1. United States
2. Mass.
3. Letter

Liesyl Franz, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Cybersecurity at the State Department, recently delivered a speech at the United Nations addressing cybersecurity threats. In her remarks, she specifically cited concerns regarding China and Iran but notably omitted any mention of Russia. This omission marks a stark departure from previous U.S. positions, which consistently identified Russia’s cyber activities as a major threat. Then in Internal Directives at CISA A recent memo from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), part of the Department of Homeland Security, outlined new priorities for the agency, which is responsible for monitoring cyber threats against U.S. critical infrastructure. The directive emphasized threats from China and the protection of local systems but made no mention of Russia. Analysts at the agency were instructed not to track or report on Russian threats, despite this previously being a core focus for CISA. Additionally, the Trump administration has reassigned officials at CISA who were responsible for safeguarding elections from cyberattacks and other efforts to disrupt voting. This means dozens of highly organized, state-sponsored Russian hacker teams actively working to undermine U.S. national security. These groups are dedicated to either inflicting damage on government agencies, infrastructure, and commercial interests or conducting large-scale information theft. Their primary objective is to maintain persistent access to U.S. computer systems, posing an ongoing and evolving threat to national security. This can not be allowed to happen. We need to continue to protect against Russia. The United States should not be a puppet of Russia . We also need to remain in NATO despite what Musk and Trump are saying. Both appear to be being paid off by Russia with all the pro Russia and US democracy things they are doing. That should be investigated as well.