New report reveals how politicization of cybersecurity has left U.S. democracy vulnerable to cyberattacks

A new report published today by Issue One highlights how the federal agencies and programs necessary to safeguarding U.S. infrastructure, elections, and democratic integrity have been hollowed out as cybersecurity policy has transformed from a bipartisan imperative to an increasingly partisan and politicized issue.

The report, “America Exposed: How the Politicization of Cyber is Crippling U.S. National Security,” details how the second Trump administration has spearheaded the rollbacks that have left critical infrastructure more vulnerable to increasingly frequent and sophisticated attacks from foreign adversaries like Russia, China, and Iran, and shows how foreign adversaries are pairing traditional cyberattacks with novel techniques in cognitive warfare and other online influence operations to undermine U.S. democracy.

“Information warfare is a live battlefield. The erosion of support for cyberdefense is not an abstract risk — it is a present danger that leaves Americans increasingly vulnerable to exploitation and manipulation by foreign adversaries,” said Issue One Policy Lead for Technology Reform Liana Keesing. “By dismantling key cybersecurity infrastructure, the Trump administration has left us less prepared to confront this threat today than we were just a couple of years ago. Instead of rising to the occasion, our leaders are engaging in unilateral disarmament in this ongoing war.

“The degradation of America’s cyberdefense capacity is not merely a policy dispute — it is a constitutional test. By cutting, freezing, and refusing to execute congressionally-mandated cyber programs, the Trump administration is overstepping its authority. Congress must reassert its constitutional role to protect the American people and our democracy.”

The report provides several recommendations for how Congress can repair this damage and do its job to protect our country’s national security in this era of intensifying digital conflict, including:

• Reauthorizing and strengthening core cyber authorities, backed by full funding: Congress should quickly renew foundational statutes such as the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 and ensure sustained appropriations for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), FBI, and State Department.
• Enforcing execution of appropriated funds and preventing executive overreach: Congress should ensure that funds it allocates for cybersecurity are actually spent as intended, not delayed, repurposed, or quietly rescinded by the executive branch.
• Conducting targeted oversight after major cyber failures: Congress should respond with hearings, inspector general reviews, and bipartisan investigations when cyber incidents expose leadership negligence or political interference.
• Reaffirming the reality and severity of foreign malign influence operations: Congress should blunt adversaries’ efforts to fracture American society by publicly acknowledging the scale of the problem and ensuring that agencies tasked with countering these operations have the mandate and resources to respond.
• Protecting the independence and integrity of cyber threat intelligence: Congress should institute safeguards that prevent the politicization of analytic judgments, insulate intelligence professionals from retaliation, and establish protected reporting channels to guarantee that cyber threat intelligence reaches decision-makers and allies unfiltered by political manipulation.

Read the full report, “America Exposed: How the Politicization of Cyber is Crippling U.S. National Security.”