ASD contributes long and short form research products and analysis to inform and engage our audience on a range of issues related to malign foreign interference. In addition, we develop policy recommendations and strategies to close vulnerabilities and safeguard institutions from authoritarian threats.
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February 2021
‘Wolf Warriors’ Go After U.K.’s Immigration Scheme for Hong Kong
Overview On January 31, 2021, a new immigration route for British National (Overseas) (BNO) passport holders came into force in the United Kingdom. The BNO was a document created for Hong Kong citizens who wanted to maintain ties with the U.K. after [...]
Russia’s Affront on the News: How NewsFront’s Circumvention of Social Media Bans Demonstrates the Need for Vigilance
There has been a sizable public- and private-sector effort to rid the United States’ social media ecosystem of Kremlin disinformation since Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. But what happens to one of those Russian outlets when so [...]
Iran’s Supreme Tweeter
Was Ayatollah Khamenei behind a now-banned Twitter account that threatened to assassinate former President Trump? Recently, Twitter permanently suspended an account—@Khamenei_site–following a tweet that was widely interpreted as a thinly veiled thr [...]
Q&A with Jamie Fly: What Do Russia’s Actions Against RFE/RL Mean for Media Freedom?
On January 27, a Russian court fined Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and its Russian-language services for failing to comply with the country’s “foreign agent” law—with rulings on four more protocols expected in February and RFE/RL journali [...]
Trusting the Vote: Establishing a Presidential Commission on Election Resilience and Trust
ASD’s Elections Integrity Fellow David Levine and the Center for Democracy and Technology's Senior Technologist in Elections and Democracy William T. Adler urge President Biden to establish a bipartisan presidential commission to recommend ways to [...]
January 2021
The End of Anonymous Companies and the Rise of Corporate Transparency: The Campaign Moves from Congress to Statehouses
A Truly Historic Achievement Transparency advocates begin 2021 in a jubilant mood, as Congress on New Year’s Day overrode President Trump’s veto to pass the annual defense spending authorization. Included as a part of that law was the Corporate Tran [...]
How Russia Divides America
In his new YouTube series Trust But Verify, Non-Resident Fellow Clint Watts looks at different parts of Russia's information manipulation operations and their impact on the United States. It’s now common knowledge that Russia has an interest in in [...]
A Thirteen-Point Plan to Launch a New and Improved Transatlantic Alliance
This was originally published on GMF's blog. It was written by Rachel Tausendfreund based on contributions from Kristine Berzina, Jessica Brandt, Peter Chase, Sam DuPont, Lindsay Gorman, Jacob Kierkegaard, Karen Kornbluh, Nad’a Kovalčíková, Ian Less [...]
Spies and Money: Legal Defenses Against Foreign Interference in Political Campaigns
Executive Summary In recent years, U.S. government officials have normalized a damaging notion: that soliciting or participating in foreign interference in a U.S. election will not be prosecuted. Foreign governments from Beijing to Moscow and else [...]
Censorship and the Capitol Riot: How Big Tech Became the Target of Russian, Chinese, and Iranian Messaging
Overview Since the riot at the U.S. capitol on January 6, there has been a clear element of schadenfreude in Iranian, Russian, and Chinese state media coverage of political and social disunion in the United States. That adversarial state media outle [...]
GMF’s What to Watch in 2021
This article was originally published on GMF's blog on January 8, 2021. As the world watched with growing disbelief, the end of 2020 and the start of 2021 merged into a long transition as Donald Trump’s refusal to concede that he had lost last Nove [...]
December 2020
Three Takeaways for Defending Against Foreign Interference from the SolarWinds Hacks
On December 17, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a statement warning that a sophisticated and ongoing cyber breach posed a “grave risk” to government, critical infrastructure, and private sector organizations. Off [...]