Riverside County Must Divorce From the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing & Analysis Center

Election Integrity is Imperative.

The Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing & Analysis Center, or EI-ISAC, is homed at the Center for Internet Security (CIS) which is a 501 (c)(3) corporation, funded by the Department of Homeland Security, through the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The Riverside County Registrar of Voters is a member of EI-ISAC.

WHEW! You may want to keep running notes for acronyms on this one!

Discerning eyes must delve into the CIS and determine if this is the path that Riverside County should follow, if the goal is to give voters confidence that our elections are secure.

CISA is most famous for taking part in a statement released by DHS on November 12, 2020, along with many other agencies and associations (including the infamous National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS)), which stated “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.” This is being proven to be one of the most inaccurate statements in history with every passing day, be it State Courts ruling against Zuckerbucks and drop boxes, full forensic audits, or films like 2,000 mules.

CIS is funded by the DHS, via CISA, but also generates revenue through a Cooperative Agreement, and by selling goods and services to non-government entities, but is still considered a non-profit.

According to the 2023 DHS budget, CIS is set to receive over $27 million from CISA. The EI-ISAC is listed in the budget as being an integral part of the The Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), both are free memberships for participating local governments, such as the Riverside County Registrar of Voters.

It appears, according to an IRS audit in 2021, CIS had (at that time) total assets to the tune of $46 million and liabilities of $26 million. The audit also revealed that CIS generated $74 million in revenue (up $23 million from 2020), paid $33 million in salaries and wages and had total expenses of $64 million.

While the audit does not discuss the EI-ISAC, it does discuss the MS-ISAC which the DHS budget indicated the two programs operated in tandem. An entry in the audit stated that MS-ISAC shares information with, and between, the DHS, local government members, and private sector partners.

Another mention of private third parties, a phrase which should terrify us all when being used to describe our County’s election security, comes from the description of the Cooperative that allows the CIS to maximize revenue.

Is the CIS an altruistic non-profit, or is it’s main goal to generate revenue? The audit states that “the Center’s revenue is primarily derived from sales of hosted software and related professional services.” Does that mean that the CIS leadership has a vested interest in foremost selling a product?

According to 2020 Form 990s filed with the IRS, the top earners at CIS were the CEO John Gilligan, the Executive VP Curtis W. Dukes, and the VP for Sales Margaret Keyes. Gilligan earned $629, 017, Dukes earned $353,033, and Keyes earned $346,546. Keys, according to the CIS website, has since been replaced by one Gina Chapman. Gilligan made $509,959 in 2019—quite the raise!

Another interesting tidbit from the 990 form, is who the top consultants were for CIS, which included Amazon Web Services receiving over $700,000.

I am no gangster so I am not familiar with how to launder money, but if I were the Godfather of the Taverns I think I would try to fill my taverns up with workers that used to work for the Government, that could get me set up with sweet grants and tax-exempt status. It is not without warrant then, to take a look at who staffs the CIS and where they came from.

When looking into CIS leadership and board members, those that spent time in government agencies, such as DHS and NSA, seem prolific.

Gilligan, for instance was in the USAF, worked for the Department of Energy, and served on a commission and as an adviser to Mr. Obama.

Franklin Reader, the founding chair of CIS, had experience in the federal government Office of Management and Budget, served on Mr. Obama’s transition team and on commission for #44 as well.

There are several other DHS and NSA connections on the CIS board, there is even a member, Jane Hull Lute, that serves as the special adviser the the United Nations Secretary-General—her expertise being in peacekeeping and peace-building. Does Lute seem to be out of place?

The Chief Evangelist for CIS, Tony Sager, spent 34 years in the NSA before joining CIS. Tony’s job is to be top cheerleader for CIS—“A Chief Evangelist (or Brand Evangelist) is, among other things, an ambassador for your product, service or business. They actively—almost fervently—promote a positive message that advocates others to buy or use the product.”

Tony once blogged, not so long ago, that he never really took the Oath of Office that seriously until he watched the inauguration of Mr. Biden—that being the only one he ever took interest in.

Now that we have the basics down, let’s get technical. Blogger and Patriot extraordinaire, Patel Patriot has an excellent series on the concept of Devolution, which I highly recommend, but we only need to pull from a portion of one blog (#11) for our purposes here.

Start with the fact that CIS is partnered with the tech firm Crowdstrike.

Crowdstrike is the company that infamously “inspected” the DNC server hack and told the FBI “nothing to see here,” as well as other possible nefarious deeds.

A brief rundown of Crowdstrike, from Patel Patriot:

• Michael Sussman is a former DOJ lawyer and former (as of 09/16/21) partner at Perkins Coie

• Perkins Coie was the law firm representing the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC

• Perkins Coie paid Fusion GPS to create the narrative that Trump was colluding with Russia

• Separately, Michael Sussman, used “Tech Executive-1” from “Internet Company-1”, which I believe are Shawn Henry and Crowdstrike, to create narrative regarding Trump’s ties to Russia through the Alfa Bank story

• Michael Sussman contracted CrowdStrike with the DNC for their cyber services for the DNC Hack

• CrowdStrike used very shaky evidence to claim Russia hacked the DNC emails, again creating narrative of Trump’s ties to Russia

• A former NSA technical director studied the “hack” and claimed the DNC data was downloaded to a thumb drive

• Multiple data points including Assange himself lead to a deeper story behind what happened with Seth Rich

CrowdStrike played an integral role in creating the narrative that Trump had ties to Russia. I believe they also played an integral role in a few more recent events as well.

I am not feeling better about the Crowdstrike-CIS partnership, nor about the Riverside County Registrar of Voters-CIS partnership.

Patel further informs that the EI-ISAC was formed by the Election Infrastructure Subsector Government Coordinating Council (EIS-GCC), which was previously known as the Election Infrastructure Subsector Coordinating Council (EISCC).

These two images from the Patel blog explain it best:

from Patel Patriot

from Patel Patriot

The Riverside County Registrar of Voters, through the Board of Supervisors, must divorce themselves from the the Center for Internet Security, and specifically from the MS-ISAC and EI-ISAC programs.

It appears that there is an issue of bias, leaning towards the Obama administration, within the CIS—which if filled with insiders from the federal government Departments of NSA, DHS, DoD, and even the United Nations. Could these insiders have the knowledge and the contacts to secure grants and privileges that may not be afforded to others? Not to mention EI-ISAC seems to partner with private third parties, some of dubious nature, shares data with them, without any analytics as to where that data actually goes and if it is secure.

Tony the Chief Evangelist for CIO did once brag about how he was able to deceive the government in order to purchase joysticks.

Do we really trust these organizations with our votes? Without our voice we are nothing more than slaves.

Hat Tip to Julie K. for pointing out the CIS membership!!