How lessons learned from the 2016 campaign led US officials to be more open about Iran hack

WASHINGTON — The 2016 presidential campaign was entering its final months and seemingly all of Washington was abuzz with talk about how Russian hackers had penetrated the email accounts of Democrats, triggering the release of internal communications that seemed designed to boost Donald Trump’s campaign and hurt Hillary Clinton’s. U.S. security officials acted more swiftly to name the culprit, detailing their findings and blaming a foreign adversary — this time, Iran — just over a week after Trump’s campaign revealed the attack. The FBI, which made the Iran announcement along with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said in a statement to The Associated Press that “transparency is one of the most powerful tools we have to counteract foreign malign influence operations intended to undermine our elections and democratic institutions.” The FBI said the government had refined its policies to ensure that information is shared as it becomes available, “so the American people can better understand this threat, recognize the tactics, and protect their vote. “The Intelligence Community has been focused on collecting and analyzing intelligence regarding foreign malign influence activities, to include those of Iran, targeting U.S. elections,” the agency said. Bret Schafer, a senior fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a Washington-based organization that analyzes foreign disinformation, said he’s pleased that in its first election, the center doesn’t seem to have been “hobbled by some of the partisanship that we’ve seen cripple other parts of the government that tried to do this work.” Still, there have been obstacles and controversies.