Pinal County’s website, Maricopa County’s website, and other government websites across the country recently switched their registrars from the federal government’s General Services Administration to a new registrar started by the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
CISA has come under heightened scrutiny in recent years for targeting “disinformation” through its Disinformation Governance Board. The board works with Big Tech to shut down unpopular information about COVID-19, elections, and other controversial topics.
Former Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who left the Democratic Party and became an independent, posted on X in April 2022, “Every dictatorship has a propaganda arm — a ‘Ministry of Truth.’ The Biden Administration has now formally joined the ranks of such dictatorships with their creation of the so-called ‘Disinformation Governance Board.’”
While serving as secretary of state, Governor Katie Hobbs and her team reported posts on X by the Arizona Republican Party to the Center for Internet Security (CIS) misinformation team — a nonprofit entity funded by CISA. The governmental agency ran a “rumor control page,” where it posted information from Hobbs’ team about complaints by voters regarding the use of Sharpie brand markers to fill out ballots. It requested a broader censorship tool since the complaints were “out of hand and we can’t stamp them out one at a time.”
In 2022, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer worked with CISA, telling them about “media disinformation” regarding elections in Maricopa County. The minutes from the meeting said, “Mr. Richer cautioned that the federal government cannot stay silent and identified a void in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election that allowed false information to circulate unchecked.”
There have been few objections to CISA taking over the domains on federalism grounds, despite the vast amount of control it gives the agency over websites operated by state and local governments. The CISA registrar started offering DNS hosting unlike the previous service, giving it even more control over the domains. A CISA spokesperson explained, “The service will also afford CISA insight into active cyber threats for analysis and future protection of the federal enterprise.”
The transfer took place in April 2021 as part of the DOTGOV Online Trust in Government Act, passed in 2020. Co-sponsored by Senators Gary Peters (D-MI)., Ron Johnson, (R-WI), Amy Klobuchar, (D-MN), James Lankford (R-OK), Margaret Wood Hassan (D-NH), and Roy Blunt (R-MO), it was added into a 5,593-page spending package so received little scrutiny.
The act also directed the Department of Homeland Security to help local governments migrate to .gov websites. State CIOs and secretaries of state lobbied for the change. Top-level domains other than .gov, such as .com, are handled by private registrars like Go Daddy.
According to StateScoop, “.gov migration is also seen as a way to improve citizens’ trust in their government’s online presence, especially when it comes to elections.” CISA urged election officials to migrate their sites. Prior to the 2020 election, only 20 percent of local election offices nationwide used .gov, according to a report from McAfee.
Chris Krebs, head of CISA, said the 2020 election was the most secure election ever. In an op-ed for The Washington Post, he said “the Georgia count was not manipulated.”
He added, “This point cannot be emphasized enough: The secretaries of state in Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania, as well officials in Wisconsin, all worked overtime to ensure there was a paper trail that could be audited or recounted by hand, independent of any allegedly hacked software or hardware.”
An unnamed Ohio official told StatSccop that the “biggest advantage is that .gov is the trusted source for official information, especially when it comes to elections or really any governmental information.”
The little-known connection between Pinal County and the new CISA registrar was uncovered by CONELRAD Group, and independent organization of mostly former intelligence and military officers located primarily in southern Arizona.
Through its investigations into Pinal County’s elections, the CONELRAD team found “malfeasance, incompetence, and possible criminal activity” in the administration of the 2022 election in Pinal County. Some of their findings related to County Attorney Kent Volkner, who appointed the law firm of Coppersmith & Brockelman PLC to analyze the 2022 primary election results. Coppersmith & Brockelman PLC also represents Hobbs, who has fought attempts to uncover corruption in the elections. It was founded by Sam Coppersmith, who has previously served as chair for the Arizona Democratic Party.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Image “Pinal County Administrative Building” by Pinal County and “CISA Agent” is by CISA.
