DHS creating new group to counter Russian disinformation, smugglers

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced it is forming a Disinformation Governance Board. The board is tasked with monitoring and countering disinformation coming from Russia and human smugglers at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“The spread of disinformation can affect border security, Americans’ safety during disasters, and public trust in our democratic institutions,” the department said in a statement Wednesday, adding it will “protect privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties” as part of its duties.

The battle against Russian disinformation is the most multi-faceted of the board’s responsibilities. Part of the board’s responsibilities include fighting the ongoing disinformation war Russia is waging surrounding its invasion of Ukraine. Russian state media outlets, social media accounts and officials have used the internet to call photographs, reporting and videos of dead bodies and bombed buildings in Ukraine fake.

“Despite Russia’s attempt to spread disinformation, we all saw the gruesome images from Bucha, Dymerka, Irpin, and other recently-liberated Ukrainian cities.,” U.S. Representative to the U.N. Linda Thomas Greenfield said earlier this month.

The DHS Disinformation Governance Board will also have to prepare for any Russian campaigns regarding the upcoming midterm elections. Russia has repeatedly waged campaigns aimed at U.S. audiences around election time and spread conspiracy theories around U.S. COVID-19 vaccines.

The board is also focusing on disinformation targeted towards migrants. Human smugglers often spread disinformation about U.S. border policies to drum up business, leading to surges of migrants crossing the border. (Haitian migrants camped out in Del Rio, Texas last September.)

Human smuggler disinformation campaigns could increase when Title 42 expires next month.

“It is very difficult to predict the level of migration that we will encounter once Title 42 comes to an end, and we are planning and preparing for different scenarios as a result,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said earlier this week.

The board has been a source of criticism among Republican lawmakers, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) describing it as “basically a ministry of truth.”

“I do not believe that the United States government should turn the tools that we have used to assist our allies counter foreign adversaries onto the American people,” Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) added in a statement Thursday. “Our focus should be on bad actors like Russia and China, not our own citizens.”