Nathan Howard/Associated Press
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco speaks at a Department of Justice press conference in Washington on January 18, 2023.
CNN
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Deputy U.S. Attorney Lisa Monaco announced Monday that federal prosecutors will pursue harsher sentences in cases where artificial intelligence was used to commit election-related crimes, including threats of violence against election officials and voter suppression.
The Justice Department’s policy change comes in response to a chaotic information environment ahead of the 2024 presidential election, as AI tools make it much easier to spread false information by imitating politicians’ voices and likenesses. This is an effort to do so. Monaco’s government said the new policy would apply to cases where AI makes election-related crimes “more dangerous and impactful.”
“As threats evolve and expand, our democratic processes and the public servants who protect them are under unprecedented attack,” Monaco’s president told a meeting of the Justice Department’s Election Threat Task Force on Monday afternoon. said. Advances in AI and other technologies are “emboldening election officials and those who threaten election integrity,” she said.
In recent years, the emergence of deepfakes, AI-powered software programs that can create fake audio and video, has complicated the threat environment for election officials and the federal and state authorities seeking to protect them.
U.S. officials focused on election security are concerned that AI tools will further exacerbate this already threat-laden environment, including the Democratic Party of New Hampshire vote in January. He cites an incident during the primary election.
An AI-generated robocall imitating President Joe Biden targeted thousands of voters in New Hampshire, urging them not to vote in the primary. A New Orleans magician told CNN he made the robocalls at the behest of a political consultant for Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, a leading Democratic challenger to Biden.
Federal officials are also planning ways foreign powers could try something similar to fake Biden robocalls to try to influence voters. In December, senior Biden administration officials conducted a training exercise in a hypothetical scenario in which Chinese operatives created an AI-generated video of a Senate candidate destroying ballots.
The Justice Department is already under pressure from election officials to step up investigations into the large number of harassing phone calls and emails it has received in recent years. Many of these threats were made without the use of AI tools by people who falsely believed there was widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
An Ohio man was sentenced in March to more than two years in prison for threatening to kill an Arizona election official on charges of fraud.
The danger persists. The nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice found that of more than 900 local election officials surveyed in February and March, 38% reported being intimidated, harassed or abused. More than half of election officials surveyed expressed concerns about the safety of their colleagues and staff.
“Election offices across the country continue to deal with intimidation and harassment in the performance of their duties, and in many locations this behavior has been near-constant since mid-2020,” the National Elections Administration said. said Amy Cohen, executive director of the association. he told CNN. “This should be unacceptable to all Americans.”
Cohen said elections offices have been working more closely with state and local law enforcement agencies in recent years on personal safety training and “physical security best practices to ensure the safety of our employees.” Stated.
