What could possibly go wrong? The Department of Homeland Security is mulling a takeover of security for the presidential election this fall.
The Washington Examiner reports:
Homeland eyes special declaration to take charge of elections
Even before the FBI identified new cyber attacks on two separate state election boards, the Department of Homeland Security began considering declaring the election a “critical infrastructure,” giving it the same control over security it has over Wall Street and and the electric power grid.
The latest admissions of attacks could speed up that effort possibly including the upcoming presidential election, according to officials.
“We should carefully consider whether our election system, our election process, is critical infrastructure like the financial sector, like the power grid,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said.
“There’s a vital national interest in our election process, so I do think we need to consider whether it should be considered by my department and others critical infrastructure,” he said at media conference earlier this month hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
DHS has a vital security role in 16 areas of critical infrastructure and they provide a model for what the department and Johnson could have in mind for the election.
DHS describes it this way on their website: “There are 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, are considered so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof.”
Trending: WATCH Rachel Maddow’s Election Night Meltdown (VIDEO)
Do we really want a federal agency headed by an Obama appointee to oversee election security?
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