The most important monitoring of the security of the American election was forced to stop the work of the election security

The Cyber ​​Security and Infrastructure Security Agency has frozen all its security work in the elections and reviewed everything it did Helping government officials and local officials in securing their elections Over the past eight years, I have learned wire. This step is the first major example of the Cyber ​​Defense Agency in the country, which accommodates President Donald Trump’s false claims to fraud in elections and online control.

In a memorandum sent on Friday to all CISA employees and obtained by WIRED, Bridget Bean, director of acting at Cisa, said that she was asking for a “review and evaluation” for every position in the agency related to the security security and Facing bad information and misinformation“In addition to all election security and product (wrong, message, plan), activity, service, and program that has been implemented” since the federal government specific Election systems as a critical infrastructure in 2017.

“Cisa will stop all election security activities until the completion of this review,” he added. The agency also cuts the financing of these activities in Information and Analysis Center in the electionsIt is a group funded by the Ministry of Internal Security, which was a coordination body for the election community.

In her note, she confirmed that Cisa has, as I mentioned for the first time by politicoThe employees “were initially identified to be linked to the security activities of the elections and the MDM program” in the administrative vacation on February 7.

She told employees in the memo: “It is necessary to save the agency’s electoral security activities to ensure that CISA is concentrated exclusively on the implementation of its cyber and physical security mission.”

Bean is temporarily led by Cisa, she is the official executive director of the agency, and she is her highest job position. Cisa’s first exit He created the role of the executive director To provide continuity during political transformations. Previously, it was between Trump appointed In the Federal Emergency Management Agency During his first term.

In the justification of CISA’s internal review, which will be concluded on March 6, he pointed out Trump’s executive order on January 20 On “ending federal censorship”. Conservatives argued Cisa underwent their speech through coordination with technology companies to determine wrong information online in 2020, during the last year of Trump’s first state. CISA denied any control, and the American Supreme Court Reject On the work of the government. But in the wake of the reverse reaction, Cisa Most conversations were stopped With technology platforms on poor online information and misleading.

CISA and DHS did not respond immediately for suspension requests.

Since 2017, governmental and state election officials have relied on CISA’s experience and resources – as well as their partnerships with other agencies – to improve physical and digital security. Through consultations on the site and online guidance, CISA helped the election officials secure the infrastructure to vote against infiltrators, hardening the polling places against active archers, creating backup plans at the polling site to deal with a lack of polling or power outages.

The election supervisors have always fought to overcome harassment Even Threats of death. Electoral officials on both parties have repeatedly praised CISA for their political support for their work, saying that the Agency’s recommendations and free security services were decisive in strengthening their own efforts.