A suspicious agency offered European influencers money to spread negative publicity about the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine. Research Assistant Etienne Soula spoke to L'Express about the similarities between this information manipulation attempt and Ru [...]
Last month—nearly five months after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election— Arizona Republicans began an “audit” of millions of ballots in Arizona’s largest county, which President Biden won by 45,109 votes. The state Senate hired a [...]
Josh Rudolph and Abigail Bellows join Nate Sibley to explore how diplomacy, foreign development aid, and financial policy can be leveraged against kleptocracy. Casey Michel and Paul Massaro discuss the hijacking of an airliner by Belarus. [...]
It's been over six months since the 2020 presidential election, and Congress remains deeply at odds over how to build on the successes of the election while addressing some of the most significant challenges that were exposed. Intelligence officials [...]
March and April Monitoring: Russian State-Backed Media ASD and GMF analyzed data from the German Elections Dashboard to understand the narratives that state-backed actors are pushing ahead of the German federal elections in September. In March and [...]
We’ve seen companies like Apple lean into protecting private data as a selling point for their products and states like California and Virginia attempt to regulate consumer data when faced with inaction on the federal level. Data privacy is much dis [...]
This paper is the second in a series on technology policy through the lens of national security, published in partnership with the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. Read the first paper on the digita [...]
Our Take Democratic backsliding is contagious. Democracies must support one another, share lessons learned, and operate in an alliance to fight against the rise of authoritarianism and build more resilient societies, Director Laura Thornton told Ge [...]
Last week, Russian state media continued to highlight incidents of police brutality during the protests in Colombia and related human rights concerns, though the volume of such content continued to taper off from its peak the first week of May. (On [...]
ASD originally published this piece on April 2, 2021. In January, less than two weeks before Portugal’s presidential election was scheduled, a new wave of the coronavirus threatened to overwhelm hospitals and led the Portuguese government to put t [...]
Russia and China have the United States reeling from two devastating cyberattacks in under six months. The mammoth SolarWinds breach—attributed to Russia and affecting at least nine U.S. government agencies, 100 private companies, and further victim [...]
Senior Fellow Kristine Berzina spoke to German outlet RND about our new German Election Dashboard and Russia's information manipulation operations in Germany around the election and the coronavirus. Please click the link below to read the full artic [...]
It was always going to be a difficult needle to thread. The Biden administration clearly views Russia’s Nord Stream-2 natural gas pipeline as a geopolitical project that threatens European energy security and that of Ukraine and eastern flank NATO a [...]
Overview Over the past ten days, renewed violence in Israel and the Palestinian Territories has become a major story in the global news cycle. Russia, China, and Iran have each devoted significant coverage to the situation, but Chinese diplomats and [...]
In April 2021, ASD held a security and geopolitics workshop as part of the Good Web project entitled “Tensions: Authoritarian Internet Threats and Democratic Responses,” in which participants debated the merits of different responses democracies hav [...]
What Countries Buy Into When They Buy Authoritarian Technologies In February 2021, ASD held a security and geopolitics workshop as part of the Good Web project entitled “Authoritarian Models, Practices, and Threats,” in which participants discussed [...]
In December 2020, ASD held a security and geopolitics workshop as part of the Good Web project entitled “Democratic Values and the Internet.” Participants included experts in cyber policy, cybersecurity, foreign policy, law, human rights, and intern [...]
Alexander KAFFKA, editor-in-chief of Caucasian Journal: Dear Laura, it is always a pleasure to meet you – virtually for the time being, but maybe also in person before long: I know that you are planning to be back to Georgia soon. You have worked i [...]
Due to the ongoing faux audit of some ballots in Arizona’s 2020 presidential election, much of the public’s attention on ensuring trust in elections has understandably centered around audits. Many voters say that they trust a hand count audit. Hand [...]
Announcements For our friends on the Hill: Join us on Thursday, May 20 from 1:00pm to 1:45pm for a briefing on contesting China’s techno-authoritarianism by ASD Emerging Technologies Fellow Lindsay Gorman. Register for the briefing here. Our Take [...]
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a major story for Russian state media last week, with #Palestine the most frequently used topical hashtag by Russia’s Twitter accounts tracked on Hamilton, and Israel tied with Russia for the most-mentioned count [...]
Elections Integrity Fellow David Levine gave a presentation on election resilience and trust at the Idaho Association of County Recorders and Clerks' 2021 conference. [...]
Media and Digital Disinformation Fellow Bret Schafer joined "The Inoculation" to discuss Russia's disinformation and mal-information campaign around Western Covid-19 vaccines. Bret, the hosts, and other guests take a look at how the Russian governm [...]
The U.S. Treasury Department must make it a priority, Malign Finance Fellow Josh Rudolph argues in Foreign Affairs. Combating corruption and kleptocracy has traditionally been an afterthought in U.S. foreign policy: a goal that most policymakers c [...]
Executive Summary The Biden administration has a historic opportunity to unify U.S. domestic and foreign policy through an aggressive mission to combat corruption and kleptocracy. Middle-class Americans are frustrated by perceptions of corruption [...]
In this episode of the Election Cybersecurity Initiative Podcast, host Adam Clayton Powell III speaks with Maurice Turner, Cybersecurity Fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy. They discuss the latest developments in cybersecurity such as Ar [...]
Senior Fellow Kristine Berzina spoke on Latvian Radio's weekly foreign policy news show about the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack, how it is different from the fuel shortages caused by conflicts in the Middle East in the 1970s, and whether something s [...]
This year’s German federal election will bring about substantial change not just for Germany, but for Europe and the transatlantic relationship, as well. Come September, voters will choose between the Greens’ Annalena Baerbock, the Christian Democra [...]
Announcements Today we launched the 2021 German Elections Dashboard, an interactive open source tool that will provide summary analysis of topics and themes promoted by influential foreign and domestic messengers during this year’s regional and fed [...]
Russian state media predictably used the Facebook Oversight Board’s ruling to uphold the company’s previous decision to ban former President Trump from the platform to advance its usual Big Tech censorship narrative and amplify Trump’s anti-Big Tech [...]
Interactive tool tracks narratives around this year’s German elections Washington, D.C. – The Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) today launched the 2021 German Elections Dashboard, an interac [...]
On May 11, ASD Media and Digital Disinformation Fellow Bret Schafer presented the new German Election Dashboard at a GMF Berlin event. The Dashboard is an interactive, open-source tool that allows users to track messaging from influential foreign an [...]
Germany’s federal election in September this year will mark a critical change not only for Germany but for Europe as a whole. Chancellor Angela Merkel has led Europe’s largest country and economic powerhouse since 2005, long before the specter of th [...]
Program Manager and Fellow Nad'a Kovalčíková joined StratPol (Strategic Policy Institute) for a panel titled “Civil Engagement and Participation in Defence.” Participants discussed why societal resilience is important for national security and defen [...]
Over the past year, the regimes in Russia, China, and Iran have used a combination of public diplomacy, propaganda, and overt and covert disinformation campaigns to portray their respective responses to the pandemic as superior to those of the West. [...]
Announcements Join GMF Berlin for Elections 2021: Choices for Germany after Merkel on Tuesday, May 11 at 12:00 p.m. EDT/ 6:00 p.m. CEDT. ASD Media and Digital Disinformation Fellow Bret Schafer will give a special presentation to preview ASD’s Germ [...]
In the wake of the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency’s (Anvisa) decision not to authorize Sputnik V for import to Brazil, the Sputnik V Twitter account slammed the choice as the result of political pressure from the United States, criticized Anvisa [...]
The “audit” of all 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County during the 2020 presidential election has been a sham thus far. Putting aside the legitimate question of whether such an audit is even needed in the first place, this audit is being led, [...]
It may be unclear whether broad-reaching election integrity and voter access bills will ultimately be adopted but one thing is certain: Congress needs to help restore trust in our elections, especially after the Jan. 6 insurrection and recent state [...]
Overview China's state-backed messengers are using India's health crisis to denigrate the United States and encourage India to step back from its deepening partnership with the United States and other democracies. According to data from the Johns Ho [...]