WASHINGTON \u2014 The U.S. response to Russian meddling and disinformation campaigns has not been strong enough to deter Moscow\u2019s activities, a top intelligence official said Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI believe that President (Vladimir) Putin has clearly come to the conclusion that there\u2019s little price to pay and that therefore, \u2018I can continue this activity,\u2018\u201d Adm. Mike Rogers told Congress. \u201cClearly what we have done hasn\u2019t been enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rogers, director of both the U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, said he\u2019s taken steps to respond to the threat, but that neither President Donald Trump nor Defense Secretary James Mattis has granted him any additional authorities to counter Russian efforts to sow discord in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never been given any specific direction to take additional steps outside my authority. I have taken the steps within my authority, you know, trying to be a good, pro-active commander,\u201d Rogers said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. \u201cI have not been granted any additional authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders wouldn\u2019t discuss what authority Rogers was referencing, but said the president was looking at ways to prevent Russian meddling. \u201cI can tell you that we are taking a number of steps to prevent this and we are looking at a variety of other ways that we\u2019re going to continue to implement over the coming weeks and months,\u201d Sanders said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said Rogers\u2019 testimony was an indication that the U.S. had not yet taken action against Russia for its meddling. \u201cWe\u2019re watching them intrude in our elections, spread misinformation, become more sophisticated … and we\u2019re just, essentially, just sitting back and waiting,\u201d Reed said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rogers said he didn\u2019t fully agree with the characterization that the U.S.was just sitting back and waiting. But he said: \u201cIt\u2019s probably fair to say that we have not opted to engage in some of the same behaviors that we are seeing\u201d from Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rogers said he doesn\u2019t have the day-to-day authority to try to deter Russian activities at their source. He said that authority is held by Trump and Mattis. \u201cThere are some things I have the authority to do and I\u2019m acting on that authority.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said U.S. sanctions and recent indictments of Russians have had some impact. But Rogers said: \u201cIt certainly hasn\u2019t generated the change in behavior that, I think we all know we need.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rogers is retiring and his appearance before the committee was expected to be his last.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cI believe that President (Vladimir) Putin has clearly come to the conclusion that there\u2019s little price to pay and that therefore, \u2018I can continue this activity,\u2018\u201d Adm. Mike Rogers, director of both the U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, told Congress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":54196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":10,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"coauthors":[5006],"class_list":["post-17316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cyber"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"SZ3RAU7R2FHAZE3DQHGHFR5FEY","arc_canonical_url":"\/critical-infrastructure\/2018\/02\/27\/top-intel-official-says-us-hasnt-deterred-russian-meddling\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n