The National Security Agency chief refused to say whether the United States would manipulate an election abroad by hacking another country’s civil political institutions.
“I’m not going to get into specifics of what the United States does or not do,” Adm. Mike Rogers said in a Tuesday interview on WAMU, an affiliate of NPR in Washington, D.C. “I am the first to acknowledge we’re not in a world of clear definitions right now in this arena. I wouldn’t want to pretend otherwise.”
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On the issue of whether it was legitimate for nations to manipulate each other’s elections through hacking, Rogers said it was ambiguous. “I wouldn’t say that there’s a single codified legal framework. There’s certainly a series of customs and traditions over time. One of the implications of this new world, from a digital framework, is asking yourselves how does that framework potentially need to change.”
The Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Hillary Clinton’s campaign have all been allegedly hacked by actors traced to Russia. Documents from the DNC hack have been leaked online.
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“Broadly, I would just say … I don’t think it’s any in any nation or group’s best interest when we see this kind of behavior,” said Rogers, who leads both NSA and U.S. Cyber Command. “We will work our way through this, but these emails were clearly leaked for a reason, I believe to achieve an effect.”
“This wasn’t something that was done indiscriminately or arbitrarily,” Rogers added. “Someone put a lot of time and effort both to acquire the data as well as when they chose to release it and how they chose to release it.”
The comments make Rogers the third top intelligence official to weigh in on the hacking. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said last week that he was “taken aback” by “hyperventilation” over the issue, while CIA Director John Brennan said Friday that Americans shouldn’t jump to conclusions over Russia’s culpability.
