Michael Morell, former Acting Director of the CIA and CIR Advisory Board member, and Mike Rogers (R-MI), former congressman and chair of the House Intelligence Committee, write together in The Washington Post that a lack of deterrence has let Russia's propaganda campaign continue unchecked and its rampant proliferation threatens more than just future political campaigns:
There is a perception among the media and general public that Russia ended its social-media operations following last year’s election and that we need worry only about future elections. But that perception is wrong. Russia’s information operations in the United States continued after the election and they continue to this day.
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[T]o get a sense of the breadth of Russian activity, consider the messaging spread by Kremlin-oriented accounts on Twitter, which cybersecurity and disinformation experts have tracked as part of the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy.
In a single week this month, Moscow used these accounts to discredit the FBI after it was revealed that an agent had been demoted for sending anti-Donald Trump texts; to attack ABC News for an erroneous report involving President Trump and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser; to critique the Obama administration for allegedly “green lighting” the communication between Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak; and to warn about violence by immigrants after a jury acquitted an undocumented Mexican accused of murdering a San Francisco woman.
Read the full piece: Russia never stopped its cyberattacks on the United States (WaPo Opinion)