美国国家公共电台 NPR Senate Intel Committee Unveils Election Security Report In Wake Of Mueller Hearings（在线收听）

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Yesterday former special counsel Robert Mueller told Congress that Russia's interference in American elections is not over. In fact, he said it's going on right now and will continue in 2020. Well, today the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on the 2016 vote that makes clear just how big a challenge election security remains. NPR justice reporter Ryan Lucas is here in the studio.

Hey, Ryan.

RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Hi there.

SHAPIRO: We've heard a lot about Russia's cyber operations during the 2016 election. What does this report have to say that is new?

LUCAS: We have talked a lot about Russia's hacking of Democratic Party emails and its manipulation of social media, pushing disinformation. Mueller talked about this yesterday. This report, though, deals with a third aspect of Russia's interference, and that's its targeting of state election systems. Remember - elections are run by state and local authorities in this country. The report says that Russia basically kind of exploited the seams that exist between federal authorities here in the U.S. who are responsible for national security and state officials who run these elections. It says Russia began targeting election infrastructure like state voter registration databases back in 2014. They were using cyberattacks. And it says intelligence suggests that Russian hackers were scanning systems in one form or another in all 50 U.S. states.

SHAPIRO: But the big question is, why? Like, what did they get from being in these systems?

LUCAS: The report - disappointingly, in a sense, I guess - says Russia's intentions are still unclear at this point. It does suggest a couple of possibilities - traditional espionage. They say Russia may have intended to exploit the vulnerabilities that they discovered but ultimately decided not to. They may - say they may be holding back, and they may exploit them at a later date. There is agreement, though, that this sort of activity fits into an overall goal of Russia's and that is undermining confidence in the integrity of elections in the U.S., and more broadly, in democracy here in this country.

SHAPIRO: I mean, I think the big question that a lot of voters have is, was the vote tally changed? Does this report say anything about that?

LUCAS: It says the same thing that we've heard from U.S. officials for a while, and that's that there's no evidence that any of the vote tallies were changed.

SHAPIRO: But they haven't definitively proved that it didn't happen either.

LUCAS: Right. Right. The report also says that there's no evidence that any voting machines were manipulated. But along with what you said, it says that the committee's insight and the insight that the U.S. intelligence community has on this question is limited, which is kind of a chilling thing to hear. One thing that is clear, though, is that the U.S. political system at every level - state, local, federal - was unprepared for this sort of cyber assault. One example that they cite is that back in the summer of 2016, as all of this was going on, federal officials told states. They alerted them. But the information was either too vague or too thin to be of any sort of use. And sometimes it even went to the wrong people.

SHAPIRO: And do they make recommendations for what to do now?

LUCAS: They do. One recommendation that the report says is that the U.S. needs to find a way to deter these sorts of attacks. It also suggests better coordination and information-sharing about the threats, replacing outdated voting systems and, of course, getting more money to states - always that money question.

SHAPIRO: NPR justice reporter Ryan Lucas, thank you.

LUCAS: Thank you.