美国国家公共电台 NPR Director Of National Intelligence Dan Coats Appoints New Election Security Czar

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Dan Coats, the director of National Intelligence, has announced he's created a new position to help coordinate¹ government efforts to protect U.S. elections from outside interference. Intelligence officials have warned that the 2020 elections are still susceptible² to attacks from foreign governments. NPR's Pam Fessler covers the issue and joins us in our studios. Pam, thanks so much for being with us.

PAM FESSLER, BYLINE³: Hi, Scott.

SIMON: How does this position change what the government has already been doing?

FESSLER: Well, Coats created this new position. It's called election threats executive. And a longtime intelligence official - her name is Shelby Pierson - is going to do the job. She's going to oversee⁴ and coordinate all the efforts in the intelligence community, gather information about what kind of threats are out there. But quite frankly⁵, she did something very similar to this during the 2018 elections, but that was part-time; this is going to be full-time⁶. And this really elevates the position.

And I think mostly what it's doing is it's designed to send out a message that the government really takes this issue very, very seriously, and also to counter some concerns that the Trump⁷ administration hasn't been doing enough. It's worth noting that on multiple occasions, the president has expressed doubts about the conclusion by Dan Coats, the intelligence director, and the entire community, that Russia interfered⁸ in the 2016 election to help Trump win.

SIMON: Can you tell what kind of security threats they'll be on the lookout⁹ for?

FESSLER: Well, there's been a lot of focus on the kind of thing that happened in 2016 when Russian intelligence tried to hack¹⁰ into state voter rolls. They also broke into the DNC's email system. And also, we had this massive disinformation campaign on social media. So it's a lot of concern about a repeat of that.

But they're also worried about other bad actors in other countries. The Iranians, the North Koreans, the Chinese are all seen as potential threats, or it could even be somebody domestically. Earlier this week, interestingly, Microsoft said that it detected almost 800 cyberattack attempts over the past year against think tanks and U.S. political organizations. And that might be the sign of the kind of things that we're going to be seeing in 2020. And then this new intelligence effort - the whole purpose is to try and gather that information.

SIMON: You often remind us in your reporting that elections, actually, are run on the state and local level, not the federal level. How is this new position, if it is, going to affect what they do to protect against interference?

FESSLER: Well, it's interesting, actually. Ever since 2016, the Department of Homeland Security has been working really closely with state and local election officials to try and figure out, you know, how they can beef up their security. So that's going to continue. But, you know, they need intelligence to know what they should be doing and where the threat is coming from. So if the process works, this intelligence that's all being gathered will be shared with the state and local officials.

Interestingly, they say, though, that they really need more money. Congress approved about $380 million last year for election security, but they say it's not enough. They're still using a lot of old voting equipment that's more vulnerable to attacks. A lot of them don't have IT professionals to help them with security. They say, well, it's great if we have all this intelligence about potential threats, but if we don't have the money to fix the problem, what good is it?

SIMON: NPR's Pam Fessler, thanks so much.

FESSLER: Thank you.

1 coordinate   

adj.同等的，协调的；n.同等者；vt.协作，协调

参考例句：

• You must coordinate what you said with what you did.你必须使你的言行一致。
• Maybe we can coordinate the relation of them.或许我们可以调和他们之间的关系。

2 susceptible   

adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的

参考例句：

• Children are more susceptible than adults.孩子比成人易受感动。
• We are all susceptible to advertising.我们都易受广告的影响。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 oversee   

vt.监督，管理

参考例句：

• Soldiers oversee the food handouts.士兵们看管着救济食品。
• Use a surveyor or architect to oversee and inspect the different stages of the work.请一位房产检视员或建筑师来监督并检查不同阶段的工作。

5 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

6 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

7 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

8 interfered   

v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉

参考例句：

• Complete absorption in sports interfered with his studies. 专注于运动妨碍了他的学业。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I am not going to be interfered with. 我不想别人干扰我的事情。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 lookout   

n.注意，前途，瞭望台

参考例句：

• You can see everything around from the lookout.从了望台上你可以看清周围的一切。
• It's a bad lookout for the company if interest rates don't come down.如果利率降不下来，公司的前景可就不妙了。

10 hack   

n.劈，砍，出租马车；v.劈，砍，干咳

参考例句：

• He made a hack at the log.他朝圆木上砍了一下。
• Early settlers had to hack out a clearing in the forest where they could grow crops.早期移民不得不在森林里劈出空地种庄稼。