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Rep. Kelly Leads Panel Discussion at Heritage on Countering Foreign Malign Influence While Protecting Civil Liberties
Washington,
September 20, 2022
Washington - Monday, September 19, Lead Republican Mike Turner (OH-10) of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), and Congressman Trent Kelly (MS-01), a member of HPSCI and the House Armed Services Committee, continued the House Intelligence Committee's Beyond the SCIF Series with Kelly's panel "Countering Foreign Malign Influence While Protecting Civil Liberties" at the Heritage Foundation.
Click here to watch the full panel discussion What was discussed: • The key differences between election interference and election influence. • The importance of the Intelligence Community to use open-source intelligence to educate Americans on misinformation campaigns firsthand so they can identify them firsthand. • The challenges our government is facing in reforming our strategy to counter foreign malign influence. • The ability of adversarial nations, like China, to interfere in our community without the public knowing through covert funding that shapes the way information is presented in China's favor. Notable Quotes "The Chinese are keenly focused on something they call cognitive warfare. That's using public opinion as well as psychological and legal means to achieve their strategic objectives. So much of that relies on taking advantage of the cleavages that exists in our regulatory and legal structures so that much of what they're doing isn't technically illegal." -Craig Singleton, Senior Fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies "There is a distinction between interference and influence and it is a very gray line that separates the two of them... [Influence is] when you own that idea, that idea is yours. It's free speech. It's when it becomes covert [and] the American public doesn't realize that there's an outside hand tipping the scale, that's when it becomes interference" -Brian Cavanaugh, Senior Vice President at American Global Strategies "The transparency issue is critical both for exposing what they're doing and for making what we might be doing legitimate. There is temptation to say we are telling the truth so our message will get out there. We know that is not true... So coordinating our efforts to push narratives which have the added advantage of being true (and) doing so in a radically transparent way." -Victoria Coates, Senior Research Fellow at Heritage Foundation "Where we see the Chinese are able to do things that maybe the Russians and others weren't able to do over the course of time is use all the levers of their powers. And that is heavily in the economic space and more in the near term in technology and military to quickly catch up with the United States." -Dustin Carmack, Research Fellow, Border Security and Immigration Center Panel Speakers: • Congressman Mike Turner, Lead Republican of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence • Congressman Trent Kelly, House Intelligence and Armed Services Committee Member • Kevin Roberts, President Heritage Foundation • Brian Cavanaugh, Senior Vice President at American Global Strategies • Craig Singleton, Senior Fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies • Victoria Coates, Senior Research Fellow, International Affairs and National Security • Dustin Carmack, Research Fellow, Border Security and Immigration Center |
