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Charlotte Talks: Pressure Mounts To Fortify Election Security / Time To Unfriend Facebook?

Flickr / Phil Roeder

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

A look at what’s being done to secure the vote in the 2018 election in the shadow of Russian interference in 2016.  Plus, what Facebook has been doing with your information.

PART ONE

Voting has already begun in the 2018 midterms, and North Carolina is just over a month away from casting its ballots, as more comes to light about Russia’s efforts to interferein the 2016 election.

North Carolina Senator Richard Burr, who chairs the Senate intelligence committee that’s looking into Russia’s election meddling, says enhancing election security is an “urgent” need, and the newly-passed spending bill from Congress has hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for election upgrades.

What’s being done to protect the ballot?

GUESTS

Kim Westbrook Strach, executive director, North Carolina Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement

Lawrence Norden, deputy director, Brennan Center for Justice Democracy Program

PART TWO

You can’t talk about Russia’s election activity without zeroing in on Facebook.

Credit Chris Miller / WFAE
Only a handful of Facebook users contacted by NPR after the Cambridge Analytica story broke said they would leave the site.

As the outrage-meter pegs over Cambridge Analytica’s mining of Facebook user data, veteran cyber security reporter Paul Wagenseil says no one should be surprised. In fact, he says this is exactly how Facebook is supposed to work - and that’s the real scandal.

Is it time to delete Facebook from our lives?

GUEST

Paul Wagenseil, cyber editor, Tom's Guide (@snd_wagenseil)

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