Category Archives: Presidential campaign

Iran Using Same ‘Active Measure’ Tactics Against the U.S.

Posted on by

When traveling internet sites, social media accounts and various news aggregator services, one needs to be even more suspect of what information is out there. Russia has been applying propaganda ‘active measure’ tactics for decades and due to the global internet system, the volume has gone beyond measure.

With all things Russia going on in Washington DC and in media, the success of active measures has been noticed by both China and Iran. Both have launched robust propaganda operations forcing the West and citizens to question authenticity of sites, articles and posts of all forms.

Watch out for those hashtags….influencing voters and fake/false news goes back to at least 2016. The operations are so effective that even big media has been duped and corrections are printed or made often when recognized. Some items are never corrected.

Iran’s Anti-US Propaganda Reflects regime’s instability photo

(Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google said on Thursday it had identified and terminated 39 YouTube channels linked to state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.

Google has also removed 39 YouTube channels and six blogs on Blogger and 13 Google+ accounts.

“Our investigations on these topics are ongoing and we will continue to share our findings with law enforcement and other relevant government entities in the U.S. and elsewhere,” Google said in a blog post here 

On Tuesday, Facebook Inc (FB.O), Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) and Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) collectively removed hundreds of accounts tied to an alleged Iranian propaganda operation.

Google, which had engaged cyber-security firm FireEye Inc (FEYE.O) to provide the company with intelligence, said it has detected and blocked attempts by “state-sponsored actors” in recent months.

FireEye said here it has suspected “influence operation” that appears to originate from Iran, aimed at audiences in the United States, the U.K., Latin America, and the Middle East.

Shares of FireEye rose as much as 10 percent to $16.38 after Google identified the company as a consultant.

***

The Daily Beast went for a deeper dive on the tactics by Iran and explained a few cases.

An Iranian propaganda campaign created fake Bernie Sanders supporters online, Facebook disclosed Tuesday.

In a press release, the social-media giant said it had removed 652 pages associated with political-influence campaigns traced to Iran, including coordinated inauthentic behavior that originated in Iran and targeted people across multiple internet services in the Middle East, Latin America, U.K., and U.S.”

The cybersecurity company FireEye, which first alerted Facebook to the influence campaign months ago, wrote in a separate posting on its site that it had traced the campaign—including posts from supposed “American liberals supportive of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders”—to Iran through email addresses and phone numbers associated with the “inauthentic” accounts.

The investigation began with FireEye’s discovery of a fake U.S. news outlet called Liberty Front Press, which Facebook says was created in 2013. The actors behind that site over time branched out into different personas intended to appeal to different audiences including “anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli, and pro-Palestinian themes.” Examples included accounts like The British Left, which published content in support of U.K. Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and the pro-Palestinian Patriotic Palestinian Front. FireEye also says it “identified multiple Arabic-language, Middle East-focused sites” as part of the effort.

Unlike the Russian cyberinfluence campaign in 2016, FireEye didn’t find a complementary hacking campaign attached to the propaganda activity. Iran has spent big on developing its offensive online capabilities, but FireEye said it found no links to APT35—a hacking group that has targeted U.S. defense companies and Saudi energy firms. Instead, the security firm found links between the campaign and Iran’s state-run TV propaganda channel, PressTV.

The Iranian actors behind the campaign expanded beyond Facebook and Instagram and onto Twitter, according to FireEye. In a separate statement late Tuesday, Twitter announced it had suspended 284 accounts for what it said was “coordinated manipulation” and that “it appears many of these accounts originated from Iran.”

The Daily Beast recovered tweets from what appears to be an account associated with the campaign. @libertyfrontpr has since been deleted, but Google cache results show it linked back to the LibertyFrontPress.com website FireEye attributed to be part of the propaganda effort. The account was active as of at least Tuesday and is not listed as suspended on the platform.

The account used hashtags like “#Resist” and #NotMyPresident when tweeting out anti-Trump sentiments. It also weighed in against the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. “The #Senate has a responsibility to reject any nominee who would fail to be a fair-minded constitutionalist. That is #BrettKavanaugh. We must #StopKavanaugh.”

In a rare move for Holocaust-denying Iranian propaganda, @libertypr slammed the Republican Party for allowing anti-Semite and Holocaust denier John Fitzgerald to run for a seat in the California legislature.

In addition to the U.S. themes, Liberty’s Twitter account also targeted opponents of the Iranian government, including the Mujahedeen Khalq exile group, or MEK, which advocates the overthrow of Iran’s clerical government, with hashtags like “#BanTerrorOrg.”

The takedown marks the second time since the 2016 election that Facebook has appeared to act without U.S. government pressure to stop an alleged political-influence campaign. In late July, Facebook took down a handful of sock-puppet accounts purporting to be black, Hispanic, and #Resistance activists. Facebook didn’t attribute that campaign to a specific country or group, but it did note that some of the accounts had links to the infamous Russian Internet Research Agency troll farm.

Facebook said Tuesday that it had taken down the new batch of pages only after waiting “many months” after being alerted to the campaign by FireEye. The delay allowed the company to further investigate the campaign and improve its defenses against future efforts.

Boy, 11, Hacks into Replica U.S. Vote Website in Minutes

Posted on by

(Reuters) – An 11-year-old boy managed to hack into a replica of Florida’s election results website in 10 minutes and change names and tallies during a hackers convention, organizers said, stoking concerns about security ahead of nationwide votes.

** 11-Year Old Emmett Brewer Hacks Into Replica US Vote ... photo

The boy was the quickest of 35 children, ages 6 to 17, who all eventually hacked into copies of the websites of six swing states during the three-day Def Con security convention over the weekend, the event said on Twitter on Tuesday.

The event was meant to test the strength of U.S. election infrastructure and details of the vulnerabilities would be passed onto the states, it added.

The National Association of Secretaries of State – who are responsible for tallying votes – said it welcomed the convention’s efforts. But it said the actual systems used by states would have additional protections.

“It would be extremely difficult to replicate these systems since many states utilize unique networks and custom-built databases with new and updated security protocols,” the association said.

The hacking demonstration came as concerns swirl about election system vulnerabilities before mid-term state and federal elections.

U.S President Donald Trump’s national security team warned two weeks ago that Russia had launched “pervasive” efforts to interfere in the November polls.

Participants at the convention changed party names and added as many as 12 billion votes to candidates, the event said.

“Candidate names were changed to ‘Bob Da Builder’ and ‘Richard Nixon’s head’,” the convention tweeted.

The convention linked to what it said was the Twitter account of the winning boy – named there as Emmett Brewer from Austin, Texas.

A screenshot posted on the account showed he had managed to change the name of the winning candidate on the replica Florida website to his own and gave himself billions of votes.

The convention’s “Voting Village” also aimed to expose security issues in other systems such as digital poll books and memory-card readers.

***

Mark Earley, the elections supervisor in Leon County who is a cybersecurity liaison between state and local officials, questioned how outsiders could obtain the security protocols used by Florida if they weren’t already behind the system’s firewalls. He said that all this “hacking noise” and “misinformation plays into the hands of the folks who are trying to undermine democracy.”

Jeff Kosseff, a lawyer and assistant professor at the United States Naval Academy Cyber Studies Department, said states are struggling with election security threats. He said they should work with outsiders in order to see if there are flaws in their systems.

“All states should look at this as a wake-up call,” Kosseff said. “What were the shortcomings identified and how they can fix it. I don’t think it should be an adversarial.”

MisInformationCom and Election Security

Posted on by
Election security top priority for U.S.: DHS chief - newsR ...
So, Dana Perino of Fox News/Daily Briefing had Mary Anne Marsh on the show today to discuss voting security. Mary Ann went on and on about how the Trump administration is not doing enough to ensure foreign interference/election meddling is prevented in the 2018 mid-terms and all the way to the general election in 2020.
Clearly Mary Ann has not been a part of the countless sessions that DHS has hosted for the benefit of each state to protect and harden their respective systems. Frankly, I have participated in 2 conference calls and have watched congressional hearings as well as read documents provided as to the activities on behalf of DHS and the FBI.
Then while few people know, the Justice Department produced a lengthy document by the titled ‘The Cyber Digital Task Force that speaks to all foreign intrusion operations including the matter of the election infrastructure. Pass this on to Mary Ann please. Just one of hundreds of paragraphs is below:
Covert influence operations, including disinformation operations, to influence
public opinion and sow division.
Using false U.S. personas, adversaries could covertly create and operate social media pages and other forums designed to attract U.S. audiences and spread disinformation or divisive messages. This could happen in isolation or in combination with other operations, and could be intended to foster specific narratives that advance foreign political objectives, or could be intended simply to turn citizens against each other. These messages need not relate directly to political campaigns. They could seek to depress voter turnout among particular groups, encourage third-party voting, or convince the public of widespread voter fraud to undermine confidence in election results. These messages could target discrete U.S. populations based on their political
and demographic characteristics. They may mobilize Americans to sign online petitions
and join issue-related rallies and protests, or even to incite violence. For example, advertisements from at least 2015 to 2017 linked to a Russian organization called the Internet Research Agency focused on divisive issues, including illegal immigration and gun rights, among others, and targeted those messages to groups most likely to react.
Meanwhile, there is an external organization made up of subject matter experts collecting evidence and stories of which the Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam S. Hickey for the National Security Division Delivered Remarks at Misinfo Con.
Thank you for the invitation to speak today, and for the important work you are doing: in organizing this conference devoted to the challenges of misinformation, and, by attending, bringing your experience and expertise to bear on the problem.

It’s a privilege to help kick off this first day of MisinfoCon, focused on state-sponsored misinformation. To do that, I am going to give you an overview of how the Department of Justice views the problem, where it fits in the context of related national security threats, and how we are addressing it.

As you probably know, the Justice Department recently obtained an indictment of 13 Russian individuals and three entities, including the Internet Research Agency (or IRA), for federal crimes in connection with an effort to interfere in the 2016 Presidential election. The defendants allegedly conducted what they called “information warfare against the United States,” with the stated goal of “spread[ing] distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general.”

According to the indictment, the IRA was a structured organization headed by a management group and arranged in departments. It had a “translator project,” designed to focus on the U.S. population, with more than 80 employees assigned by July 2016. They posed as politically and socially active Americans, advocating for and against particular political candidates. They established social media pages and groups to communicate with unwitting Americans. They also purchased political advertisements on social media.

One of the so-called trolls who worked for the IRA recently spoke to the Washington Post about his work in a different department, attempting to influence a domestic, Russian audience. He described it as “a place where you have to write that white is black and black is white.” Hundreds of people “were all writing absolute untruths.”

But as the indictment alleges it, what made the defendants’ conduct illegal in the United States was not the substance of their message, the “accuracy” of their opinions: it was their conspiracy to defraud by, among other ways, lying about who the messenger was.  They were not Americans expressing their own viewpoints; they were Russians on the payroll of a foreign company.

Now, the problem of covert foreign influence is not new. In 1938, a congressional committee found that the Nazi government had established an extensive, underground propaganda apparatus inside the United States using American firms and citizens. The response was to recommend a law that would (in the committee’s words) throw these activities under the “spotlight of pitiless publicity.”  The result is the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a disclosure statute that, notably, does not prohibit speech. Rather, FARA requires agents of foreign principals who engage in political activities within the United States to file periodic public disclosures with the Department.

The Act’s purpose is to ensure that the American public and our lawmakers know the source of information provided at the behest of a foreign principal, enhancing the public’s and the government’s ability to evaluate such information.

Transparency, not prohibition, has been the government’s response to misinformation. In the 1980s, the government established an interagency committee, the “Active Measures Working Group,” to counter Soviet disinformation. It did so by exposing forgeries and other propaganda, such as fake stories that the Pentagon developed the AIDS virus as part of a biological weapons research program.

Today, we confront misinformation as only one component of a broader, malign foreign influence effort.  As this framework from the Department’s recent Cyber-Digital Task Force report shows, those efforts can also include cyber operations that target election infrastructure or political parties’ networks; covert efforts to assist (or harm) candidates; and overt efforts to influence the American public (for example, through state-run media organizations).

Our responses to those efforts must likewise be multifaceted, from providing indicators and warnings that can help network owners protect themselves from hackers, to criminal investigations and prosecutions, and other measures, like sanctions and expulsions that raise the costs on the states that sponsor such malign activities.

This graphic, also from the Task Force report, depicts the Department’s strategy to counter each phase of a covert influence campaign cycle, from the identification of targets to the production and amplification of content.  The middle rows (in red) depict our adversaries’ activities in stages, while the bottom rows (in blue) suggest the means by which private actors and the government can disrupt and deter the activity.

One aspect of this strategy worth highlighting is that the content of a foreign influence campaign may be true or false.  Whether the message is accurate or not may not be the point: doxing a candidate or a corporation for political reasons might not involve misinformation, but it may nonetheless violate our laws, threaten our values and way of life, compromise privacy and, sometimes, retaliate against and chill free speech.

Covert foreign influence efforts can take many forms, but recently we have seen increased efforts to influence Americans through social media. To counter these efforts, a key component of our approach is sharing information with social media and other Internet service providers, which we do through the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force.  It is those providers who bear the primary responsibility for securing their own products and platforms.  By sharing information with them, especially about who certain users and account holders actually are, we can assist their own, voluntary initiatives to track foreign influence activity and to enforce their own terms of service.

As the Task Force report also recognizes, there may be circumstances when it is appropriate for the government itself to expose and attribute foreign influence operations as a means of rendering them less effective. But there are often compelling, countervailing considerations, however.

As a general rule, the Department does not confirm, deny, or comment on pending investigations, both to protect the investigation itself as well as the rights of any accused.

We are also constrained to protect the classified sources and methods that may inform our judgment of what foreign governments are doing.

And, most important of all, we must never act to confer any advantage or disadvantage on any political or social group, individual, or organization, and we must strive to avoid even the appearance of partiality. That could constrain the timing and nature of any disclosure we might make.

All of this is to say, and as the Department’s Policy on the Disclosure of Foreign Influence Operations recognizes, we might not be the best messenger to counter a particular piece of misinformation.

That’s why this conference is so important: what we call the private sector (but which includes a lot of people in public spaces, just like you) has a critical role – larger than the federal government’s – in countering covert foreign influence efforts, particularly misinformation, and ensuring that our democracy rests on the active engagement of an informed public.

The former Russian troll I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, who worked for the IRA, said his work was “pointless” for Russian audiences, that it would not impact them.  But in America, that kind of trickery might have an impact, he said, because we “live in a society in which it’s accepted to answer for your words.” My challenge to us during this conference, if I may make one, is that we find ways to ensure we all continue to answer for our words, so that the trust we enjoy as an aspect of our free, democratic society can thrive.

*** Someone help out the democrats and Mary Ann….all discussions inside the Beltway include these multi-track discussions. Back in March, the U.S. spending bill provided $380 million for election cyber security. There was an amendment for an additional $250 million that the Senate Republicans on a floor vote rejected. Why? Because many of the states have either been slow to accept money inside that $380 million or not taken any at all.

Putin’s Threat During the Press Conf with President Trump

Posted on by

London – The Moscow lawyer said to have promised Donald Trump’s presidential campaign dirt on his Democratic opponent worked more closely with senior Russian government officials than she previously let on, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

Scores of emails, transcripts and legal documents paint a portrait of Natalia Veselnitskaya as a well-connected attorney who served as a ghostwriter for top Russian government lawyers and received assistance from senior Interior Ministry personnel in a case involving a key client.

Politics: Natalia Veselnitskaya, Lawyer Who Met Trump Jr ... photo

The data was obtained through Russian opposition figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s London-based investigative unit, the Dossier Center, that is compiling profiles of Russians it accuses of benefiting from corruption. The data was later shared with journalists at the AP, the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger, Greek news website Inside Story and others.

Veselnitskaya has denied acting on behalf of Russian officialdom when she met with the Trump team, telling Congress that she operates “independently of any government bodies.”

But recent reporting has cast doubt on her story. In an April interview with NBC News, Veselnitskaya acknowledged acting as an “informant” for the Russian government after being confronted with an earlier batch of emails obtained through the Dossier Center.

Meanwhile, Putin carries through on those comments he made during the press conference with President Trump. More details below.

Translated: MOSCOW, July 17 – RIA Novosti. The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation on Tuesday announced the names of American citizens who need to be interrogated in the case of the head of the Hermitage Capital foundation, William Browder, convicted in Russia. Among them, the head of the Office of the Prosecutor General’s Office, Alexander Kurennoy, called the former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, several US intelligence personnel, two ex-assistants to the US Secretary of State, US financiers of the Siff brothers. The list also included an agent of the British Mi-6 Christopher Steel.

These names were announced by the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office the day after the Russia-US summit in Helsinki, where Russian President Vladimir Putin at a press conference asked US investigators to make inquiries to Russia for questioning 12 alleged Russian intelligence agents, “and maybe even come to Russia for survey “. At the same time, the Russian president stressed that then the American side expects similar steps on the principle of reciprocity: in response, the Russian side will wait that in the US in the presence of Russian investigators will question those individuals, including representatives of the US special services, whom Moscow suspects of committing crimes in the territory of the Russian Federation.

Earlier, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said that the US Justice Department put forward new charges against 12 Russians allegedly working for the GRU in the framework of the investigation conducted by the special prosecutor Robert Muller on the imputed Russian interference in the elections in the US.

Representatives of the State Department and special services

“We are ready to send another request to the US asking them to interrogate these people, as well as other employees of American special services, a number of state employees and entrepreneurs,” the head of the Office of the Prosecutor General’s Office, Alexander Kurennoy, told reporters.

Among American officials, whom Russia would like to interrogate in the case of the head of the Hermitage Capital foundation William Browder, Kurennoy called the former US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. He noted that under the leadership of McFaul “in 2009-2010, compiled a memorandum to the US State Department from Moscow on the progress of the investigation in the Magnitsky case.”

The head of the RF State Department also called the employees of the US National Security Agency Todd Hayman, Svetlana Engert and Alexander Shvartsman, CIA agent Jim Roth.

“These are the employees of the US National Security Agency Todd Hyman, he signed an oath to the US court on Browder’s words, Svetlana Engert – took the stolen materials of the criminal case from Russia, Alexander Shvartsman, took care of Browder during his stay in the US Jim Root, CIA agent , the financial manager of Browder, “- said Kurennoy.

The list includes two former assistants to the US Secretary of State, David Kramer and Jonathan Wiener, and Robert Otto, “until January 2017 – deputy head of the intelligence department of the US State Department, headed the Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the US Department of State on Russian domestic policy in the department for Russia and Eurasia” . In addition, the RF GP would like to interrogate and who was in 2009 an employee of the US Helsinki Commission Kayla Parker.

Browder’s “Trustees”

Kurennoy explained that the Prosecutor General’s Office wants to question the employees of the US special services who swore false allegations against businessman Denis Katsyv and guarded the head of the Hermitage Capital William Browder, convicted in the Russian Federation.

“As part of the investigation of one of the criminal cases against Browder, which continues to be investigated by the investigative authorities in Russia, and his criminal group, we are ready to send another request to our American colleagues in order to question these officers of the US intelligence services, a number of government employees, entrepreneurs and other persons involved to the illegal activities of Browder.All that I said above, we can confirm the documents, and if colleagues from the US will turn to us for relevant information, then we are within the framework of the international legal cooperation are ready to provide the necessary assistance and assistance, but I will emphasize on a parity basis, and not unilaterally, “Kurennoy said.

He added that they refer to those employees of the US special services who participated in the formation of false evidence of the guilt of the “citizen of Russia” in the US legal proceedings against Prevezon and took care of convicted businessman Browder.

Partners in crime

The list also includes American financiers brothers Ziff, whom the official spokesman of the RF State Duma called Browder’s “partners” for “criminal business.”

“They are recipients of illegal incomes, the Ziff brothers themselves, long-term partners in the criminal business of Browder,” Kurennoy said, referring to people whom he would like to interrogate the RF State Duma.

Not only Americans

Among those whom the Russian General Prosecutor’s Office would like to interrogate before the Browder case, not only US citizens, but also an employee of the British special service Mi-6 Christopher Steel.

“By the way, we have questions not only for US citizens, but I would also like to mention the employees of the special services of other countries who interacted with the people I mentioned earlier, for example, I would like to talk with Christopher Steele, an agent of the British Mi- 6. For a long period of time, he had contacts with a group of lobbyists of the “Magnitsky Act” and, interestingly, it was through this person that the very investigation of the special prosecutor (Robert) Müller, who is known as “Trump Dossier”, was initiated.

400 thousand instead of 400 million

Kurennoy also said that the criminal group Browder had withdrawn from Russia over 1.5 billion US dollars, of which about 400 thousand dollars, and not 400 million, as it was said earlier, fell on the accounts of the US Democratic Party.

“Browder’s criminal group with the help of offshore schemes withdrew money and shares from the Russian Federation for a total of more than $ 1.5 billion, of which $ 400,000 were transferred to the accounts of the Democratic Party,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a news conference on Monday after talks with US President Donald Trump in Helsinki that Browder’s business partners illegally earned more than $ 1.5 billion in Russia and sent $ 400 million to Hillary Clinton’s election campaign.

“Later, the president asked us to correct his reservation, which he made yesterday, not 400 million, but 400,000, but that’s quite a huge sum,” he said.

The Browder case

Browder is an international financier and investor, a former employer of the auditor Sergei Magnitsky. In 1995-2007, Browder was the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia, now lives in London, Russia is declared an international wanted list.

In 2013, Browder was convicted in Russia for tax fraud. The court found that Magnitsky in the interests of Browder in 1997-2002 implemented an illegal scheme of tax evasion, using companies registered in Kalmykia and managed by Hermitage Capital. He is not going to return to Russia, so the verdict is in absentia – the opportunity to execute it will appear only if Browder is in Russia.

At the end of 2017, the Tverskoi Court of Moscow found Browder guilty of tax evasion and the bankruptcy of the Dalny Steppe enterprise, but did not tighten the sentence at the age of nine that was obtained under the previous sentence.

 

Trade: The Pain to the Farmers Just Cost us $12 Billion

Posted on by

BAILOUT

Short term pain? Does that $12 billion in emergency funding come back into the Treasury at some point? Beyond farmers, will there eventually be some emergency funding for those in the energy industry or to the fisherman? China is waiting it out….but was all this thought out?

Anyone remember BRICS?

“the BRICS bloc – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – are expected to band together in defense of the multilateralism the United States once championed.”

From threatening to tear up existing trade deals to hiking steel and aluminum tariffs, the U.S. move toward unilateral action has rattled traditional allies and rivals alike. And BRICS nations have been on the frontline of the global tensions.

Last week Trump said he was ready to impose tariffs on all $500 billion of imported goods from rival economic superpower China. But even South Africa – a tiny exporter of steel, aluminum and automobiles to the United States – is facing barriers.

“If you don’t have an agreed rules-based trade system then it’s a matter of power. And unilateralism is not something you want to contemplate,” Rob Davies, trade minister of the bloc’s current chair, South Africa, told Reuters.

BRICS’ dominant member China has stressed the need to fight protectionism and promote multilateral global trade.

***  US farmers caught in trade war with China | Daily Mail Online photo

The Trump administration is planning to ease fears of a trade war by announcing later Tuesday billions of dollars in aid to farmers hurt by tariffs, according to two sources familiar with the plan.

The administration’s plan will use two commodity support programs in the farm bill, as well as the Agriculture Department’s broad authority to stabilize the agricultural economy during times of turmoil.

Or, put another way: The Trump administration has intervened in the economy, and now, to mitigate the consequences of its intervening in the economy, it’s going to intervene in the economy again. In both cases, the taxpayer loses. He loses in the first instance because tariffs are taxes, and because taxes make goods more expensive. And he loses again when the government takes his money (or borrows it against his kids) and gives it to farmers who are down on their luck because the government elected to intervene.

Even worse, both of these actions are being taken not by Congress, but by the executive branch. And even worse than that, they are being taken by the executive using powers that were delegated by Congress for use in emergencies. The laws that accord the president the power to impose tariffs without legislative approval are the the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, which requires the U.S. to be at war at least somewhere in the world; the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, which requires there to be a “national emergency”; the Trade Act of 1974, which requires either that the executive considers there to be “an adverse impact on national security from imports,” or believes a given nation’s behavior to be unfair and in need of an “appropriate and practicable” response; and the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows the executive to “determine the effects on the national security of imports” and to “adjust the imports” if necessary. That President Trump is using these powers so routinely is a problem in and of itself. But that he is then “fixing” the fallout by, in part, using another set of emergency powers renders the whole affair somewhat farcical. This is decidedly not why these laws are on the books. This is not what the executive branch is for.

This tendency is not limited to Trump, of course. Indeed, this is a problem that has been growing for more than eight decades, and under presidents from both parties. And until Congress grows a spine, it is a problem that will continue to grow. But it’s dismaying to watch the move being cheered on — or, at the very least, permitted — by a Republican-led House and Senate. Should Congress want to, it can easily take these powers back — over a veto if necessary. That this idea seems quaint shows how far we have strayed from the system as designed.