By Christina A. Cassidy
ATLANTA (AP) – Staff members of the country’s cybersecurity agency whose work is to guarantee the safety of the US elections have been placed on administrative leave, compromising the critical support provided to the electoral offices of states and premises through the country.
In recent days, 17 employees of the American Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency who have worked with electoral officials to provide assessments and training with a range of threats – cyber and ransomware attacks at the Physical security of electoral workers – were placed pending pending an exam, according to a person familiar with the situation which was not authorized to speak publicly.
Ten of these employees are regional electoral security specialists hired in the context of an effort to extend the staff in the field and expertise in electoral security before the elections in 2024. Regional staff were informed That the internal examination would examine efforts to combat attempts by foreign governments to influence the American elections, its functions that have been assigned to other members of the agency staff, according to the person.
All of them were former state and premises electoral officials who were led to establish relations in the 50 states and more than 8,000 local electoral jurisdictions in the country. They spent last year meeting electoral officials, attending conferences and training and that civil servants are aware of the various cybersecurity and physical security services of the agency.
A request for comment on Monday to a CISA representative and a representative of the Ministry of Internal Security has not been returned.
The electoral officials of the two political parties defended the work of the CISA to help obtain electoral offices from a range of cybersecurity and physical threats.
Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, said that the agency’s work had been particularly precious for county clerks in its state.
“The greatest value we have of Cisa has been the people they have on the ground in our state who establish direct relations, not only with us, but with the County clerks,” said Adams during a Interview at the end of last month. “They teach them and help them check their physical security and their cyber hygiene, and it was extremely popular.”
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a democrat, said in the end of January that the agency was an essential partner for state and local electoral officials.
“And I hope that the leaders of the federal government who claim to worry about the integrity of the elections will recognize it,” she said.
The other employees placed on leave are current or former members of the agency’s security and resilience team, who was informed that the examination was aimed at the agency’s efforts to combat disinformation and disinformation campaigns , depending on the person familiar with the situation. The 10 election security specialists who worked with state and premises electoral officials reported to another CISA team, the field operations division.
The staff movements came because questions have turned to the future of the agency in the face of supported criticism from the Republicans and key personalities from the Trump administration. The new interior secretary of President Donald Trump, Kristi Noem, said at his confirmation hearing of the Senate last month that Cisa had moved away from the “distant mission” and that she is committed to working With the senators “if you wanted to brake them”.
Trump did not appoint a replacement for the former director of the CISA, Jen Easterly, and the agency leaders were significantly absent from the recent meetings of state electoral officials in the national capital.
The CISA was formed in 2018 during the first Trump administration and is responsible for protecting the country’s critical infrastructure, dams and nuclear power plants in banks and voting systems. Although the CISA is under the Ministry of Internal Security, it is a separate agency with its own director confirmed by the Senate.
Trump and his allies are angry with the agency’s work to counter the disinformation about the 2020 presidential election and the Cavid-19 pandemic.
The agency officials said that the CISA had never been engaged in censorship. During the 2020 elections, CISA officials worked with states to help them inform the social media societies of disinformation spreading on their platforms, but they said they had never asked or looked to force these companies to act.
For the 2024 elections, the CISA and other federal agencies alerted the public with various foreign disinformation campaigns, including three false videos linked to Russia supposed to show an electoral fault in the states of the battlefield.
A spokesperson for electoral directors of the National Association of States said on Monday that the group could not comment on the decisions of the CISA staff and awaits the agency officials concerning the organization’s plans For works related to the elections.
Maria Benson, spokesperson for the National Association of Secretaries of State, said the group had requested an update of the CISA endowment. She said the CISA “has relayed to Nass that all cybersecurity and physical safety services should be available for state and local elections.”
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
