NYT on the situation, part nine

[Mark Kohut]

The recent disclosures, said Jeh C. Johnson, a former homeland security
secretary, are a way for the Biden administration to avoid old errors and
make clear to Mr. Putin that America knows “what you are doing and we are
putting your business out in the street and compromising your operations.”

“This is payback for 2016,” Mr. Johnson said.

The current information battle is playing out in a new era, where
technology has allowed conspiracy theories to spread faster and wider than
anytime before. At the same time, trust in government has further eroded.
And that has meant many efforts to get ahead of Russian information
operations are met with deep skepticism.

“If the U.S. government just comes out and says no, that’s wrong, some
people will say, ‘Prove it, show me the videotape, show me the audio
recording,’” said Glenn S. Gerstell, a former general counsel for the
National Security Agency. “It’s an irreversible path once you start down
that. And of course, the whole danger is that it risks disclosing sources
and methods.”




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