State Dept. Hasn’t Spent $120 Million Designated For Blocking Russia Meddling
State Dept. Was Granted $120 Million to Fight Russian Meddling. It Has Spent $0.
I guess our Govt. feels that there's no need to use this money as lawmakers intended?
"The State Department has not yet spent any of the $120 million that was to be allocated toward combatting foreign interference in elections, the New York Times reported Sunday.
Toward the end of former President Barak Obama’s administration, Congress voted to direct the Pentagon to give the State Department $60 million for combatting Russian and Chinese “anti-democratic propaganda,” according to the Times. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson took nearly seven months to decide what to do with the funding and the Pentagon ultimately decided to keep it. The Department had another $60 million available for the next fiscal year, but decided last week to only take $40 million, the Times reported.
That money will reportedly be transferred to the State Department and its Global Engagement Center in April, which will counter Russian meddling efforts with anti-propaganda counter-attacks. Currently, the Global Engagement Center doesn’t have someone who speaks Russian on the team and it is primarily focused on countering jihadist and other forms of extreme propaganda, according to the Times.
The news of the unspent millions comes as National Security Agency director Adm. Mike Rogers told the Senate armed services committee last week that President Donald Trump has not yet directed his department to work to thwart Russian cyber threats to the 2018 election."
That tends to happen when you make the mistake of thinking throwing money at a problem will make it go away.
It is often more complicated than writing a check.
I'm not too sure the government can pay enough spammers to influence the country, because people seem to have made up their minds, no matter what Russia does.
The military does have a Cyber Defense Force and Center already.
They do treat all cyber threats including hacking as an "attack", but money is already allocated for those operations.