Democrats worry over Trump funding priorities for CISA’s disinfo efforts

MalBot · January 23, 2025, 4:30pm

Republicans aligned with President Donald Trump are at odds with their Democratic counterparts about the future priorities and associated funding of the nation’s flagship cybersecurity agency, particularly when it comes to its past work communicating with social media companies about false information on their platforms.

Introduction to Malware Binary Triage (IMBT) Course

Looking to level up your skills? Get 10% off using coupon code: MWNEWS10 for any flavor.

Enroll Now and Save 10%: Coupon Code MWNEWS10

Note: Affiliate link – your enrollment helps support this platform at no extra cost to you.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has historically enjoyed bipartisan support from members aligned on the notion that cyber is a national security concern and shouldn’t be mired in politicization. But Republican claims that the agency’s misinformation efforts have targeted conservative voices in the past two years, as well as a second election win for Trump, are setting the agency on a course for potentially far-reaching reevaluation.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, President Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security — where CISA is housed — <a href=“Trump’s DHS pick says CISA is ‘far off-mission’ and should be smaller - Nextgov/FCW”>testified last week</a> that the cyber agency needs to be smaller and more nimble, and that it should cease its work on calling out misinformation and disinformation that propagates across social platforms.

A Wednesday House Homeland Security Committee <a href=“Unconstrained Actors: Assessing Global Cyber Threats to the Homeland – Committee on Homeland Security”>hearing</a> highlighted disagreements between Democrats and Republicans over agency funding priorities.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the lead Democrat on the committee, said he was “struck” by Noem’s remarks and that Democrats on the panel would oppose any efforts to narrow CISA and its workforce. He also voiced opposition to last year’s GOP efforts to <a href=“Congress expected to approve government spending bill that cuts CISA funding - Nextgov/FCW”>reduce its budget</a> by around $35 million.

“I don’t expect that [budget cut] would happen again,” Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., chair of the panel’s cybersecurity subcommittee, told reporters on the sidelines of the hearing. “Everybody knows cybersecurity is a top issue, and I will continue to push and make sure that CISA is properly funded.”

But he had a caveat when asked about funding its disinformation work: “I really appreciated Kristi Noem’s position that CISA should be focusing on threat hunting inside the federal agencies right now.”

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and leading into the 2020 election, the agency had regular contact with social media platforms to inform them of misinformation- or disinformation-laced content, crafted or amplified by foreign adversaries or other home-grown entities.

But it began chilling communications following a July 2023 Missouri-originated lawsuit alleging that the Biden administration’s efforts to flag disinformation violated First Amendment rights and suppressed politically conservative voices.

Many of those views centered around COVID vaccine efficacy, as well as Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud. The case was kicked up to the Supreme Court, which ultimately sided with the Biden administration on the matter last year.

Brandon Wales, a former CISA executive director that <a href=“CISA executive director set to depart the agency - Nextgov/FCW”>departed in August</a>, told lawmakers in the hearing that those agency disinformation efforts totaled less than 1% of its budget — around $2 million of its $3 billion topline — and refuted any GOP claims that it censored Americans. Wales is now VP of Cybersecurity Strategy at SentinelOne.

Noem’s testimony did not provide specific funding figures in her vision for the future of the cyber agency. Her nomination is likely to be approved in the Republican-controlled Senate in the coming days.

The Trump-era cost reduction vision for CISA has expanded throughout the broader Department of Homeland Security, where the administration this week purged members across its advisory boards, including a <a href=“DHS cyber review board cleaned out in Trump move to eliminate ‘misuse of resources’ - Nextgov/FCW”>cybersecurity oversight panel</a> that was in the midst of probing a sweeping Chinese hack into multiple U.S. telecommunications providers and their wiretap systems.

The hacking unit, dubbed Salt Typhoon, accessed the communications of high-value political officials close to Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

“Effective immediately, the Department of Homeland Security will no longer tolerate any advisory committee which push agendas that attempt to undermine its national security mission, the president’s agenda or constitutional rights of Americans,” a DHS senior official said in a statement to Nextgov/FCW when asked about the panel, officially dubbed the Cyber Safety Review Board.

Garbarino said there would probably be delays in that investigation, but he’s “not concerned yet” and is happy with the names of people being floated for cyber positions in the new administration.

Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., who chairs the full House Homeland Committee, argued that a recent <a href=“Supreme Court ends judicial deference to federal agency expertise - Government Executive”>Supreme Court decision</a> ending the practice of deferring to federal agencies when interpreting and implementing federal statute makes it “pretty clear” that investigatory work should be done by Congress. “The mission has to be done. The question is, who does it?” he told reporters.

Article Link: Democrats worry over Trump funding priorities for CISA’s disinfo efforts - Nextgov/FCW