“It settles down into the unconscious,” he says. “I’m teaching a class on emotions this fall, and that’s one of the points—the emotions you feel have to do with how a situation is framed. It’s like the old subliminal advertising thing.”

For Karen Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School, threats to democracy from disinformation are vast and real, but voters and election officials have never been more vigilant.

“Look, we know we’re being spun,” says Greenberg, co-editor of Our Nation at Risk: Election Integrity as a National Security Issue. 

“The question is, can we step back for a moment and say, ‘I know I’m being spun. How do I either ignore this and move on to something else, or how do I put this in a category where I know that this is likely disinformation or misinformation and see what I can do to verify it?’”

Here are some tips Greenberg and Davenport shared to help you stay aware of—and minimally influenced by—disinformation this election season.

Be skeptical of new messages about the election—and their messengers.

“Whenever you see new information about the election, really close to the election, you should be suspicious,” says Davenport, who directs Fordham’s Peace and Justice studies program and is a frequent political commentator for publications like Newsweek and America. “If there’s some new news source that you’re just seeing for the first time this fall, and you have questions, google them and find if there are any reports about this source.”

On social networks, he says, keep an eye out for new friend and follow requests from people and groups you don’t know, and “just be conscious that you are being manipulated by algorithms, and their goal is to addict you to hateful content because that’s what sells.”

Greenberg notes that there are laws in place against promoting disinformation related to elections, but they’re hard to enforce without buy-in from private companies. 

Don’t let disinformation lessen your belief in objective facts.

As deepfakes, doctored photos, and AI-generated images flourish, it may feel tempting to dismiss the possibility of objective truth in the media we consume. Davenport cautions against this kind of wholesale skepticism, though.

Disinformation campaigns often try to foster chaos and confusion, Greenberg says, and create the sense that “a country can’t quite hold it together through a transition period.”

“There has to be a counternarrative to ‘we’re doomed, we’re victims,’ she says. “We’re not victims.”  

Be patient at the polls.

No matter how well-trained volunteer poll workers are, it’s going to be hard to prepare them for “any kind of aberrations that come up because of misinformation,” Greenberg says. “Go early … and just be patient.”  

And don’t be deterred, Davenport adds. 

“Don’t be scared away. Even if you see something telling you that the line at your polling place is two hours long.”  

Take advantage of available election resources.

Despite all the worries that election disinformation sparks in experts, Greenberg is heartened by what she says is “an incredible amount of attention” being paid to the issue by voters, law enforcement, and election officials. And she feels confident that voters are, on the whole, savvy enough to have their antennae up. 

To stay informed, she recommends resources like Election Law Blog and Democracy Docket. And Davenport points out that contacting your county clerk’s office—or checking its website—is a good way to get any necessary information about voting.  “We still need to tell people about the threats,” he says, “but then with that, we can say, ‘And here’s how you can find reliable sources on these topics.’”

And misinformation, they said, has the potential to do enormous damage.

“It’s a threat because what you’re trying to do is educate the citizenry about who would make the best leader for the future,” said Karen Greenberg, head of Fordham’s Center on National Security.

Greenberg, the author of Subtle Tools: The Dismantling of American Democracy from the War on Terror to Donald Trump (Princeton University Press, 2021), is currently co-editing the book Our Nation at Risk: Election Integrity as a National Security Issue, which will be published in July by NYU Press.

“You do want citizens to think there is a way to know what is real, and that’s the thing I think we’re struggling with,” she said.

At the International Conference on Cyber Security held at Fordham earlier this month, FBI Director Chris Wray and NSA Director General Paul Nakasone spoke about the possibility of misinformation leading to the chaos around the U.S. election in a fireside chat with NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly. But politics was also a theme in other ICCS sessions.

Anthony Ferrante, FCRH ‘01, GSAS ‘04, global head of cybersecurity for the management consulting firm FTI, predicted this year would be like no other, in part because of how easy artificial intelligence makes it to create false–but realistic—audio, video, and images, sometimes known as deepfakes.

The Deepfake Defense

“I think we should buckle up. I think we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg, and that AI is going to change everything we do,” Ferrante said.

In another session, John Miller, chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst for CNN, said major news outlets are acutely aware of the danger of sharing deepfakes with viewers.

“We spend a lot of time on CNN getting some piece of dynamite with a fuse burning on it that’s really hot news, and we say, ‘Before we go with this, we really have to vet our way backward and make sure this is real,’” he said.

He noted that if former President Donald Trump were caught on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women, as he was in 2016, he would probably respond differently today.

“Rather than try to defend that statement as locker room talk, he would have simply said, ‘That’s the craziest thing anybody ever said; that’s a deepfake,” he said.

In fact, this month, political operative Roger Stone claimed this very defense when it was revealed that the F.B.I. is investigating remarks he made calling for the deaths of two Democratic lawmakers. And on Monday, it was reported that days before they would vote in their presidential primary elections, voters in New Hampshire received robocall messages in a voice that was most likely artificially generated to impersonate President Biden’s, urging them not to vote in the election.

A Reason for Hope

In spite of this, Greenberg is optimistic that forensic tools will continue to be developed that can weed out fakes, and that they contribute to people’s trust in their news sources.

“We have a lot of incredibly sophisticated people in the United States and elsewhere who understand the risks and know how to work together, and the ways in which the public sector and private sector have been able to share best practices give me hope,” she said.

“I’m hopeful we’re moving toward a conversation in which we can understand the threat and appreciate the ways in which we are protected.”

“Today as we seek to better conceptualize the threats and adversaries that face us all, none seems to be more global, threatening, and in need of attention than today’s cyber environment,” said the event moderator, Karen J. Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at the School of Law. “Cyber vulnerabilities stand to affect governments, the private sector, institutions, organizations, and individuals—in a nutshell, all of us.” 

The three panelists are leading experts who have dealt with recent hacks. Cristin Flynn Goodwin is the associate general counsel of Microsoft’s digital security unit, where she counters nation-state actors and advanced attacks worldwide. Nowell Agent is a supervisory special agent for the FBI who was instrumental in identifying the Hafnium hack that affected thousands of organizations across the world. Adam R. James is a special agent for the FBI who led the investigation on APT40, a Chinese hacking group that has targeted governmental organizations, companies, and universities. 

The panel began with an overview of the current cyber environment. This year, nation-states like China and Russia have been primarily searching for information, said Goodwin. 

“We saw China very active in trying to gain information about the incoming administration. We saw Russia looking for shifts in U.S. policy relative to sanctions, defense, and NATO,” Goodwin said, adding that members from both nation-states were successful in gaining intel more than 40% of the time. 

One successful cyberattack was the SolarWinds hack, where a group of Russian hackers infiltrated a routine software update from a Texas-based company and gained access to about 18,000 machines. The hackers wanted to know what security teams know about Russian attackers so that they can evade detection, Goodwin said. 

She compared the SolarWinds hack to a scene in the movie Mission: Impossible, where Tom Cruise sneaks through the ceiling with wires and cables. But hacks aren’t usually that dramatic, she said. In most cases, a hacker is like a person walking down the street, trying the door knob to each house until they find an unlocked door, she explained. In other words, they try to break into multiple accounts until they find one with an easy password. 

“You don’t need Tom Cruise when you’ve left your windows and doors open. And so from a [big company’s]perspective, you have to be ready for the ‘Tom Cruise,’ for the most sensitive of situations. But most of the time, this is diet and exercise. This is really being cyber healthy to make it harder for them to have to work—to call out the A-team, Mission: Impossible, to come in and compromise your environment,” Goodwin said. 

This is important because the biggest risk in cybersecurity is literally us—the everyday computer user, said Agent. 

“Business email compromise is still the largest loss leader for cybercrime in America,” Agent said. “Most, almost all of that comes from a spear phishing email to an institution.” 

Agent urged people to implement multi-factor authentication across all accounts and to ensure that their employees understand how to use it. He recalled someone who once received a text message on their phone and clicked on it, nearly leading to a $40 million loss for that person’s company. 

“They didn’t even know what it meant. They thought their administrative assistant was trying to gain access to their account,” Agent said. “They clicked yes, and that gave the actor access to it.”

Special Agent James said that small businesses can better enhance their cybersecurity by reading annual reports like the Microsoft Digital Defense Report—a comprehensive resource from Microsoft security experts that describes the threat environment and how to counter cyber threats—and properly training their employees on how to recognize and avoid cyberattacks.

“You generally have a good information security staff that understands the threats. But like Nowell had pointed out, issues caused by the users are where most of the attacks originate. So pushing down that information in a digestible way to the people that actually may be impacted is what’s really important,” James said.  

This special webinar is part of the International Conference on Cyber Security (ICCS), which has become one of the top international events on cybersecurity over the past decade. The 2021 conference was postponed due to the pandemic. The next one is scheduled for July 18 to 21, 2022, in-person.

But in an online forum hosted on Nov. 4 by Fordham’s Center on National Security (CNS), experts said that two of the biggest threats today—climate change and the rise of authoritarianism abetted by technology—pose enormous challenges for citizens of every country on the globe.

“America’s Global Role: Today’s Reality, Tomorrow’s Challenges,” a virtual discussion moderated by center director Karen J. Greenberg, featured John Brennan, FCRH ’77, former CIA Director and CNS distinguished fellow for global security, and Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security advisor of the United States and author of After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made (Penguin/Random House, 2021)

Brennan said that a four-decade career in national security had trained him to always be alert for new threats, but that this is genuinely a novel time in human history. For starters, the notion that different country’s fates are now intertwined in ways they didn’t use to be has been made evident by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Technology has changed our world fundamentally, and the accelerated pace of technological developments is certainly enhancing military capabilities and concerns about the digital domain,” he said.

“I think we need to make sure this administration and future administrations focus not just on the headlines du jour, but on those more enduring, strategic issues such as climate change.”

Rhodes agreed and said that climate change has the potential to exacerbate other problems, such as migration. He is especially concerned about the future of democracy, which he said is being attacked in two ways with the aid of technology: the capacity to spread misinformation, and the capacity for mass surveillance.

“Twenty years ago, the number of people in this country who could believe that Donald Trump won the 2020 election, or that the world is governed by a cabal of sex traffickers, was inherently limited. Now you can have circumstances where like 45% of the country believes something that is just not true because they’re living in a particular information ecosystem enabled by social media and technology,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government’s clampdown on the Uyghur population region in the Xinjiang province illustrates how governments can use big data to monitor everything their citizens are doing, and use that to exert control over them.

“That’s new. Even the police states of old did not have that capacity,” Rhodes said.

Pressed to pick one area of the world that concerns him most, Brennan said China is definitely at the top.

“China has a global vision, and it’s very strategic in how it implemented its polices and aims,” he said.

The wide-ranging, hour-long conversation touched on everything from Afghanistan, to the Middle East, to the threats the United States faces internally—particularly from authoritarianism.

To watch the entire conversation, click below:

“One of the reasons I was attracted to join the intelligence community was because it is designed to be independent and objective, not partisan,” said Brennan, a former CIA director and assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism.

In a wide-ranging conversation on Zoom with Samantha Power, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Brennan covered everything from the 2020 election and current threats against the country to things he would have done differently during his time at the CIA. The talk was timed around the release of his new memoir, Undaunted: My Fight Against America’s Enemies, At Home and Abroad (Celedon Books, 2020).

When it comes to service, he recalled how once a month, he administered an oath of allegiance to brand new CIA officers.

“I would tell them, ‘Working in the Washington D.C. area in national security, you’re going to be the target of the wrath of those from one side or the other. You need to really carry out your responsibilities as best as you can, because the American people depend on it,” said Brennan, who is a distinguished fellow for global security at Fordham’s Center on National Security.

In fact, Brennan said that he felt that encouraging people to consider public service was so important, he wrote the memoir even though President Donald Trump refused to grant him access to personal records from his time at the agency.

“I could have pursued some type of litigation or appeal process that I think would just have dragged it out,” he said. “I decided to move forward and try to recollect as much as I could and try to talk to some of my former colleagues.”

In recounting his career, Brennan noted that his intense hatred for partisan politics made his entry into the CIA more eventful than necessary.

In the memoir, he describes how he was required to submit to a lie detector test before being admitted to the agency. Asked by an agent administering the polygraph test whether he’d lied recently, he admitted he’d lied to his observant mother about attending Mass.

That was embarrassing enough, he said, but then he was asked whether he’d supported any groups dedicated to overthrowing the American government. Brennan said he flashed back to 1976, when he’d voted for Gus Hall, who was running for president as a Communist. It was his first time voting for president, he said, and he’d already become so turned off by partisan politics, that he cast a vote for Hall as a form of protest.

“I knew that if I were to say no to the polygrapher with that on my mind, the machine would have gone bonkers. So, I decided to reveal that in a very anxious manner. I didn’t know how he was going to react to it,” he said, noting that he assured the agent that it was a one-off protest.

“I think he saw the look of fear in my face, and he said, ‘It is your right as an American citizen to vote for whoever you want, and that will not be held against you in anyway on your application.’ I just felt this great surge of elation. … [It] really reinformed my determination to work for the CIA.”

He credited his perspective and worldview to his parents, who immigrated to the United States from Ireland.

“My father, who came to the United States at the age of 28 in 1948, always impressed upon my brother, my sister, and me just how special it as to be an American citizen. He said he strove his entire life to come to the land of freedom and opportunity, and we should never take for granted that we’re American citizens,” he said.

“My parents were very, very instrumental in making sure that I had a north star where honesty, decency, dignity, and understanding the difference between right and wrong guided me.”

To watch the conversation, visit the center’s webpage.

Brennan, a distinguished fellow on global security at the center, acknowledged that Soleimani was a “principal nemesis” of his while he was director of the CIA and that the general represented a threat to U.S. security, but he did not see a legal basis for the strike.

‘We’re Not at War with Iran’

Brennan made a clear distinction between an “unlawful combatant,” such as the leader of a terrorist group, and an individual acting on behalf of a sovereign state, such as a military general. He said that according to the Geneva Convention and “a lot of other important foundations,” a non-state actor is not afforded the same protections as a state actor working on behalf of a sovereign state.

“We’re not at war with Iran,” said Brennan. “We have struck Al-Qaeda terrorists numerous times, but they are unlawful combatants. I see no equivalency, either in …  a domestic or international law, that striking a government official of a foreign country that you’re not in war with has a legal basis.”

Indeed, Brennan cited congressional hearings held in the 1970s that found that the CIA was involved in several “extra-legal” killings. The hearings resulted in an executive order passed by President Gerald Ford in 1976 that banned the assassination of state actors. He added that by the current administration’s rationale, the U.S. could take out the head of the Russian Federal Security Service because that agency is involved in nefarious activities.

“[The killing of Soleimani] certainly is very dissimilar from the strikes against unlawful combatants belonging to Al-Qaeda or any of the other terrorist groups that are in fact named in the authorization for the use of military force that has been in existence since 2001,” he said.

Drone Technology: Advances and Ethical Questions

That Soleimani was killed by a CIA drone, a technology used in a program supported by Brennan, was not lost on the audience, the interviewers, or Brennan himself. Dilanian asked him about the significant advances in the technology that enabled the killing. Brennan said two factors have played a large role in making such stealth and exact attacks possible. One is that today everyone leaves behind “digital dust” from their cell phones, credit cards, and from closed-circuit cameras watching them.

“It is not difficult at all to learn, through legal means, and then through government means, where somebody is,” he said.

Second, he said, is the “increasing refinement and advancements in technology about putting the ordinance on target … within inches.” And if that person moves, as was the case with Soleimani’s caravan at the Baghdad airport where he was killed, a missile can be steered in that direction at the last minute. He added that with machine learning, there is an additional ability to correlate all that information at the speed of light.

“It raises very serious questions about at what point should those actions that result from the machine learning and the ingestion of data require human intervention?” he said.

He said that in the case of the Obama administration, for every decision that was made to strike a terrorist, there was a rigorous review that had to determine that there was no other way to mitigate the threat that that person posed, except by the use of lethal force.

“Before striking that individual, there had to be near-certainty that that was the person, near certainty that there’d be no civilian casualties, there was no possibility of capture, by either U.S. forces or by local forces … in order for it to be an authorized strike,” he said, adding that no such criteria have been clearly articulated by the Trump administration in the Soleimani killing.

Concern About Retaliation

Brennan admitted that the strike was a significant blow to the Iranian high command, but he warned that “the concept of an eye for an eye” is very strong in Iran. Despite a retaliatory strike by the Iranians on a U.S. airbase in Iraq that resulted in more than 60 traumatic brain injuries of U.S. soldiers, there may still be yet another attack to come.

“We know that the Iranians have long memories, we know that they can be patient, and so I believe that there are some in Iran who will want to avenge Soleimani’s death with blood, not with brain injuries,” he said.

Greenberg noted that in attacking Suleimani, the Trump administration used the authorization for use of military force (AMF) from Congress set in 2001 and 2002 for those responsible for the 9/11 attacks and for attacking Iraq, respectively.

“Given that the scenario you’ve just laid out for the decisions that might be in front of the White House coming down the pipe, like this incident, do we need a new AMF, and if so, how would we begin to think about its focus, its limits?” she asked.

Congressional Authorization in the Trump Era

Brennan said that his views have changed on Congressional authorization since the Obama administration, when he thought that their approval constrained the president’s ability to act swiftly, such as in the case of Obama’s effort to close Guantanamo Bay prison.

“I felt that Congress’ intervention was really counterproductive to the ability of the chief executive and the commander in chief to carry out responsible policies,” he said. “Now during the Trump years, I feel as though, ‘My goodness, where’s Congress?’”

Yet, he said, the nation needs to be cautious in “reshaping the architecture of the federal government” in response to an unpredictable Trump presidency.

“He clearly is an anomaly, and he clearly is doing some things that I think would not have been expected of anybody that we thought would make their way to the Oval Office,” he said. “He’s trampling a lot of the foundations of our democratic republic, and I think he’s also demonstrating a real lawlessness. And so that’s the struggle now. What do you do when you have a lawless president? I would put the Soleimani killing in that bucket.”

He said the challenge would be to ensure that the mechanisms of government remain flexible enough to survive into the future, though he remains troubled that the Republicans in Congress have “checked their principles at the door.”

Doing What’s Right

When the conversation turned to impeachment, Brennan said, “I would love to be able to just sit in on a Fordham Law School class on the issue of ethics and defense attorneys,” noting that these topics are front and center in the hearings.

“There’s a cravenness right now in Washington among politicians that just refuse to do what is right. And then you can have very respected attorneys who are well known, some lawyers with big egos, to go up and do anything possible to get somebody off.”

During the question and answer period, David Myers, Ph.D., professor of history, asked if Brennan thought that the unwavering support from Republicans in Congress might stop future “good-minded, good-hearted intelligence servants” from coming forward as whistleblowers in the future.

Brennan said that he certainly hopes that will not be the case.

“I sure as hell hope they speak up. And it can be costly and people are going to come after you. It’s been costly for me. People come after me, but sometimes, maybe it’s my Fordham training or my Irish temper or any number of those things, but I feel that I have no choice but to speak out because what’s happening now is wrong. And if you are a person in the intelligence community and you see things wrong, speak up and speak out because it’s the right thing to do.”

During his opening remarks, Bobbitt outlined three “unrealistic” courses of action the United States could take in the crisis—continued pursuit of diplomacy, military intervention, and tacit acceptance of a nuclear North Korea—before introducing a fourth option. According to Bobbitt, the Trump administration should seek to induce a Helsinki Accords-like nuclear guarantee for the North Korean regime from China, ensuring the borders and governments of all states of the region. Getting under China’s “nuclear umbrella” now could provide North Korea its only chance for long-term regime survival, once its small nuclear arsenal becomes vulnerable to rapidly advancing first strike technologies, Bobbitt explained.

Kim’s recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing is an important indicator that North Korea could be receptive to utilizing China as an interlocutor, Bobbitt added. If a nuclear agreement occurred, Kim would accomplish something neither his father nor grandfather achieved—ending the Korean War.

“I can’t say I have any confidence this proposal will be accepted, or that if it is accepted it will lead to aggressive denuclearization,” conceded Bobbitt, the co-chair of the Program on National Security Law at Columbia Law School. “What I can say with confidence is the way we’re heading now is most unpromising and that if we have a summit and it does break down, there will be more momentum for use of force.”

Brennan shared the same concern, notably that hawks within the Trump administration would call for immediate military action if North Korea didn’t agree to denuclearization terms. Incoming National Security Advisor John Bolton wrote a Wall Street Journal editorial in February advocating for a preemptive strike in North Korea.

“There is no good military option with North Korea,” warned Brennan, the distinguished fellow on global security for the Center on National Security. “You’re going to lose hundreds of thousands, if not more, with some type of military conflict.”

Bobbitt’s proposal of a guarantee between North Korea and China should be given “serious consideration,” Brennan added. Otherwise, allowing North Korea to become a de facto nuclear state sends “very bad signals” to our allies in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as other countries that would seek to gain nuclear capabilities.

Another potential concern surrounding the summit, according to both speakers, is that President Trump will impulsively agree to a deal that will sell out Japan and South Korea, longtime U.S. allies, in order to win some type of short-term gratification.

“I hope we’re not receding from the global responsibility we’ve held the last 75 years, in terms of being a champion of liberal democratic order,” said Brennan, before lamenting that the United States has already lost significant ground in the region to authoritarian China due to the Trump administration’s abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership—and could stand to lose much more when Trump meets Kim.

At present, America should be more focused on the risk of South Korea requesting the United States leave the Korean peninsula and renounce their alliance, in order to prevent war, rather than a potential nuclear strike of the U.S. mainland, Bobbitt said.

“Time is not on our side,” he said. “I think we’ve wasted a good deal of it already on wishful thinking.”

—Ray Legendre

Brennan, who served as C.I.A. director from 2013 to January 2017, participated in an hourlong conversation with Washington Post columnist and best-selling author David Ignatius to mark his Center on National Security fellowship. Earlier in the day, Brennan met with Fordham Law faculty and taught two classes.

Brennan’s fellowship is consistent with Fordham Law’s commitment to training students to engage with national security issues in the intelligence community, law enforcement, and government, and the Law School’s long tradition of public service, Dean Matthew Diller said in his welcoming remarks. Diller praised the Center on National Security, a nonpartisan educational think tank directed by Karen J. Greenberg, as the “centerpiece” of the School’s internationally recognized efforts in the field.

“When we spoke several months ago, Director Brennan explained to me the urgency he feels about educating the next generation—and the public more generally—about the role of the United States as a beacon of democracy and freedom around the world and the challenges we face,” Diller said. He also highlighted Fordham University’s strong contributions to the intelligence community, both in the form of Brennan and William J. Casey, a 1934 Fordham University graduate who served as CIA director under President Ronald Reagan.

Brennan spent 33 years in public service and worked under six presidents—three Republicans and three Democrats—prior to coming to Fordham Law. He observed that the tone coming from the Trump White House is “inconsistent with what this country is all about and the signals we should be sending to the global community.” Further, he declared the justifications Trump offered last week for not certifying the Iran Nuclear Deal were “either willfully ignorant on the issues or willfully misleading.”

Trump’s decisions to reject the previous administration’s agreements—on the Iran Deal and others such as the Paris Agreement and Trans-Pacific Partnership—have longtime U.S. allies and partners questioning the value of America’s word and lamenting that Trump’s America First policy strategy actually means “America first, second, and third,” Brennan said. Meanwhile, U.S. adversaries such as China and Russia are eyeing new opportunities to step into the leadership void. Trump’s anti-Iran Deal stance also lessens the likelihood North Korea would make a nuclear deal with the Trump administration, or any subsequent administration, because it sees that deal could be ripped up as soon as the new president arrived, Brennan explained.

Brennan also called into question the wisdom of Trump’s use of Twitter to taunt North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, and estimated the likelihood of military conflict between the U.S. and North Korea at between 20 and 25 percent. He cautioned that this did not necessarily mean the situation would turn into a nuclear conflict, and added that he hoped the Trump administration used available back channels to come to a peaceful resolution.

“Thank our lucky stars for Defense Secretary (James) Mattis and (Secretary of State) John Kelly and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joe Dunford,” Brennan said, calling them “governors on the instincts and impulsivity of the president.”

Earlier this year, Brennan criticized Trump for denigrating the intelligence community and questioning its integrity in the wake of public reports that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election. Brennan reiterated on Wednesday that the C.I.A. knew in the summer of 2016 that the highest levels of Russian government, under the direction of President Vladimir Putin, had launched a campaign aimed to undermine the election with the goal of enhancing Trump’s prospects.

Brennan recalled an August 4 conversation with Alexander Bortnikov, director of the Russian Federal Security Bureau, in which he warned his counterpart that interfering with the election would backfire and be met with outrage from the American people. In hindsight, Brennan reflected that this was a bad analysis on his part because it seems like many people aren’t concerned about election tampering.

Whether American citizens realize it or not, cybersecurity remains a substantial threat from state and non-state actors, Brennan said. As C.I.A. director, Brennan called for the United States to establish a major independent commission to answer how the nation intends to protect itself from cyber threats and to debate how best to balance security threats with civil liberties. He envisioned this commission to be the cybersecurity equivalent of the Manhattan Project.

“I am hoping we’re not going to wait for a 9/11 equivalent in cyber to take the steps that are necessary,” Brennan said.

In his role with Fordham Law, Brennan will contribute his expertise and insights as a leading practitioner in national security to the Center on National Security’s mission of bringing to public attention issues of national security, foreign policy, governance, and the rule of law. He will participate in conferences, workshops, and other events hosted by the center.

He also plans to serve as a mentor to students who wish to know more about government service and professional opportunities in the field of national security.

“For the way the center has evolved over the past years, always trying to open up a conversation for the people who are most thoughtful, most in front on these issues, most responsible for what happens in Washington and around the world, and most generous with who they are as human beings, he makes perfect sense here,” Greenberg said during her introductory remarks.

—Ray Legendre

Key findings from the report include the following:

Although the federal courts have shown a capacity to handle these cases, the dispositions of these cases differ markedly from those of U.S. criminal justice prosecutions overall.

ISIS-related prosecutions rely increasingly on the use of FBI undercover agents or informants.

The personal details of the individual defendants differ from those of non-terrorism defendants generally.

The Center on National Security at Fordham Law is a nonpartisan, educational think tank, dedicated to providing thought leaders, policy makers, and the public audience with the tools to better understand national security issues, including terrorism. Its morning news service, The Soufan Group Morning Brief, is considered to be among the most reliable round-ups of national security news in the country.

Read the report (PDF).

He comes to Fordham after 33 years of government service, most recently as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2013–2017). His other positions have included Deputy National Security Advisor, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and founding Director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

In a New York Times story announcing the appointment, Brennan said:

“I used to take the bus from my home in New Jersey then two subway transfers to the Bronx to go to school,” he said. “I wanted to give back to Fordham because I felt my time there was so important to me.”

As a Distinguished Fellow at the center, Director Brennan will contribute his expertise and insights as a leading practitioner in national security to the Center on National Security’s mission of bringing to public attention issues of national security, foreign policy, governance, and the rule of law. He will participate in conferences, workshops, and other events hosted by the center.

He also plans to serve as a mentor to students who wish to know more about government service and professional opportunities in the field of national security.

The Center on National Security was established in 2011 as a non-partisan think tank devoted to issues of national and global security. It is headed by Karen J. Greenberg, its founding director.

Director Brennan follows a long line of prominent experts and practitioners who have spent time as Fellows at the Center, including terrorism expert Peter Bergen, New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright, and former NYPD and Pentagon official, Michael Sheehan, and many others in the fields of journalism, government, and the arts.

Together Director Brennan and the Center on National Security look forward to enhancing public education and understanding on some of the most pressing issues of our times.

The University has raised $75.9 million in funds—7 percent more than the previous record set eight years ago, and $30 million more than the amount raised in 2016.

“We are deeply grateful to the members of the Fordham family who have given, and given so generously,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham. “Their support—financial and otherwise—speaks to the importance of Fordham’s sacred mission, and to the enduring value of a Fordham education. Though we can number the gifts, their impact on a new generation of Fordham students is beyond price.”

Making a Fordham Education Accessible

Among the major gifts that helped to drive the University fundraising achievement was a $10.5 million gift to support science education from the estate of the late Stephen (Steve) Bepler, FCRH ’64, and a $20 million gift to the University from Maurice J. (Mo) Cunniffe, FCRH ’54, and Carolyn Dursi Cunniffe, Ph.D., GSAS ’71. The Cunniffes made the second-largest gift in Fordham’s history when they established the Maurice and Carolyn Cunniffe Presidential Scholars Program to support the studies of high-performing students.

“Our generous donors are people who are passionate about Fordham and are motivated to invest in our mission,” said Roger A. Milici Jr., vice president of development and university relations. “These gifts are meant to ensure that a Fordham education is within reach for first generation students and students of all economic backgrounds.”

As the University has prioritized making a Fordham education accessible for students of every class, race, and faith, it is grateful that $48 million of the $75.9 million raised in FY 2017 was allocated by donors to support financial aid. This brings the Faith & Hope | The Campaign for Financial Aid, which was announced during Fordham’s 175th anniversary, to $107 million.

Milici said the University has made fundraising strides across the board that have contributed to its unprecedented fundraising year.

“We have an increasingly talented and driven advancement team—staff and volunteers—working together to create these types of successes,” he said.

Law and Cybersecurity

Among the University wide successes was the Fordham Law School’s fundraising, which topped its FY 2017 goal of $12.5 million, driving its Faith & Hope | The Campaign for Financial Aid total to $21.4 million. Fordham’s Center on National Security also received a $1.7 million gift from Trustee Fellow Vincent J. Viola and the Viola Family Foundation. That gift will support the work of the center’s director, Karen J. Greenberg, Ph.D., and other research staff, as well as the Terrorism Trials Database, a data and analysis project focused on terrorism prosecutions.

This important gift comes as Fordham was recently designated a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CDE) by the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.

Another fundraising advance included the Fordham Fund, which raised $5.1 million and set a new record for unrestricted and school annual funds. What’s more, the 16th Annual Fordham Founder’s Award Dinner, raised $2.4 million—the second largest amount in the dinner’s history.

Support for Capital Projects

With the added emphasis of raising funds to support two important capital projects that will give the University a competitive edge in student-athlete recruitment and improve the Rose Hill Gym fan experience—namely the McLaughlin Family Basketball Court at the Rose Hill campus, and the new football office projects—athletic fundraising had a 42 percent increase from FY 2016.

Fordham parents also played an integral part in helping the University reach its fundraising goals. Parent giving more than doubled, going from $1 million from 2,348 parents the last fiscal year to $2.7 million from 2,699 parents this year.

The spirit of giving was further exemplified in Fordham’s inaugural Giving Day, where the University exceeded its goal of 1,750 donors in 24 hours with gifts from 2,101 donors from across the United States and around the world.

“Fundamentally, Fordham alumni appreciate the rigorous Jesuit education and overall experience they had on campus, and if given the opportunity (and we do a good job of earning their trust), I believe alumni will invest in that promise so that others can have similar experiences and follow in that long maroon line,” said Milici.