inc. said it will start disclosing more about political ads, bringing the social network’s rules closer to what’s required of traditional mediums like television.
Amazon, Facebook and Google beef up lobbying spending
Additionally, any website with 50 million or more monthly users would be required to provide the FEC with digital copies of the ads from any entity that spends more than $500 on them and to detail the amount of spending, the audience targeted, the period during which they ran, the rates charged, the number of views generated, and the contact information of the purchaser. Those social media companies would also be required to make reasonable efforts to ensure that foreign entities weren’t buying ads on their platforms in an attempt to influence US elections.
“This would be a real step forward in providing transparency,” says Stephen Spaulding, chief of strategy at Common Cause. “It is not a panacea, but it is a critical step toward updating the law.”
The hope is that the proposed law would have two effects. First, by mandating more transparency, it should make foreign agents more cautious about attempting to interfere in US elections via digital ads. Second, by requiring greater information, it should give media outlets and other interested parties a way to discern who is behind those ads.
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As the favored candidate of Russia and a man who can barely force himself to acknowledge the Russian election-interference efforts, President Trump can’t be counted on to play any kind of leading role in passing this legislation. That will be left to Congress.
The danger is that this will come to be seen as a partisan issue. It isn’t and shouldn’t be. In the 2016 election cycle, we saw a serious attack on American democracy. Efforts to prevent a second such occurrence need to be pursued with bipartisan determination.
It’s now clear to everyone — with the possible exception of Donald Trump — that operatives linked to Russia took advantage of Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms to stoke divisions among Americans during last year’s presidential campaign. This meddling ought to outrage Americans regardless of their party affiliation.
Now, legislation has been introduced in both houses of Congress that would attempt to make it at least somewhat harder for Russians and other foreign actors to use social media to manipulate public opinion in this country and influence elections. Equally important, it would shine more light on the sources of online advertising in election campaigns.
The Honest Ads Act sponsored in the Senate by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Mark Warner (D-Va.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) would mandate that election-related online advertising be subject to the same disclosure and disclaimer requirements as similar ads in other media. It also would require online platforms, as well as broadcasters and cable and satellite TV companies, to make reasonable efforts to ensure that the political advertisements they disseminate comply with the existing ban on foreigners spending money to influence U.S. elections.
Election law has been painfully slow to catch up with the growing importance of online political advertising. According to Borrell Associates, a data tracking firm, political spending on digital advertising in the 2016 election cycle amounted to $1.4 billion, nearly an 800% increase from the previous presidential election. (“Digital advertising” includes search, display, email, video, social media and mobile marketing efforts.) The figure is projected to rise to $1.9 billion in the 2018 election cycle and $2.8 billion in 2020.
Unlike radio and television stations, internet platforms aren’t “public” entities operated under a government license.
Online services have resisted the idea that paid political messages on their platforms should be subject to requirements that they identify those financing the ads; some have compared online political ads to trivial examples of political communication, such as campaign buttons or bumper stickers.
Those are clearly obsolete analogies. And while there may not be room for a disclaimer on a campaign button, software engineers should find it easy to satisfy the bill’s requirement that an ad state in a “clear and conspicuous manner” who paid for it. (Running the computer mouse over the ad, for example, could pull up the disclosure statement.)
Granted, there’s always the risk that foreign governments and operatives will try to conceal their involvement by funneling money through innocuous-sounding groups based in the United States. The bill wouldn’t make matters any better or worse on that front.
A more fundamental challenge for the bill’s authors is that much of the meddling done in last year’s campaign wasn’t in advertisements — it was in news (and fake news) stories circulated, tweeted and retweeted online. Many of the posts attributed to Russia focused on divisive social issues such as race, gun control, immigration and gay rights. Such communications would largely be ignored by the Klobuchar bill.
What the measure would do is require internet companies to maintain records not just of election-related advertisements but also of ads related to “a national legislative issue of public importance.”
There are two problems with this provision, however. First, it’s a disproportionate response to the possibility that Russians or other foreigners may be violating U.S. election law. While foreigners are prohibited from spending money on election-related advertising, the Federal Election Commission and the courts have said they are allowed to subsidize “issue ads.”
A more serious issue is that, unlike radio and television stations, internet platforms aren’t “public” entities operated under a government license. There may be 1st Amendment problems with subjecting them to the same record-keeping requirements that are imposed on radio and TV stations.
The fact that Congress has limited power to regulate online forums for political speech doesn’t mean that social media companies can’t act on their own to be more vigilant about manipulation of their platforms by foreign actors, whether it take the form of deceptive advertising or “fake news.” After Facebook revealed that a Russian company with ties to the Kremlin had purchased more than $100,000 worth of divisive ads on its site, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg pledged to “do our part to defend against nation states attempting to spread misinformation and subvert elections.” On Friday, Facebook announced that it would require disclosure by buyers of political ads and adopt other transparency measures.
That sort of self-policing is clearly part of the solution. But so is measured legislation that requires transparency in election advertising regardless of where it appears.
BY TIMOTHY ROEMER AND ZACHARY WAMP, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS
During the 2016 election, hostile foreign powers unleashed unprecedented, anonymous attacks on the American people through the largest online platforms, the equivalent of strafing our TV sets with lies and disinformation during the 1960s and 1970s. The Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-linked “troll farm” spent more than $100,000 on thousands of Facebook advertisements linked to the election and divisive social issues.
Due to the highly-targeted nature of the advertisements and private platforms they infected, neither the wider public nor civil society has been able to see the content of the ads. The government and watchdog groups were similarly left in the dark until after the election, subsequently, when the damage was potentially done. The national security implications of foreign entities continuing to meddle in American elections are a clear and present danger to the United States.
Yet, nearly a year later and despite months of investigations, lawmakers of both parties have been slow to act. Meanwhile, the country remains vulnerable to foreign interference. In his recently published book “The Darkening Web,” Harvard Professor Alexander Klimburg wrote that “the rise of cyberspace has breathed new life into former Soviet military strategy.” He goes on to observe that “Russia’s philosophy of information conflict is much older than the United States.”
The bottom line is that current law does not in any way protect our election system from this type of foreign intervention, and every free society should have adequate protections in place to maintain open, fair and unfettered elections. We still do not know who is trying to sow disinformation and propaganda campaigns across American-made digital platforms where hundreds of millions of Americans communicate and organize.
The newly introduced Honest Ads Act aims to finally address the deficiencies in political disclosure law that allow foreign actors to attack the United States anonymously. The carefully crafted, bipartisan, bicameral legislation is sponsored in the Senate by Rules Committee Ranking Democrat Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.), and Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.). It in the House by Reps. Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.) and Mike Coffman (R-Colo.).
The bill would address the critical problem that our 20th century laws are out of date and overmatched by the 21st century reality of political campaigns. Our current regime has us fighting cyber warfare with the equivalent of telegrams and the Pony Express. The Honest Ads Act would modernize our technological arsenal to combat foreign influence by ensuring that paid political ads on the largest online platforms are treated similarly to paid political advertisements on television and radio.
These transparency standards are not new. The bill uses longstanding Federal Communication Commission disclosure rules about broadcast advertisements, which have been in place for a decade, to better serve the digital medium. Private companies, such as Facebook and Google, would have to obtain information from the purchaser, the cost, the targeted audience, and what candidate or issue is the subject of each ad. This would give the American people enough information to understand who is attempting to influence their vote and allow government agencies to determine if the ad is impermissible foreign interference in U.S. politics.
Additionally, the Honest Ads Act subjects the platform and the ad purchaser to fines for failing to follow the law as a preventative measure against widespread abuse in the future, like the public saw in the 2016 election. Most importantly, this narrowly tailored legislation seeks to protect the First Amendment rights of Americans engaging in political debate. It is only targeted at the platforms who make millions or billions of dollars selling political ads, placing them on equal standing with broadcast radio and television.
Beyond this legislation, Congress must perform its oversight job and ask tough questions when Twitter and Facebook testify before the Senate and House Intelligence Committees next Wednesday. Republicans and Democrats in both legislative chambers should use the Honest Ads Act as the starting point for robust dialogue about the best practices necessary to reassure Americans their First Amendment rights are protected from domestic and foreign attack.
As Senator Klobuchar said at the press conference unveiling the bill, “Election security is national security.” Congress cannot allow hostile foreign powers to influence or impact U.S. elections. The failure to set aside partisan politics and move forward on this bipartisan legislation opens the possibility of ignoring the direct threat and sitting on our hands. It is time for Congress to fully embrace its obligation to protect the American people from a new form of enemy attacks called “cyber war.”
Timothy Roemer is a former U.S. ambassador to India, member of Congress from Indiana, and 9/11 commissioner. Zachary Wamp is a former member of Congress from Tennessee. They co-chair the Issue One Reformers Caucus, a bipartisan coalition of former members of Congress, Cabinet officials, and governors who advocate for solutions to fix democracy.
As a response to the Russian campaign to sow discord in the 2016 presidential election, the so-called Honest Ads Act is wholly inadequate. It is also entirely necessary.
The legislation, introduced last week by Democratic senators Mark Warner of Virginia and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, requires online platforms with at least 50 million monthly users -- think Facebook, Google and Twitter -- to make a public record of advertisers who spend at least $500 on political ads regarding campaigns or significant legislative issues. The record would include information regarding the ad's content, its target audience and its cumulative views, as well as its cost. It would also list any candidate referred to in the ad and contact information for the entity that purchased it.
All this information would be placed in a publicly accessible database. Under the legislation, platforms would be required to make "reasonable efforts" to police foreign purchases.
True, this legislation focuses solely on advertising, so would not have prevented some of the most successful subversions of the 2016 election -- the Russian propaganda that spread over social networks as unpaid media. Still, a U.S. defense against election interference has to begin somewhere. Russians spent at least $100,000 on Facebook ads. Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, has said he believes such spending constitutes the "tip of the iceberg."
The challenge will only grow more complex as the internet becomes an ever-larger conduit for political communication. Digital spending reached $1.4 billion in the 2016 election, up more than 700 percent over 2012.
Representatives from Facebook, Google and Twitter will testify before House and Senate panels next week. They should come prepared with suggestions on how their powerful, pervasive and lucrative platforms can help root out foreign agents seeking to undermine American democracy, through paid advertising and otherwise. It's not an impossible task: Internet platforms shut down thousands of suspicious accounts during last spring's French election.
Requiring online platforms to perform the minimal record-keeping and due diligence required of television and radio stations is a necessary step toward protecting the integrity of U.S. elections. This is a cause that transcends both commercial and partisan concerns -- the bill has the support of Republican Senator John McCain. Congress should pass the Honest Ads Act. Then build on it.
If there was ever a piece of no-brainer legislation that should be passed by Congress, it is the Honest Ads Act put forward last week by US senators Amy Klobuchar, Mark Warner and John McCain. This bipartisan group is asking for online political advertising to be subject to the same rules of disclosure as ads on television, print, and radio. The idea is to make sure that foreign nations like Russia cannot use platforms such as Facebook, Google or Twitter to influence US elections, as they did in 2016.
The legislation is necessary for three reasons. First, it would even the playing field between platform companies and the rest of the media industry. This is long overdue. Google and Facebook together take roughly 85 per cent of all new digital advertising revenue. For years, they have come up with absurd excuses for why they should not be subject to the same rules as everyone else (online ads are too small to include disclaimers; it is too tough to figure out if ads are commercial or political, and so on).
Their reasoning does not hold water. These businesses have traditionally been just fine using the smallest of small print on privacy policies, so it should not be too much trouble to do the same thing with political disclosures. And if it is too tough to figure out what is political, play it safe and disclose everything.
Of course they do not want to do that, because opacity is a key part of what political operatives are paying for. That is reason number two that this legislation should pass — it would go some way towards cleaning up dark money and influence in politics.
Online advertising is hyper-targeted. That is the whole appeal. We get to see things that are meant for our eyes only. Rather than clear, broad messages that are put where everyone can see them, online advertising can play to the deepest fears of individuals, allowing them to be exploited with divisive or hateful messages that could be much more easily called out and debunked if they were, say, being shown on national TV or in a print advertisement in a major paper.
Indeed, as one political insider put it to me, it is not just the Russians, but our politicians themselves who want to keep their advertising in the dark. Consider, for example, the Trump campaign’s xenophobic pre-election posts on Facebook. The US president is somewhat singular in that he does not seem to mind openly dog-whistling. But others might well be deterred from taking the low road if they could be openly named and shamed for doing so.
The third reason the Honest Ads Act should pass is it would be a step towards reframing the regulatory debate around Big Tech. Large and powerful industries and companies that enjoy monopoly rents often like to portray themselves as “special” or “different”, and thus in need of a separate set of rules.
After a time, this idea of a separate playing field gets normalised. Monopolists also use complexity to obfuscate clear debate about what they are actually doing, and whose interests they are serving. I cannot tell you how many conversations I have had with fast talking financiers — and more recently, technologists — who try to throw as much jargon against the wall as fast as possible to see what sticks.
Yet the best questions are often the simplest ones. In the case of the financial sector, it was and remains: “What is the industry doing that is good for the real economy, versus what is good only for the financial industry?” We await a clear answer there. In the case of Big Tech, we might start with the question: “Are you playing by the same rules as everyone else, and if not, why not?”
The answer to the first question is clearly no. I hope that the Honest Ads Act will pass, and that lawmakers will move on to examining Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which says that platforms are not responsible for what their users post.
It is a get-out-of-jail free clause which has protected the industry from all sorts of legal issues that most businesses deal with every day, and is as outdated and unfair as the loopholes around political ad disclosure online.
Regulators should also look a lot more carefully at whether the M&A practices of the tech titans are anti-competitive. Consider Facebook’s recent purchase of tbh, a polling app aimed at teenagers, on which 5m users have posted 1bn questions since its launch three months ago.
As Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Open Markets Institute, a think-tank, tweeted: “Facebook is buying a competitor that undercuts its data-harvesting business model. FTC [the US Federal Trade Commission] should block this merger.”
I also hope that lawmakers will begin to educate themselves more thoroughly about the 21st-century digital economy. There are a handful of politicians who have done so. But not many.
I recently asked one high-level software developer from a Big Tech company, someone who frequently visits Washington, to rank technological understanding among not only Congress members, but among the Capitol Hill staffers who brief them. On a scale of zero to 10, he put that understanding at “negative 10”.
That is great for his company. But it is dangerous for the rest of us, because understanding Big Tech is now crucial to understanding not only politics, but the economy at large.
