Former FBI agent Naveed Jamali began by recalling that the Russian hack into the American election wasn't just about bots and fake news sites, but a team of people being paid to divide Americans in the 2016 election.
"While trolls are incredibly important the other part 2016 showed us, it wasn't just trolls," he said. "It was actually human beings. Right? So, from [Maria] Butina to Ambassador [Sergey] Kislyak, the part that the FBI and intelligence community has to do is first accept this was 2016, an intelligence failure and we have to do things differently. That means, look, the Russians have people. They actually have human beings, not just trolls, sitting in St. Petersburg in front of a computer screen and are actively willing to target and infiltrate Democratic campaigns."
Nance noted that while Jamali mentioned the FBI, it would be the Department of Homeland Security and the NSA that would work to help protect the 2020 election. However, he explained, every American has a responsibility to be smart when they're using the internet.
"What we're finding that's happening now is precisely what happened into the run-up to the Democratic National Convention" in 2016, Nance recalled. "We found they are using information, themes, peoples, and bots, right? Automated response programs to put out divisive messages about, you know, the minority groups and particular things like attacks on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) or Congressman [Ilhan] Omar (D-MN), and those are not just oriented to the African Americans who might see that, it's really oriented to the Trump voter. What that does is stokes their outrage. The outrage machine is far greater motivating of a factor."
These bots aren't necessarily attacking candidates; they're merely stoking the opposition.
"What they do is amplify themes, which you would see on Fox News at any given day, but by amplifying them on Facebook, Twitter, giving them a far bigger megaphone," he continued. "That allows those individual groups who go back and see reparations for blacks, or they say someone who makes a comment that might be construed and anti-Semitic. It stokes their outrage, and it amplifies one message that would come from a real American, would be amplified 100,000 times by a foreign bot, which is propagating this information. And that is the weapon."
Gibson said that it sounds like Nance is "waving a red flag saying, 'Be warned.' Instead, our government might be waving a white flag and giving up right there."
Watch the full discussion below:
