Summit for Democracy

by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Thank you, Jeanne [Meserve], very much for the kind introduction and the opportunity to join this extraordinary event. It is quite something to represent the Intelligence Community at a Summit for Democracy that is literally happening across the world, co-hosted by the United States alongside Costa Rica, the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea and the Republic of Zambia. And a special thanks to Secretary Blinken and his terrific team for putting together such an exceptional forum and program this week.

This year, when the U.S. Intelligence Community issued its assessment of worldwide threats to U.S. national security, we included for the first time a section on trends in digital authoritarianism and malign influence that gets really to the very heart of this session’s focus on the misuse of new and emerging technologies.

And as you have heard from other speakers today, the global erosion of democracy that began more than a decade ago is ongoing. And technology’s role in this is fundamental, particularly in the contest over information.

Digital technologies have had a profound impact. They were instrumental in facilitating civil society and freedom of the press in many places and yet, they sparked a backlash from authoritarian regimes, first to contain the risks posed by freer flows of information and then to harness these same technologies in pursuit of their own objectives to stifle freedom of expression and to suppress political discourse.

And today, we see how they are deployed by governments as tools of repression and disinformation both inside and outside of their borders. We even see authoritarian regimes using their information ecosystems to disparage this Summit — underscoring the urgency with which they seek to push back against democratic freedoms.

And in 2022, global internet freedom declined for the 12th consecutive year. The sharpest downgrades were documented by [in] Russia, Myanmar, Sudan, and Libya. And a record number of national governments — many authoritarian — also blocked websites with nonviolent political, social, or religious content, undermining users rights to free expression and access to information.

We certainly saw evidence of this in our own efforts to take on Russian disinformation in the lead up to the invasion of Ukraine.

We publicly disclosed intelligence on the Russian Government’s plans and intentions in an effort to warn the world regarding the invasion.

We also did so to undermine Moscow’s ability to create a pretext for Russia’s invasion, which it hoped would legitimize their military action in the eyes of some countries and divide the NATO alliance, making it harder for NATO Members and other countries around the world to come together to respond to Russia’s illegal and barbaric invasion, as we ultimately were able to do.

In part, we were successful. In the United States and Europe, for example, our message was received and the Russian narratives were largely ineffective.

We were not effective, however, within Russia where the vast majority of the population at the start of the war supported Putin’s “special military operation” and saw NATO and Ukraine as the aggressors.

This isn’t to say that technology is the only reason for our lack of success — a big part is Putin’s direct and indirect influence on sources of information inside Russia — but there is no question that new technologies, including cyber intrusion tools and commercial spyware, are making it easier for authoritarian governments to engage in digital repression — both inside and outside of their countries’ borders.

Unless we take action — malicious use of digital information and communication technologies will become more pervasive, automated, targeted, and complex during the next few years, further threatening to distort publicly available information — and of course, authoritarian governments are usually the principal perpetrators of such digital repression.

Such regimes learn quickly how to exploit new and more intrusive technologies for repression. Various technologies effectively extend a states’ power to stifle dissent inexpensively — at scale — beyond traditional means, such as censoring print media.

And the fact that commercial firms around the world are selling these capabilities simply makes it easier for governments that have an interest in doing so, to engage in such repression.

In fact, the commercial spyware industry grew rapidly during the past decade. Journalists in the past year have estimated it to now be worth approximately $12 billion.

And while some states use such spyware tools and lawful intercept programs for legitimate purposes such as to target criminals and terrorists, governments also are increasingly using spyware to target political opposition and dissidents.

Last year, governments and other actors shut down the internet at least 187 times in 35 countries — a record. Shutdowns were imposed during protests, active conflicts, school exams, elections, periods of political instability or high-profile events, such as religious holidays or visits by government officials, with the ultimate goal of imposing control and silencing voices. Government leaders use these tools to conduct repression because they fear that open debate of political or social topics could jeopardize their hold on power.

A growing number of internet users around the globe only have access to an online space that mirrors the views of their government and its interests. Authorities in 47 of the 70 countries covered by a recent research study limited users’ access to information sources located outside of their borders.

And officials in at least 53 countries charged, arrested, or imprisoned internet users in retaliation for posts about political or social causes. Their repressive governments were presumably able to track them through digital means.

And these examples demonstrate how technology has made it easier for authoritarian governments to control the information environment within their own borders, but as I mentioned initially, we also see how they use such technologies to increasingly engage in transnational repression in an effort to monitor and silence dissidents abroad.

In particular, diaspora populations in a number of democracies are facing a broad range of threats as autocratic regimes turn to digital tools to suppress dissent. Here again, commercially available technology is exacerbating the problem.

Commercial spyware allows authoritarian regimes to remotely target the devices of dissidents, oppositionists, and journalists — and their associates and families — to collect data, location information, and audio. Some spyware allows devices to be infected remotely and without requiring the victim to be lured into clicking a link or opening a malicious file.

Our information suggests almost all of the at least 30 regimes with documented transnational repression efforts have used cyber tools against perceived expatriate opponents and host country backers in the US, Australia, Canada, and Europe during the past decade — moreover, these efforts have grown more brazen over time.

As an example, last year, Iran conducted a range of disruptive cyber operations against Albania in retaliation for allowing an Albania-based Iranian dissident group to express themselves freely — an astonishingly bold and novel attempt by a state actor to use cyberattacks to compel another state to suppress dissidents who were living there in exile.

And finally, and perhaps most relevant to us, are the efforts by many autocrats to try to influence and interfere in democratic societies — creating social and political upheaval, shifting policies, and even swaying voters’ perspectives and preferences. We are deeply concerned that as the barriers to entry worldwide lower and become increasingly accessible to conduct a range of malign influence operations, more states will look to undertake these operations.

And part of why this is so challenging is because democracies are asymmetrically vulnerable to the threat posed by authoritarian regimes in the information space. In short, such regimes exploit the openness of democratic societies — what we know is a strength, they perceive as a weakness.

And given that our public dialogue is intended to have an impact on our government’s decision-making, it is clear that if a malicious actor is able to affect our domestic discourse, they can not only shape public opinion but also have an impact on who we elect and decisions we make.

While an open information environment confers critical strategic advantages on free societies over the long run, it is hard to argue that such environments do not create vulnerabilities in the short term.

Regimes interested in targeting our societies do so in a number of ways, employing a diverse set of online technologies and content to convey propaganda and disinformation.

And the advancement of data analytic tools, in particular, backed by rapidly improving artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies — and the extraordinary availability of data from commercial, government, and other publicly available sources in democracies — are making it too easy for actors at all levels to exploit such information for their own ends, including as part of their efforts to engage in malign influence operations — particularly criminal, covert, or coercive efforts — targeting open societies.

And furthermore, adversaries have grown savvier at information laundering, deploying a web of proxy actors and online personas who introduce and amplify variations of the same narratives in an effort to shape our discourse, while providing the adversary an element of plausible deniability. Unwitting persons and third-party individuals may subsequently propagate these narratives by forwarding, sharing, liking, or discussing unsubstantiated or misleading narratives, compounding their overall reach into open information environments within and among democracies.

We see how Russia and other authoritarian regimes seek to weaken states by pushing divisive narratives to exacerbate pre-existing tensions in societies, to decrease trust in public institutions and democratic processes, and to question traditional sources of media. We also have taken note of Beijing’s growing efforts to actively exploit perceived U.S. societal divisions using its online personas, which moves it closer to Moscow’s playbook for influence operations.

In sum, the promise of connected technologies comes with peril if we fail to establish safeguards to prevent authoritarian regimes and other malicious actors from the misuse of such tools.

The litany of challenges I have identified — coupled with efforts by authoritarian regimes to normalize a perspective that no country should critique the internal affairs of another — highlight the task in front of us. And these technologies continue to hold the promise of allowing freer flows of information, improved communication, and the connections we will require to better understand and deal with a myriad of global challenges. We must work to realize this potential, though.

And within liberal democracies, governments, civil society, and businesses will need to work together and with urgency to achieve widely-held norms and maintain and improve positive technical standards for digital technologies so that we can ensure the free flow of digital information and the protection of human rights into the future.

Our President’s new executive order on commercial spyware seeks to address many of these concerns, as do legal frameworks established to protect our data — many of the things that you have heard from the Secretary [Blinken] today and Administrator Power — and there is still need to do more work to and unless we address this problem together, we will not be successful.

Thank you again for listening to me and for the opportunity to contribute today. It is now my honor to welcome Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the stage.

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