Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of seventy-two. Sunrise is 6:57 AM and sunset 6:27 PM, for 11h 30m 02s of daytime. The moon is full. Today is the {tooltip}three hundred thirtieth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}
Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission is scheduled to meet at 6 PM, and her Fire Department to hold a business meeting at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1931, Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon complete the first non-stop trans-Pacific flight, flying from Japan to Washington state. On this day in 1846, Wisconsin’s first state constitutional convention meets: “[t]The Convention sat until December 16,1846. The Convention was attended by 103 Democrats and 18 Whigs. The proposed constitution failed when voters refused to accept several controversial issues: an anti-banking article, a homestead exemption (which gave $1000 exemption to any debtor), providing women with property rights, and black suffrage. The following convention, the Second Constitutional Convention of Wisconsin in 1847-48, produced and passed a constitution that Wisconsin still very much follows today. [Source: The Convention of 1846 edited Milo M. Quaife].”
Recommended for reading in full —
Nicholas Fandos reports that Senate Intelligence Heads Warn That Russian Election Meddling Continues:
WASHINGTON — The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee delivered a stark warning on Wednesday to political candidates: Expect Russian operatives to remain active and determined to again try to sow chaos in elections next month and next year.
At a rare news conference, Senators Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina and the committee’s chairman, and Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia and its vice chairman, broadly endorsed the conclusions of American spy agencies that said President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia directed a campaign of hacking and propaganda to disrupt the 2016 presidential election.
“The Russian intelligence service is determined — clever — and I recommend that every campaign and every election official take this very seriously,” Mr. Burr said.
“You can’t walk away from this and believe that Russia’s not currently active,” he added….
Jim Ludes writes Pell Center Study Warns Russia Threat is Bigger than the 2016 Election:
….The conference [proceedings of a closed conference held at the Pell Center on the campus of Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island, in June of 2017, drawing together 36 researchers, technologists, scholars, journalists, and policy experts from North America, Europe, and Australia] produced several specific recommendations:
Improve transparency and raise public awareness of the threat. Specifically, the Pell Center authors call for the appointment of an independent bipartisan commission to establish a widely-accepted understanding of Russia’s actions, means, and objectives in the 2016 U.S. election. Specifically, the study highlights the need for a public accounting of irregular social media activity in battleground states prior to the 2016 election as well as on-going social media efforts to sow division in the United States. Ludes and Jacobson also call on the news media to review, and if necessary revise, their standards and practices so that they don’t become unwitting vehicles for foreign propaganda. Social media platforms, themselves, must be regulated and held to federal standards of transparency when it comes to political advertising. Finally, the study recommends public and private investment in the investigations and reporting needed to educate the American public about a threat that has not waned.
Prepare the executive branch for a new cold war. Organizations from the White House to the intelligence community need to be reviewed for their efficacy in meeting the propaganda challenge to the West, according to Ludes and Jacobson. The White House must communicate to Congress the need for any new authorizations to meet this threat. It must also request sufficient appropriations for these activities and prosecute these programs vigorously. The authors called on the Trump administration, as well, to provide the diplomatic leadership required for an international response to the common challenge posed by Russian intervention in the democratic processes of the West.
Congress must lead. Ludes and Jacobson argue that in the absence of clear executive branch willingness or readiness to lead on this issue, the U.S. Congress must take the initiative. It can do so by eliminating “dark-money” in American politics; requiring more transparency by corporations operating in the United States; embracing bipartisanship in the defense of American democracy; and reforming the laws governing the activities of foreign agents operating in the United States—to begin by considering legislative changes that would require state-sponsored media outlets, such as RT and Sputnik, to publicly reveal their sources of funding.
Invest in the American people. Finally, the authors of the Pell Center conference report urged the public to once again consider education a national priority and the cornerstone for an effective defense of democracy. Russia, they argue, “exploited America’s media illiteracy, our civic illiteracy, and our historical illiteracy.” The Pell Center study calls for increased funding for programs to increase the public’s resistance to influence by foreign powers.
“Shatter the House of Mirrors” is available for download here.
Dan Friedman writes that Trump Still Hasn’t Gotten Around to Appointing Someone to Protect Our Elections From Cyberattacks (“The National Protection and Programs Directorate remains leaderless 10 months after Trump promised to get cybersecurity personnel in place”):
On January 6, after intelligence agencies briefed Donald Trump on cyberattacks against the United States during the election, he pledged to “appoint a team to give [him] a plan within 90 days of taking office.” Ten months later, Trump not only lacks that cybersecurity plan, he doesn’t even have the team.
The president has still not nominated anyone for arguably the most important cybersecurity job in the government, Homeland Security undersecretary running the department’s National Protection and Programs Directorate, which oversees private and public networks in the United States. Trump has also failed to nominate a new chief for the entire department since former DHS Secretary John Kelly left to become White House chief of staff. Kelly’s former job is among nine out of 14 top DHS posts that currently are filled by acting officials or remain vacant.
Trump‘s refusal to accept the conclusion of American intelligence agencies that Russia used cyberattacks to help him win the presidential election has of course gained wide notice. But critics say his head-in the-sand stance has more quietly hamstrung his entire his entire administration, impeding government-wide efforts to prepare for expected meddling by Russian hackers and others in the 2018 midterm elections….
By Thomas Grove, Julian E. Barnes, and Drew Hinshaw report that Russia Targets NATO Soldier Smartphones, Western Officials Say:
Russia has opened a new battlefront with NATO, according to Western military officials, by exploiting a point of vulnerability for almost all allied soldiers: their personal smartphones.
Troops, officers and government officials of North Atlantic Treaty Organization member countries said Russia has carried out a campaign to compromise soldiers’ smartphones. The aim, they say, is to gain operational information, gauge troop strength and intimidate soldiers….
NASA happily notes that the New Horizons Discoveries Keep Coming: