Meeks Warns of Cyber Vulnerabilities Revealed by GAO Report on Agencies’ Public Comment Portals

Washington, DC – Today, Congressman Gregory W. Meeks issued the following statement regarding a GAO report he requested to investigate alleged fraudulent comment submissions to the FCC's public comment period of its rulemaking process. This is the first of two anticipated reports, particularly focusing on what if any guidelines and policies agencies have to assess and track the integrity of public comments:

"In 2017 I asked GAO to investigate the deluge of suspicious and potentially fake comments submitted to the FCC during its open comment period for the proposed reversal of net neutrality. It was clear then that open comment periods, during which the general public is supposed to be able to convey their thoughts and concerns on a proposed rule, are susceptible to cyber-attacks meant to obscure and suppress public opinion. Today's public release of their analysis confirms that fear, and worse, show's that this vulnerability is not limited to FCC but to many of our agencies.

"Our agencies must modernize their systems for tracking and assessing the validity of comment submissions, filtering out nefarious attempts by bots to skew the sentiments of the public. There needs to be protocols in place to discern which comments are duplicative, which are fabricated, and collect information that could assist in tracking where attacks are being organized. Thankfully this GAO report lays out a roadmap for that modernization, providing recommendations that now agencies are beginning to take.

"The digital age has made it easier for our democracy to be more direct, but also more exposed to subversion. We have seen that in our election, and we are seeing that in our agencies. Public input is indispensable in the designing of sound policy, and even one incidence of fraudulent activity threatens to undermine the legitimacy of public comments as a whole. The ability of people to contribute to public comments must be preserved."

GAO Report: https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-19-483