Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is set to take over as chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee now that Republicans have clinched the chamber and has a plan for overseeing the nation’s cyber agency: eliminate, or severely curtail the powers of, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Paul, whose committee has jurisdiction over the cyber agency and others, has long had concerns about CISA and its efforts to counter disinformation, particularly around the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The senator has accused the agency of singling out conservative voices and infringing on free speech and has supported calls for an overhaul.
“I’d like to eliminate it,” Paul told POLITICO Thursday. “The First Amendment is pretty important, that’s why we listed it as the First Amendment, and I would have liked to, at the very least, eliminate their ability to censor content online.”
CISA was established under law in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump and was tasked with helping secure the nation’s critical infrastructure against cyberattacks — a mandate that includes the elections. The agency came under fire from conservatives in 2020 after it countered narratives about the election being “stolen.” Trump ultimately fired the agency’s leader after it put out a statement that said the 2020 election was secure.
Since then, CISA has pulled back from its work countering domestic misinformation, focusing instead on broader cybersecurity initiatives and responding to major cyber intrusions in federal systems by nations such as Russia, China and Iran. The agency resumed talks on disinformation with social media companies earlier this year after freezing these conversations for months due to a Supreme Court case that sought to bar CISA and other agencies from working with social media companies to counter disinformation. But according to agency officials who briefed reporters on election day, there were few conversations with social media companies while the polls were still open this year, a marked difference from 2020 and a sign that the agency was kneeling to conservative pressure.
For Paul, who has often been the lone voice in the Senate standing against legislation to reauthorize or establish new programs at CISA over the last two years, these moves by CISA to focus more on cybersecurity issues are not enough to fully restore trust.
But his grand plans for finally crushing CISA’s mandate may not be entirely possible. Paul is likely to face fierce resistance from Democrats in the House and Senate on any proposal to limit CISA’s powers. And many Republicans are also likely to push back against plans to fully cut the agency that plays a key role in responding to foreign cyberattacks.
“While it’s unlikely we could get rid of CISA, we survived for what, 248 years without them,” Paul said. “I think a lot of what they do is intrusive, and I’d like to end their intrusions into the First Amendment.”
When asked how he might reorganize CISA’s powers when he takes over the role in the next Congress, Paul said “Everything is on the table.”
“There needs to be more scrutiny, and we will have hearings where [CISA officials] will have to come in and defend the meetings that they were having with social media [companies],” Paul said.
Ron Eckstein, senior adviser for Public Affairs at CISA, pushed back strongly against Paul’s comments that suggested the agency is censoring free speech.
“CISA does not and has never censored speech or facilitated censorship,” Eckstein said in a statement sent to POLITICO. “Such allegations are riddled with factual inaccuracies. Every day, the men and women of CISA execute the agency’s mission of reducing risk to U.S. critical infrastructure in a way that protects Americans’ freedom of speech, civil rights, civil liberties and privacy.”
Eckstein noted that due to concerns around foreign disinformation, the agency “mitigates the risk of disinformation by sharing information on election security with the public and by amplifying the trusted voices of election officials across the nation.”
House Homeland Security Committee ranking member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) expressed concern about eliminating the agency when asked Thursday.
“CISA has in my opinion done a good job in defending the .gov domain, and it’s not the first time that I’ve heard that there is some opposition, but you’ve got to have it somewhere,” Thompson said. He added that even if CISA were replaced, he would want some form of countering misinformation to be given to any potentially new entity.
Thompson, while prepared to fight, conceded that the agency’s future was very much up in the air. “I guess we ought to stay tuned,” he said.
Comments
Post a Comment