Inside One Company’s Struggle to Get All Its Employees Vaccinated

At an optical business in New York City, it took months of coaxing, a cash bonus and a weekly testing mandate to persuade 90 percent of the staff to get a coronavirus vaccine.


John Bonizio, the owner of Metro Optics Eyewear, Denise Fitzpatrick, a store manager, and Brett Schumacher, the company’s general manager. They have been trying to nudge their employees to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.Credit...Laila Stevens for The New York Times

By Nicole Hong
Aug. 6, 2021

Tiara Felix loves her job at an eyewear store in the Bronx, where she spends five days a week managing customer orders in a back-room lab, surrounded by colleagues fitting and cutting lenses for glasses.

But there is one thing that could prompt Ms. Felix, 31, to leave: a vaccine mandate.

“There’s no choice,” she said. “I’ll have to quit.”

Ms. Felix is among the six remaining unvaccinated employees at her company, Metro Optics Eyewear, who have been unmoved by a monthslong campaign by their bosses to persuade every employee to voluntarily get a coronavirus vaccine.

Time is running out. Employers across the United States are now confronted with the same question of whether to fire workers who refuse to get vaccinated, a dilemma that carries new urgency as the rapidly spreading Delta variant leads to a surge in hospitalizations among the unvaccinated and threatens to stall the economic recovery

This week, New York City became the first American city to announce a vaccination requirement for workers and customers at a variety of indoor venues, including restaurants, gyms and theaters. Across New York City, 66 percent of adults have been fully vaccinated.

The new rules followed weeks of pressure by city leaders on private businesses to mandate vaccines or frequent testing as a condition of employment. A growing number of companies, including Facebook, Microsoft and the fitness chain Equinox, have announced that employees must be vaccinated to return to the office.

But the issue can be particularly complicated for the many small businesses that provide jobs to more than three million people in New York City, about half of the city’s work force.

They often employ lower-income workers, who polling has shown are less likely to get vaccinated because of a mix of factors, including distrust of public health officials, limited access to vaccine sites and less of an ability to take time off work. Losing even one employee by requiring vaccinations can have an outsized impact, especially in a summer where help-wanted signs have dotted restaurants, corner stores and salons across the city.

Tiara Felix, a Metro Optics lab worker, said she was skeptical about getting vaccinated and that she would likely quit if the company forced her to do so.Credit...Laila Stevens for The New York Times

At Metro Optics Eyewear, which has four stores in the Bronx, home to the lowest vaccination rate in New York City, it has been a painstaking journey to persuade 90 percent of employees to get vaccinated.

Most of the company’s 58 employees live in the Bronx, where the business has been offering eye exams and selling glasses for four decades. Fifty-eight percent of adults in the borough are fully vaccinated, compared with 75 percent of adults in Manhattan.

John Bonizio, 63, the owner of Metro Optics, was ecstatic when he learned in January that optometrists and their staff members would be among the first groups eligible for the vaccine. During the chaotic early days of the rollout, Mr. Bonizio found a hospital with plenty of vaccine appointments available and offered to schedule them for every employee.

About half of the staff members rushed to get a shot. But because his employees interact with dozens of patients and customers each day, he wanted everyone to be vaccinated.

When he called the employees to ask why they were hesitant, their answers foreshadowed the resistance that would unfold in the coming months around the country.

Some people said they did not trust the government, citing false conspiracy theories that the vaccines contained tracking microchips planted by the authorities. Others noted that the vaccines had not yet been formally approved by the Food and Drug Administration and worried that getting vaccinated would interfere with their ability to have children. (Scientists have said there is no evidence that the vaccines affect fertility or pregnancy.)

One employee said she was concerned because she thought a vaccine had caused the characters in the film “I Am Legend” to turn into zombies. People opposed to vaccines have circulated that claim about the movie’s plot widely on social media. But the plague that turned people into zombies in the movie was caused by a genetically reprogrammed virus, not by a vaccine.

Talking to employees about the misinformation they saw spreading on social media was like walking on eggshells, said Brett Schumacher, 38, the company’s general manager. Trying to persuade a skeptical co-worker to trust the government and health officials in the middle of the workday can be awkward.

“We do have one person who is just anti-vax, period,” Mr. Schumacher said. “I didn’t get into the full reasons behind it because that kind of stuff just makes my blood boil.”

Mr. Bonizio considered firing employees who refused vaccines, but said he felt uncomfortable telling employees to “get an injection they’re opposed to or else they can’t work or feed their family.” He was also unsure about the legal implications of doing so.

CNN said on Thursday that it had fired three employees for going to the office unvaccinated, one of the first known examples of a major American corporation terminating workers for ignoring a workplace vaccine mandate.

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued guidance in May that said employers were allowed to require vaccines for employees who physically enter the workplace. The agency also said that employers administering vaccines could not offer “coercive” incentives to get vaccinated, but did not explain precisely what it was banning.

Mr. Bonizio said it should be up to the government to require vaccines, not private businesses.

“We have to turn around and mandate vaccines because the government’s afraid to do it?” he said. “What happens if we get sued? Are they going to protect us?”

The close-knit work culture at Metro Optics also gave management pause about requiring vaccines. Some employees have worked at the company for decades. At a company Christmas party one year, Mr. Bonizio sang a version of “Mambo No. 5” with every employee’s name in it. When his stores temporarily closed during the pandemic, he kept the entire staff on the payroll.

So instead of a mandate, he and his managers tried persuasion and incentives.

“You have to be careful how you present it,” said Denise Fitzpatrick, 51, a store manager. “You can’t just tell them they have to get it, because then they’ll say, ‘Who are you to tell me?’”

The bosses shared lighthearted selfies after getting the vaccine and reiterated that there were no lingering side effects. They framed vaccination as a way to protect the health of fellow colleagues. The company arranged car pools to shuttle employees to vaccination appointments. Employees who got vaccinated early on received $1,000 bonuses.

It still wasn’t enough.

Mr. Bonizio said his efforts were also thwarted by confusing rules around vaccine access in the city. After one employee lined up for an appointment at Yankee Stadium, she was told she could not get vaccinated there because she did not live in the Bronx. A week later, she contracted the virus.

In March, Metro Optics announced a new requirement. Anyone who was still unvaccinated would have to submit to weekly Covid-19 tests.

The requirement proved enough of a hassle that it prompted another wave of employees to get vaccinated, leaving only a handful of holdouts.

Policing the weekly tests has now become the biggest challenge. One employee told Mr. Bonizio that she had gotten tested but that the results would be delayed. He later found out she had lied to him, he said.

Employees who refuse to get tested are sent home. A sales associate recently resigned from her job after managers sent her home for failing to submit a test for weeks.

“If you’re mandating testing, you better have a system in place to monitor this, because people will figure out the holes,” Mr. Bonizio said.

Months of coaxing have been unable to sway Ms. Felix, the lab worker, who said her bosses still tell her to get the vaccine “every chance they get.”

She spent the pandemic selling clothes she designed on Instagram before a family friend recruited her to join Metro Optics earlier this year.

She finds the frequent testing to be a nuisance, but she said she prefers it to a vaccine mandate. Ms. Felix, who lives in the Bronx, said the only vaccinated member of her family is her grandmother. She described the city’s latest incentive to give $100 to anyone who gets vaccinated as “desperate,” saying it made her even more skeptical.

On Thursday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said that new vaccinations were up 40 percent in the past week compared with the first week of July, an increase he attributed to the recent mandate announcement and the $100 incentive.

“How are you going to force something on us that’s not even F.D.A. approved?” Ms. Felix said.

The agency has authorized the vaccines for emergency use, and Pfizer could receive full approval for its vaccine as soon as next month.

“It’s our choice,” Ms. Felix added. “I don’t want no foreign object or vaccine in my body that they’re not even sure what it is.”

Metro Optics has decided to require all new full-time employees to be vaccinated.

But Mr. Bonizio, who is facing a shortage of optometrists, recently interviewed one who said she did not want the vaccine. He is debating testing her out part-time.


Nicole Hong writes about New York City's economy. Before joining The Times, she was a law enforcement reporter for The Wall Street Journal, where she was part of a team that won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting.
A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 6, 2021, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Coaxing and $1,000 Bonuses: A Workplace Struggles to Vaccinate

Josh Hawley's Orwellian "Love America Act" and the fascist campaign to rewrite history

Hawley's proposed law is ludicrous — but the global fascist movement's struggle to commandeer history is no joke

By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA

SALON
PUBLISHED AUGUST 6, 2021

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) talks to reporters after an amendment vote on the infrastructure bill at the U.S. Capitol on August 4, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Donald Trump may no longer be president, but the American people are still stuck in a state of malignant normality that his presidency brought into being.

Psychologist John Gartner describes such a state of being this way:

Malignant normality is when a malignantly narcissistic leader takes control of society and gradually changes reality for everyone else. So their crazy internal reality becomes enacted in the lived true external reality of that society. This is how a leader can come in and change the mores of their society.

In his role as national cheerleader and secular priest, President Biden is trying to provide moral leadership and healing for a traumatized nation, still shell-shocked by the Trump movement's continuing assault on democracy and society.

Biden's efforts have provided only short-term relief. The neofascist threat is escalating; Biden and the Democrats have shown themselves largely impotent against it. The coronavirus pandemic is now resurgent because of a new variant and Trump's followers' refusal to be vaccinated.

For these and many other reasons — most notably, extreme wealth and income inequality and the global climate crisis — America is becoming a dystopia.

The collective emotional state of many Americans, or at least those who are paying attention and still care, is frustration and unease.

Malignant normality creates a playground for fascism and other forms of right-wing maleficence. The Jim Crow Republicans and other elements of the white right are taking advantage of this broken America to escalate their attacks on free speech, reason, truth, reality, human and civil rights and multiracial democracy by weaponizing the nearly meaningless term "critical race theory." (Yes, the term has a real meaning in academic discourse, but not as bandied about by Republicans in 2021.)

For the likes of Sen. Josh Hawley, the notorious Missouri Republican, such a crisis is a dream opportunity. Last week, Hawley proposed a bill called the Love America Act of 2021, which would deny federal funding to schools that teach the real history of America and the centrality of racism and white supremacy to the country's origins. The key text of this document reads:


RESTRICTION ON FEDERAL FUNDS FOR TEACHING THAT CERTAIN DOCUMENTS ARE PRODUCTS OF WHITE SUPREMACY OR RACISM — … [N]o Federal funds shall be provided to an educational agency or school that teaches that the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution of the United States is a product of white supremacy or racism.

Hawley's "Love America" bill is not a joke. It is a statement of shared principles and loyalty to an anti-democratic, racial-authoritarian movement that is winning victories all over the United States.

For example, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is now mandating thoughtcrime surveys to determine the political beliefs of teachers and students in public colleges and universities.

Florida has also "banned" the teaching of "critical race theory" in public schools, and will permit — in practice, this may mean encourage — students to record classes without the knowledge or consent of their teachers. This potential surveillance is an obvious form of intimidation or threat against intellectual freedom, and specifically targeting teachers and other education professionals who are perceived as "liberal" and therefore "unfair" to conservatives.
Advertisement:

The Republican-controlled Texas Senate has passed legislation overturning a requirement that the history of the civil rights movement be taught in public schools. That legislation would also remove a course requirement that the Ku Klux Klan should be condemned. As I wrote recently for Salon:

... the requirements removed from the state's curriculum include two speeches by Martin Luther King Jr., any mention of Latino labor organizers Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, and any mention of Thomas Jefferson's long-term relationship with Sally Hemings, an enslaved teenage child who bore six of his children. The bill bars any use of the New York Times' 1619 Project and "prohibits teaching that slavery was part of the 'true' founding of the United States" and removes the requirement to study the "history of white supremacy, including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the eugenics movement, and the Ku Klux Klan, and the ways in which it is morally wrong."

Tennessee has proposed fining school districts at least $1 million if a teacher "willingly violates" state laws against discussing racism, white privilege or sexism in class. Education Week reports, "Teachers could also be disciplined or lose their licenses for teaching that the United States is inherently racist or sexist or making a student feel 'guilt or anguish' because of past actions committed by their race or sex." Similar forms of censorship will be imposed in Oklahoma, where "educators could have their teaching licenses suspended or revoked and schools could lose accreditation if an investigation finds evidence that they taught about racism and sexism in ways that violated the law." Parents in that state will be allowed "to inspect curriculum, instructional materials, classroom assignments, and lesson plans to 'ensure compliance.'"


These attacks on the teaching of actual history are an Orwellian attempt to control both the present and the future in order to remake America as an apartheid regime. Realpolitik is also in play here: Facing changing demographics and political unpopularity, Republicans seek to use a larger culture-war strategy to win elections and hold onto power by any means possible.

White supremacists and other right-wing ideologues, in the longer view, want to destroy public education and replace it with their own propaganda indoctrination program. One important element is "racial erasure," in which the truth about American history is replaced with fantasies of white innocence, white nobility and white supremacy.

As Clint Smith writes in the Atlantic, for many so-called conservatives, "history isn't the story of what actually happened; it is just the story they want to believe. It is not a public story we all share, but an intimate one, passed down like an heirloom, that shapes their sense of who they are. Confederate history is family history, history as eulogy, in which loyalty takes precedence over truth."

Perhaps most important, the right-wing moral panic over "critical race theory" is a way of to erase from public memory the struggle waged by Black Americans for centuries to defeat white supremacy in its various forms. To that point, chattel slavery and the Jim Crow regime were America's native forms of fascism. Black people defeated those forces and in doing so saved American democracy from its own worst impulses. To erase the Black Freedom Struggle is to make the case that American fascism will be victorious and that resistance is futile.

It is also crucial to understand that America's state of malignant normality is not isolated or unique, but is part of a neofascist attack by the global right on multiracial and multiethnic democracy around the world. As de facto spokesman for the American white right, Fox News host Tucker Carlson has taken a pilgrimage to Hungary, now under the one-party rule of Viktor Orbán, who has become a role model for the Jim Crow Republican Party and the American neofascist movement.

Orbán has created a fake democracy in Hungary, where elections still occur and tepid opposition is permitted, but in practice he can remain in power indefinitely. He has silenced the free press, crushed any serious democratic opposition, encouraged political violence against his regime's "enemies" and attacked colleges, universities and other centers of learning. The obvious goal is to silence dissent and produce obedient and compliant citizens who do not seek to exercise critical thinking or speak back to power.
Advertisement:



In an essay for Vox this week, Zack Beauchamp discusses the larger significance of Carlson's pilgrimage to Budapest:

In his Monday monologue, Carlson told his listeners that they should pay attention to Hungary "if you care about Western civilization, and democracy, and family — and the ferocious assault on all three of those things by leaders of our global institutions." He tweeted out a friendly photo with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and is confirmed to speak at a government-supported conference in Budapest on Saturday. ...

[R]ight-wing observers, typically social conservatives and nationalists, see Orbán's willingness to use state power against the LGBT community, academics, the press, and immigrants as an example of how conservatives can fight back against left-wing cultural power. They either deny Fidesz's authoritarian streak or, more chillingly, argue that it's necessary to defeat the left — a chilling move at a time when the GOP is waging war on American democracy, using tactics eerily reminiscent of the ones Fidesz successfully deployed against Hungary's democratic institutions.
Advertisement:

Beauchamp observes that the "Republican turn against democracy" and the American right's growing interest in Orbán's Hungary, expressed with unusual frankness and eloquence by Rod Dreher of the American Conservative, "is in significant part fueled by the right's sense of leftist ascendancy — heightened by electoral defeats in 2008 and 2020 and strengthened by defeat in culture war battles like same-sex marriage":

This, ultimately, is what makes Carlson's pilgrimage to Budapest so worrying. The Fox host's massive following gives him unusual power to set the terms of the conversation on the right; when he talks, Republicans from Trump on down listen. His bear hug embrace of Orbán could not only bring the Dreher view out into the open but also strengthen its influence over the GOP.

Republicans today aren't directly imitating Orbán; they have their own anti-democratic playbook, drawn from all-American sources. Carlson's active embrace of Hungary's strongman risks making that connection more direct, giving Republicans more ideas for how to seize control and a more powerful sense of justification in doing so.

For those who believed that Biden's election could clear the haze and wake the American people up from the living nightmare of the Trump regime, these last seven months have been increasingly painful. And now the pandemic's third wave arrives as a gut punch to them as well. Biden and other Democratic leaders still appear obsessed with "bipartisanship" and to this point have refused to act with the "urgency of now" to fight back against Republican attacks on Black and brown people's right to vote. Even under Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Department of Justice seems to be protecting Donald Trump instead of investigating and prosecuting him for his crimes against democracy. The overall effect is like being smothered.

Conditions are likely to get worse — perhaps much worse, with Republicans likely to recapture one or both houses of Congress in 2022 and Trump likely to return as a presidential candidate in 2024 — before they get better.

To survive and triumph over American neofascism Americans' well of endless optimism must be fortified with something more durable and realistic, such as the formula suggested by Italian philosopher and activist Antonio Gramsci: "optimism of the will and pessimism of the intellect." In Gramsci's "Prison Notebooks," he wrote: "The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear."
Advertisement:

That is precisely where Americans find themselves now: The waking nightmare of the Age of Trump, from which we have not escaped, is one such "morbid symptom." Recognizing that truth may make it possible to return to full political and social consciousness, and begin the real work of repairing and rebuilding American democracy.


CHAUNCEY DEVEGA

Chauncey DeVega is a politics staff writer for Salon. His essays can also be found at Chaunceydevega.com. He also hosts a weekly podcast, The Chauncey DeVega Show. Chauncey can be followed on Twitter and Facebook.MORE FROM CHAUNCEY DEVEGA • FOLLOW CHAUNCEYDEVEGA • LIKE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA

The Capitol Rioters Attacked Police. Why Isn't the FOP Outraged?

Police unions aren’t usually bashful about defending officers, but they’ve been conspicuously subdued in discussing the January 6 attacks.
By Adam Serwer

ALEX BRANDON / POOL / AFP via Getty
AUGUST 5, 2021
About the author: Adam Serwer is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers politics.

On Tuesday, the National Fraternal Order of Police decided to “clear up confusion” about its position on the January 6 assault on the Capitol by enraged Donald Trump supporters. “Those who participated in the assaults, looting, and trespassing must be arrested and held to account,” it said in a statement. “We continue to offer our support, gratitude, and love to our brothers and sisters in law enforcement who successfully fought off the rioters, and we will be with them as they grieve and recover, however long that may take.”

The FOP does not often have to clarify its position on matters of public concern; the organization is usually rather strident in expressing its views. For example, in 2016, the FOP demanded that Walmart cease selling black lives matter T-shirts. It denounced Nike for its ad campaign involving Colin Kaepernick, who was purged from the NFL for protesting police misconduct. If you go to the FOP’s Twitter feed, you can find a steady stream of clips from conservative outlets such as Newsmax and Fox News showing FOP representatives attacking policies like bail reform, slamming Democratic elected officials, and blaming Black-rights activists for the recent rise in homicides. These posts are interspersed with tributes to homicide victims, attacking “rogue prosecutors,” “activist judges,” and “progressive policies” for their deaths.

From the July/August 2021 issue: The authoritarian instincts of police unions

Local FOP chapters, meanwhile, are also not exactly known for being demure. The former head of the Houston FOP, now the vice president of the national FOP, dismissed a woman and a disabled Navy veteran who were killed in a botched drug raid by officers seeking heroin as “dirtbags.” (No heroin was found.) The Miami FOP boycotted a Beyoncé concert, charging that she had used her Super Bowl halftime show in 2016 “to divide Americans by promoting the Black Panthers.” In Chicago, the local FOP president defended the rioters who stormed the Capitol. “You’re not going to convince me that that many people voted for Joe Biden,” he said. “Never for the rest of my life will you ever convince me of that. But, again, it still comes down to proof.” He later apologized.

What you won’t find on the national FOP Twitter feed, however, are condemnations of the Capitol rioters who attacked police officers on January 6 deploying this sort of unrestrained bombast. You won’t find any clips of FOP members on Fox News confronting its prime-time hosts for mocking the testimony of police officers who faced the mob that day. You won’t even find the FOP highlighting the compelling testimony of those officers, whose recollections paint a vivid picture of the rioters and their motives. You will find only the FOP’s careful statement seeking to clear up “confusion” about its position, a deeply unusual situation for the FOP to be in.

Officer Harry Dunn, who is Black, testified that he was called the N-word by rioters who were infuriated that he had mentioned voting for Joe Biden. Sergeant Aquilino Gonell, an Army veteran and immigrant, testified that he was called a “traitor” and said that, “for the first time, I was more afraid to work at the Capitol than during my entire Army deployment to Iraq.” By contrast, D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges, who is white and who can be seen on video bloodied and being crushed by rioters, said that some of them tried to “recruit” him, with one asking, “Are you my brother?”

The catalyst for the Capitol riot was the fact that Trump, the sitting president of the United States, had engaged in a months-long propaganda campaign to convince his supporters that Biden had been illegitimately elected, and indulged a series of hare-brained schemes to cling to power even after being defeated including pressuring Republican legislators to void the results in their states, imposing on the Justice Department to declare the results fraudulent, demanding the Supreme Court declare him winner by fiat, and telling state election officials to “find” fraudulent votes as pretext for him to contest the outcome. The behavior of the mob on January 6, however, is difficult to comprehend without grasping how Trump and the rioters understand the role of police.

Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed formal segregation, police in Jim Crow states enforced the color line. Even where the law didn’t explicitly mandate discrimination, police were tacitly, if not explicitly, expected to enforce a de facto color line by local and state political leadership. “I feel just as strongly about what has happened to law and order in this country as does George Wallace,” Richard Nixon told an interviewer while running for president in 1968.

The laws have changed, but many Americans have never abandoned the belief that police are obligated to enforce America’s racial hierarchies. The role of American policing, in their view, is less to uphold the law than to act as a kind of sectarian militia for “real Americans,” which is to say, Trumpist Republicans. Trump encouraged police to abuse people of color, but when he and those around him came under investigation, he turned his anger on law enforcement. As Chris Hayes wrote in 2018, “If a young black man grabs a white woman by the crotch, he’s a thug and deserves to be roughed up by police officers. But if Donald Trump grabs a white woman by the crotch in a nightclub (as he’s accused of doing, and denies), it’s locker-room high jinks.” On January 6, Hodges testified, a rioter shouted, “‘Do not attack us. We’re not Black Lives Matter’ as if political affiliation is how we determine when to use force.” Well, yes. That’s exactly what they think.

The officers at the Capitol who fulfilled their oath by protecting lawmakers from a mob in thrall to a dangerous fantasy—that they could change the outcome of the 2020 election through violence—are now being attacked as traitors. “To my perpetual confusion,” Hodges testified, “I saw the ‘thin blue line flag,’ a symbol of support for law enforcement, more than once being carried by the terrorists as they ignored our commands and continued to assault us.” One Trump supporter accused of assaulting officers during the riot was photographed that day wearing a patch with a symbol of the murderous Marvel Comics vigilante the Punisher, decorated with the colors of the “thin blue line” flag.

The apparent discrepancy is simple to explain. The officers were seen as treasonous by the rioters because they were supposed to join the mob in overthrowing the constitutional order and casting down the liberal usurpers, as well as the illegitimate multiracial coalition that brought Democrats to power. They viewed the officers holding to their vow to defend the Constitution as betraying their true obligations, as Trump and the mob understood them.

Because the right hold the police in such high regard, the Fraternal Order of Police is uniquely positioned to disabuse conservatives of the idea that the rioters were heroic or that the riot itself was carried out by leftists, and any other manner of conspiracy theories deployed to obfuscate what happened on January 6. The organization is ideally suited to pressure Republican lawmakers to support the commission examining the incident, and to criticize those who seek to turn that process into a circus or rewrite the events of the day. The union could use its stature to attack the legitimacy of right-wing political violence, and to reject the harmful notion that the role of American police is to act as a partisan militia, rather than to impartially enforce the law.

The FOP has chosen instead to remain meekly silent on the Capitol riot, in effect reserving harsher language for protesters against police brutality than for a mob that brutalized police. When asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper why the FOP was not more forcefully defending the Capitol Police officers, FOP President Patrick Yoes offered a tame paraphrase of the group’s press release, and insisted that he had not seen Fox News hosts maligning these officers as emotionally weak cowards on the network that he and his subordinates frequently appear on for friendly interviews. (The FOP did not respond to a detailed list of queries from The Atlantic.)

The 'adamant insurrectionists': New data reveals the widespread 'radical beliefs' of aggrieved Trump fans

Alex Henderson, AlterNet
August 06, 2021

Trump supporter holds a Confederate flag outside the Senate Chamber. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)

Some far-right pundits who are critical of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's select committee on the January 6 insurrection have argued that Democrats simply need "get over it" and move on rather than continue to dwell on what happened seven months ago. But one of the problems with that argument is that insurrectionists themselves haven't gotten over the 2020 presidential election, buying into the Big Lie and the debunked conspiracy theory that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. And a troubling University of Chicago study finds that almost one in ten Americans favor violence in order to put Trump back in the White House.

The study was conducted for the University of Chicago's Project on Security and Threats, which — according to Robert Pape, a political science professor — "has been updating its demographic studies of the nearly 600 Americans arrested for the January 6 attack to build as complete and current a picture as possible of this mass political movement with violence at its core."

"One might have expected fires to fade, the FBI arrests to have a chilling impact on violence to support Trump, or the deplatforming of Trump himself from Facebook and Twitter to lower the temperature," Pape explains. "But our most recent nationally representative survey of 1070 American adults fielded by the National Opinion Research Council…. found, most strikingly, that 9% of Americans — believe the 'use of force is justified to restore Donald J. Trump to the presidency.'"

Pape continues, "More than a fourth of adults agree, in varying degrees, that 'the 2020 election was stolen, and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president.' We also learned that 8.1% — that equates to 21 million American adults — share both these radical beliefs. From a statistical point of view, this number is extrapolated from a range between 6% (15 million) to 11% (28 million), where we have 95% confidence that the true number falls within."

"Of the roughly one tenth of those who think force is justified to restore Trump," Pape reports, "90% also see Biden as illegitimate, and 68% also think force may be needed to preserve America's traditional way of life."

Pape adds, "Today's 21 million adamant supporters of insurrection also have the dangerous potential for violent mobilization. Our survey also asked pointed questions about membership and support for militia groups, such as the Oath Keepers, or extremist groups, such as the Proud Boys, to which approximately, 1 million of the 21 million insurrectionists are themselves or personally know a member of a militia or extremist group."

Moreover, Pape warns, the Project on Security and Threats found that among "adamant insurrectionists," 63% believe in the Great Replacement and 54% support QAnon. The Great Replacement, which Fox News' Tucker Carlson has promoted on his show, is a far-right conspiracy theory claiming that people in federal governments are plotting to "replace" whites with non-whites. And QAnon believes that the federal government of the United States has been infiltrated by an international cabal of child sex traffickers, pedophiles, Satanists and cannibals and that Trump was elected president in 2016 to fight the cabal.

"Without a sound risk analysis of the drivers of American political violence," Pape writes, "it is hard to see how developing policies, far less strategies to mitigate the risk of future election-related violence, could be genuinely possible."

Vaccines: Two centuries of skepticism

Agence France-Presse
August 06, 2021

Israel's vaccination campaign has got moving faster than other advanced nations(AFP)

Wariness and outright hostility to vaccines did not start with Covid-19, they date back to the 18th century when the first shots were given.

From real fears sparked by side-effects, to fake studies and conspiracy theories, we take a look at anti-vax sentiment over the ages:

- 1796: First jab, first fears -

Smallpox killed or disfigured countless millions for centuries before it was eradicated in 1980 through vaccination.

In 1796 the English physician Edward Jenner came up with the idea of using the milder cowpox virus on a child to stimulate immune response after he noticed milkmaids rarely got smallpox.

The process -- coined "vaccinus" by Jenner (from cow in Latin) -- was successful, but from the outset it provoked skepticism and fear.

Before Jenner a riskier method of inoculation known as "variolation" existed for smallpox, introduced to Europe from Ottoman Turkey by the English writer and wit Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

- 1853: Mandatory shot -

In Britain the smallpox vaccine became compulsory for children in 1853, making it the first-ever mandatory jab and triggering strong resistance.

Opponents objected on religious grounds, raised concerns over the dangers of injecting animal products, and claimed individual freedoms were being infringed.

A "conscience clause" was introduced in 1898 allowing skeptics to avoid vaccination.

- 1885: Pasteur and rabies -

At the end of the 19th century, the French biologist Louis Pasteur developed a vaccine against rabies by infecting rabbits with a weakened form of the virus.

But again the process sparked mistrust and Pasteur was accused of seeking to profit from his discovery.

- 1920s: Vaccines heyday -

Vaccines flourished in the 1920s -- shots were rolled out against tuberculosis with the BCG in 1921, diphtheria in 1923, tetanus in 1926 and whooping cough in 1926.

It was also the decade that aluminum salts began to be used to increase the effectiveness of vaccines.

But more than half a century later these salts became the source of suspicion, with a condition causing lesions and fatigue called macrophagic myofasciitis thought to be caused by them.

- 1998: Fake autism study -

A study published in the top medical journal The Lancet in 1998 suggested there was a link between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella shot known as the MMR vaccine.

The paper by Andrew Wakefield and colleagues was revealed years later to be a fraud and retracted by the journal, with Wakefield struck off the medical register.

Despite subsequent studies demonstrating the absence of any such link, the bogus paper is still a reference for anti-vaxxers and it left its mark.

Measles killed 207,500 people in 2019, a jump of 50 percent since 2016 with the World Health Organization warning that vaccine coverage is falling globally.

- 2009: Swine flu scare -

The discovery in 2009 of "Swine flu", or H1N1, caused by a virus of the same family as the deadly Spanish flu, caused great alarm.

But H1N1 was not as deadly as first feared and millions of vaccine doses produced to fight it were destroyed, fuelling mistrust towards vaccination campaigns.

Matters were made worse by the discovery that one of the vaccines, Pandemrix, raised the risk of narcolepsy.

Of 5.5 million people given the vaccine in Sweden, 440 had to be compensated after developing the sleep disorder.

- 2020: Polio conspiracy theories -

Eradicated in Africa since August 2020 thanks to vaccines, polio is still a scourge in Pakistan and Afghanistan where the disease, which causes paralysis in young children, remains endemic.

Anti-vaccine conspiracy theories have allowed it to continue to destroy lives.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban banned vaccine campaigns, calling them a Western plot to sterilise Muslim children.

© 2021 AFP

North Korea conducted tests at Yongbyon nuclear facility, report says

North Korea conducted multiple nuclear tests after expelling international inspectors from Yongbyon in 2009. File Photo by Siegfried C. Hecker/UPI | License Photo

Aug. 6 (UPI) -- North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear facility was up and running several times between late 2020 and February, according to a Japanese press report Friday.

A draft report from a panel of experts for the United Nations sanctions committee on North Korea said there is evidence Yongbyon is active, citing infrared imagery of the nuclear site, the Nikkei reported.

The U.N. draft report stated that "the external construction of a light water reactor seems to be complete" and that "installation of machinery is likely to be in progress."

But experts also said the 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon was not showing signs of activity. The reactor ceased to operate in 2018.

The report described the activity as "tests," but did not specify what kind of tests had been carried out. North Korea conducted six nuclear tests in 2006, 2009, 2013, twice in 2016 and once in 2017.

AS I HAVE POINTED OUT BEFORE THESE ARE NOT PROVEN BY RADIOACTIVITY COUNTS THEY COULD BE ULTRA HIGH EXPLOSIVES WHICH CAN PRODUCE SIMILAR SEISMIC READINGS

The report will come under U.N. review before being released in September. It could be used as evidence to impose sanctions on individuals and entities, according to the Nikkei.

North Korea's ability to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons has raised concerns at international agencies.

Olli Heinonen, a former International Atomic Energy Agency deputy director general, recently said on 38 North that North Korea likely produced about 1,190 pounds of highly enriched uranium at Yongbyon by the end of 2020.

North Korea also invested heavily in the facility after expelling IAEA inspectors in 2009. North Korea built two halls in the decade that followed, with one hall capable of containing 2,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment, according to Heinonen

Walmart, Amazon creating new demand for carbon credits

Retailers are purchasing carbon credits from growers to lower greenhouse gas footprint.

Forrest Laws | Aug 03, 2021

Walmart and Amazon may not be the first entities that come to mind when farmers are thinking about environmental stewardship. But the two business giants have begun playing a role by helping breathe new life into the once moribund carbon market.

They and other companies are making commitments to lower their greenhouse gas footprint and purchasing carbon credits to follow through on those pledges, according to David M. “Max” Williamson, an attorney with Williamson Law & Policy in Washington, D.C.

This isn’t the first time carbon markets have been poised to play a role in helping farmers contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Williamson told participants in the Mid-South Agricultural and Environmental Law Conference, which was held online again this year due to Covid-19 concerns.

“We were pretty much there before the economic crisis with mortgage-backed securities and the global economic recession occurred in 2008,” said Williamson, an environmental and energy lawyer who began working on carbon credit contracts in the early 2000s. “There was a lot of momentum building for ag carbon in that timeframe.”

Williamson said some might remember the Chicago Climate Exchange. The CCX was essentially a pilot project that was set up in conjunction with the Chicago Board of Trade, which at one time handled most of the corn, soybeans and soft red winter wheat futures trading in the U.S.

“They had an interesting focus on soil and range land, and the payments were not bad,” he said. “They averaged about $750 a ton and that's for carbon dioxide that you could show was absorbed or taken up in the soils on these farmlands.”

Investing in carbon credits

Fast forward to 2019 and companies like Walmart and Amazon have begun investing in carbon credits to demonstrate to consumers that they are trying to lower their carbon or greenhouse gas footprint and reduce the impact of global warming.

“They can buy credits from landfills or the dairy farms we talked about, from forestry or industrial emissions projects,” he said. “But this trend of companies making voluntary commitments for their sustainability reports has driven an enormous amount of money into the market.”

A 2019 market report puts the value of the purchases at $282.3 million dollars, but Williamson believes the estimate is understated.

“It's lagging the actual numbers – that’s from 2018,” he noted. “I think today in 2021 it’s well over a billion dollars and growing exponentially. That’s what’s really driving the market opportunities right now.”

Third-party verification is one of the cornerstones of the more recent carbon market activity. “If you have a dairy farm, for example, and you’re collecting methane, which is a powerful greenhouse gas, and keeping it out of the atmosphere, how do you prove that?” he asked. “You would go to one of these three nonprofit entities that have set up standards and act as a clearinghouse for auditing.”

Those are the Climate Action Reserve or CAR, the American Carbon Registry or ACR and the Verified Carbon Standard, which is often referred to as VERRA. Participants submit data to them and, if the standards are met they issue carbon credits, which can be sold to Walmart, Amazon or some other buyer.

THE IDAHO FARM LOBBY

Biden’s clean cars plan doesn’t mention biofuels

STRIVING FOR ZERO EMISSIONS: 

President Biden set an ambitious new target to make half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 zero-emissions vehicles, including battery electric, plug-in hybrid electric, or fuel cell electric vehicles. 

But ethanol wants to be part of the solution today.

Biofuels interests remind administration of ethanol’s role as low carbon solution available today.

Jacqui Fatka | Aug 06, 2021


President Joe Biden outlined a new national target for the adoption of electric vehicles in an announcement Thursday, calling for them to represent half of all new vehicle sales by 2030. However, biofuels groups continued to remind the administration the role that low carbon fuels such as ethanol can play in the remaining transportation fleet.

Despite pioneering the technology, a White House fact sheet notes the U.S. is behind in the race to manufacture electric vehicles and the batteries that go in them. Today, the U.S. market share of electric vehicle sales is only one-third that of the Chinese electric vehicle market. The White House announcement coincides with promises from automakers, representing nearly the entire U.S. auto market who have positioned around the goal of reaching 40 to 50% electric vehicle sales share in 2030.

Even if half of new vehicles sold in 2030 are electric, four out of every five cars on the road that year will still have internal combustion engines that require liquid fuels, shares Renewable Fuels Association President and CEO Geoff Cooper.

“We agree with the Biden administration that action needs to be taken now to begin aggressively reducing GHG emissions from transportation. But decarbonizing our nation’s fuels and vehicles is going to take an all-of-the-above approach that stimulates growth in all available low-carbon technologies,” Cooper says.

RFA says the overarching goal should be to “reach net-zero emissions as quickly as possible without dictating the pathway to get there or putting all of our eggs into one technology basket.

“We believe any plan to decarbonize the transportation sector should recognize the massive opportunity for low-carbon liquid fuels like ethanol to reduce GHG emissions from internal combustion engines in the near term,” he adds.

Last month, RFA’s ethanol producer members pledged to President Biden that they would ensure ethanol achieves a net-zero carbon footprint, on average, by 2050 or sooner. “We are already well on the way to net-zero with ethanol, and we encourage the Biden administration to embrace and promote renewable fuels as an important component of the nation’s decarbonization strategy,” explains Cooper.

American Coalition for Ethanol CEO Brian Jennings shares nearly 100% of all U.S. light-duty vehicles on the road today use liquid fuels. A recent analysis from the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory shows that today’s ethanol reduces GHG emissions by more than half compared to gasoline.

“If we want to get serious about tackling climate change sooner rather than later, government officials and automakers ought to be taking steps right now to help ensure motorists have greater access to low-carbon alternatives to gasoline such as E15 and E85,” Jennings says. “Each increased gallon of ethanol used in the U.S. today reduces GHGs and the administration can take steps today through the Renewable Fuel Standard to push more ethanol into the marketplace.”

Rural Voices USA Board President Chris Gibbs says in accomplishing the goal, the path ahead will be difficult but Americans, particularly in rural America, are ready to do their part.

“The path ahead will also require a commitment to biofuels as an essential way to reduce emissions and support rural economies. That is why today, as the President discusses the future of the industry, we encourage him to renew his commitment to biofuels and upholding the Renewable Fuel Standard,” Gibbs says. “Now is not the time to go back. The administration must uphold promises on blending targets and ensure rural Americans play a part in tackling climate change in a way that supports jobs.”

BLACK HAT FASHIONISTA

Top US cyber official makes debut calling for more 'ambitious' defenses and wearing a 'Free Britney' shirt

By Geneva Sands, CNN 

In her first major speech since taking office, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly sought to elevate the young agency, pushing for more cybersecurity talent across the US and announcing a new initiative collaborating with the private sector on ransomware and other issues.

© Black Hat 2021 Conference

Easterly made her debut not in a suit before a Washington policy audience, but directly to the cybersecurity community, wearing a partly covered up "Free Britney" shirt and introducing policy with dance moves, music and a reference to the long-running sitcom "Seinfeld."

Speaking virtually to the Black Hat cybersecurity conference, which provides security consulting, training, and briefings to hackers, corporations, and government agencies, she told the audience that CISA needs to be more "ambitious" when it comes to building up the cybersecurity workforce in the United States and federal government.

She made a plea to the cybersecurity community to help build up the nation's cyber workforce, pointing to the more than 500,000 unfilled cybersecurity positions in the US.

'Much more ambitious'

Easterly, who took the helm of the agency in mid-July, said CISA is already undertaking multiple efforts, including a program to retrain non-cybersecurity federal professionals and a K-12 program that provides cybersecurity curricula to teachers.

Despite a host of programs aimed at growing cybersecurity talent, she said, "I believe we need to be much, much more ambitious about this and innovative about figuring out how to inform and educate and really inspire the next generation of cybersecurity professionals from the youngest of ages," offering a glimpse into her thinking as director.

She also urged people to come work for CISA -- an agency housed within the Department of Homeland Security that was established during the Trump administration. During her speech, she provided a QR code for people to join "team CISA."

"My goal is to make CISA the world's premier cyber and infrastructure defense agency," she said.

Easterly is making her push as a new Senate report released Tuesday found that key agencies across the federal government continue to fail to meet basic cyber security standards, with systematic failures to safeguard data.

Pressed by Black Hat founder Jeff Moss on whether she will be successful at hiring the right talent, she said, "I am going to be relentlessly focused on this."

"If I don't get it done, it won't be for lack of effort. The government hiring process is Byzantine and really kind of a mess," Easterly said, acknowledging that there is "huge competition" from the private sector when it comes to recruiting talent.

Setting the announcement to music that referenced the rock band "AC/DC," Easterly also unveiled a new effort to ramp up cyber defense planning at the agency called the "Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative" or "JCDC," which will coordinate planning and operations between the federal government, local officials, and private companies.

She made the virtual announcement while dancing to the so-called "Elaine dance" from "Seinfeld."

The collaboration will initially focus on combating ransomware and cloud provider incidents with companies such as Crowdstrike, Palo Alto, FireEye, Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen.

'Strong encryption'

Easterly said the goal is for the government and private sector to work together closely "before an incident occurs to strengthen the connective tissue and ensure a common understanding of processes," in prepared remarks.

Easterly also appeared to take a swipe at those in the US government, such as law enforcement, that have called for the weakening of digital encryption in order to peer into the otherwise scrambled communications of terrorists and criminals. Critics of encryption have said the technology — which safeguards all businesses and consumers — can allow bad actors to "go dark."

Asked to weigh in on the matter, Easterly came out forcefully in favor of "strong encryption," a term typically used to mean encryption that does not permit secret "back door" access for law enforcement. Law enforcement critics have said that allowing back doors into encryption would create vulnerabilities that would be targeted by hackers and would undermine everyone's security.

"We have to have strong encryption to be able to ensure the defense of our networks. It's foundational, as everybody in this audience knows," Easterly said, in a response that drew a rare round of applause. "I recognize there are other points of view across the government, but I think as the CISA director and me, personally, I think strong encryption is absolutely fundamental for us to do what we need to do."

Easterly, who is only the second Senate-confirmed CISA director, was part of the team that built US Cyber Command before going on to work at the National Security Agency on cyber and counterterrorism issues and serving as senior director for counterterrorism in former President Barack Obama's National Security Council.

She was scheduled to appear in-person at Black Hat, along with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, but the DHS team decided to participate virtually "out of an abundance of caution," due to the latest Covid-19 concerns, a DHS spokesperson told CNN.

Asked how she will differentiate herself from CISA's first director, Chris Krebs, Easterly said she will focus on putting the right processes in place to be able to take CISA into our next five and 10 years.

Shortly after the November election, then-President Donald Trump fired Krebs, who rejected Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud.

"I think there's the founder, right. And then there's the next CEO that comes in and transforms, continues the transformation of the organization," Easterly said.

Black Hat: New CISA Head Woos Crowd With Public-Private Task Force

Author:Tom Spring
August 5, 2021 

Day two Black Hat keynote by CISA Director Jen Easterly includes launch of private-public partnership with Amazon, Google and Microsoft to fight cybercrime.

LAS VEGAS – Just weeks after the U.S. Senate confirmed Jen Easterly to lead the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the new director spoke at Black Hat USA 2021 on Thursday, albeit virtually, announcing a major public-private partnership to fight cybercrime.

Called the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC), Easterly said 20 cybersecurity firms have already joined the effort. They include Amazon, AT&T, Google Cloud, Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks, Verizon, Crowdstrike and FireEye Mandiant.

She said ransomware will be the group’s initial focus, along with creating a framework to respond to incidents affecting critical U.S. cyber-infrastructure.

“The whole idea of JCDC is to bring together our partners to do four key things. First, to share insights so that we create a common operating picture, shared situational awareness of the threat environment so that we understand it better, and to develop national comprehensive cyber-defense plans to deal with the most significant threats to the nation threatening our critical infrastructure,” she said.

JCDC would also call on federal agencies that include Department of Defense and its cyber-command partners such as the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to “make sure that we are aligning operations, talents and capabilities to support the nation’s cyber-defense activities,” she said.

Who is the New CISA Director?

Easterly is a former NSA deputy for counterterrorism and has a long history within the U.S. intelligence community. She served for more than 20 years in the Army, where she is credited for creating the armed service’s first cyber battalion. More recently she worked at Morgan Stanley as global head of the company’s cybersecurity division.

Easterly replaced CISA acting director Brandon Wales after the agency’s founder and former director Christopher Krebs was fired by former President Trump in 2020.

“I hope to build on Chris’s great work,” Easterly said. “Chris did a fantastic job. He founded the agency and he shepherded CISA through some turbulent times, with the [2020] elections and COVID.”

She likened her new position to that of a new CEO, fulfilling the spirit and mission of Krebs. “I’m going to be focused on how we put the right processes in place to be able to take CISA into our next five and 10 years,” she said.

For Those About to Hack, JC/DC is Gunning for You

Borrowing liberally from the design motif of the rock band AC/DC, Easterly debuted a tongue-in-cheek logo of JCDC (or JC/DC).

She said JCDC represents a move by CISA to up its ante in working with the private sector. Several examples already this year – SolarWinds, Kaseya, PrintNightmare and ProxyLogon – are examples of the private sector aiding the federal response and helping shape cybersecurity policy.

She singled out Victor Gevers, chair of the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure, for helping the agency understand the chain of vulnerabilities that led to the exploitation of Kaseya. During the height of the SolarWinds attack, Easterly said, Trimarc founder Sean Metcalf was instrumental in helping CISA understand the byzantine nature of identity management. She also thanked Will Dormann, a vulnerability analyst, for helping government security researchers understand “the pathways of interconnectedness” associated with the PrintNightmare bug.

In CISA We Trust?

Perhaps Easterly’s biggest challenge in her new role will not be heaping praise on the cybersecurity community. Rather, it will be earnings its trust. During a question-and-answer session, the CISA director scored points with the audience by stating that she supported strong encryption.

“I realized that there are other points of view across the government, but I think strong encryption is absolutely fundamental for us to be able to do what we need to do,” she said.

Strong encryption is jargon for what some call “warrant-proof” encryption. Many in the law enforcement circles believe ironclad encryption helps criminals “go dark”, in that it shields their communications.

While acknowledging distrust within some segments of the cybersecurity community, Easterly urged the audience of security professionals to trust people first.

“We know some people never want to trust an organization,” she said. “In reality we trust people – you trust people. … When you work closely together with someone to solve problems, you can begin to create that trust.”

(Image of Jen Easterly, courtesy of Jen Easterly’s Twitter feed)

Congress Reports That Federal Agencies Continue to Fail at Addressing Cyber Vulnerabilities

Peter Suciu / Aug 6, 2021
CYBERSECURITY

Recent cyber attacks on the United States resulted in a spike in gasoline prices earlier this year after a crucial pipeline was taken offline by ransomware, while a similar attack impacted Americans’ food supply chain. Several American cities have also been targeted by cyber criminals in ransomware attacks in the past decade, while breaches of government systems have resulted in the theft of millions of individuals’ sensitive data.

The problem is likely going to get worse before it gets better, according to a new bipartisan report that was prepared by U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the Ranking Member and Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The federal agencies responsible for safeguarding the cybersecurity and personal data of Americans have largely failed to implement even the basic defenses, the 47-page report warned.

As a result, the agencies earned a grade of C- for falling short of federally-mandated standards, whilst the report also warned that the personal information of American citizens continues to remain at high risk, despite the wave of high-profile cyber attacks.

“From SolarWinds to recent ransomware attacks against critical infrastructure, it’s clear that cyberattacks are going to keep coming and it is unacceptable that our own federal agencies are not doing everything possible to safeguard America’s data,” said Sen. Portman via a statement

“This report shows a sustained failure to address cybersecurity vulnerabilities at our federal agencies, a failure that leaves national security and sensitive personal information open to theft and damage by increasingly sophisticated hackers,” I am concerned that many of these vulnerabilities have been outstanding for the better part of a decade – the American people deserve better. In the coming months, I will be introducing legislation to address the recommendations raised in this report so that America’s data is protected. This report makes it clear that the Biden administration must also ensure there is a single point of accountability for federal cybersecurity to oversee the implementation of our recommendations and address these cybersecurity failures.”

AGENCY SHORTCOMINGS

The report titled, “Federal Cybersecurity: America’s Data Still at Risk,” found that two years after Portman’s 2019 bipartisan report on federal agency cybersecurity – which he released as then-Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation (PSI), there are still system failures to safeguard American data.

The report especially called out the Department of State; the Department of Transportation; the Department of Housing and Urban Development; the Department of Agriculture; the Department of Health and Human Services; the Department of Education; and the Social Security Administration.

The lawmakers noted that the agencies had failed or otherwise came up short in terms of security in several ways, including to protect personally identifiable information adequately, to maintain accurate and comprehensive IT asset inventories, to maintain current authorizations to operate for information systems, to install security patches quickly, and most notably to retire legacy technology no longer supported by the vendor.

According to the report, six agencies operated systems without current authorizations to operate; seven agencies used legacy systems or applications no longer supported by the vendor with security updates; six agencies failed to install security patches and other vulnerability remediation controls quickly; seven agencies failed to maintain accurate and comprehensive information technology asset inventories; and seven agencies failed to protect personally identifiable information adequately.

“This is an unnerving report and should be considered as a call to action,” Doug Britton, CEO of Haystack Solutions, told ClearanceJobs in an email.

“These agencies deal with data that reaches the heart of what helps our country work, regulating transportation, research, and social services,” Britton warned. “It is startling to see how basic cyber protections are still not yet in place as we continue to see significant breaches making headlines. We are under active threat and need to take immediate action and make significant investment into our cyber security infrastructure starting with our talent pipeline. We have the tools to find them regardless of their background. We need everyone we can muster to join this fight.”

ADDRESSING THE ISSUES

The lawmakers’ report offered several suggestions including calling for a centrally coordinated approach for government-wide cybersecurity to ensure accountability, while suggesting that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) should develop and require agencies to adopt a risk-based budgeting model for information technology investments.

Even those – and the numerous others – solutions that the report laid out, may not fully resolve the issue.

“While such comprehensive approaches are clearly necessary, they take time to develop and deploy. In the meantime, government agencies can substantially enhance their security posture by improving their execution around basic security practices,” said Jamie Lewis, Rain Capital venture partner, founder of The Burton Group and former Gartner executive.

“These include streamlining the consistent and timely implementation of patches for known system vulnerabilities, increasing the security awareness of front-line employees, and creating better incident response programs,” Lewis told ClearanceJobs. “Government agencies must also limit the collection and use of personal information, which will reduce the risks they must manage.”

LAGGING BEHIND

Even as lawmakers in Washington are finally addressing critical infrastructure, there needs to be an understanding that cyber is also a critical part of that infrastructure – and that outdated security, legacy systems and inadequate training of users is all contributing to an ever-growing problem.

“Since cyber security investment often lags cyber crime, such lapses are not unusual in the federal and commercial sector,” Rajiv Pimplaskar, CRO of cyber research firm Veridium, said in an email.

“As the report indicates, systems housing user data or Personally Identifiable Information (PII) are especially vulnerable as they present bad actors with a honeypot of valuable information,” Pimplaskar explained to ClearanceJobs.

To address these issues, the mindset of agency leadership must change, and be ready to adapt to the ever growing threats.

“Like much of the cybersecurity industry, most agency security programs have invested significantly more in prevention technologies and products than they have in detective systems,” explained Lewis.

“But those products are failing. Insider threats, social engineering, zero-day attacks, state-sponsored attackers, and many other factors have made an over-reliance on prevention a losing bet,” he added. “Instead of pretending they can build impenetrable systems, government agencies must increase their ability to discover threats and orchestrate responses before they can do significant damage. Accomplishing that requires realigning both security architecture and the organization, which must come from the top.”